Trivia: As the offspring of producer/writer Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal, it is not surprising that Jake Gyllenhaal has been acting since childhood. Raised in Los Angeles, Gyllenhaal acted in school plays and made his winsome screen debut when he was in the fifth grade, playing Billy Crystal's son in the blockbuster summer comedy City Slickers (1991). Keeping it in the family while acting with some of the industry's most notable talents, Gyllenhaal subsequently appeared in his parents' 1993 adaptation of the novel A Dangerous Woman with Debra Winger, and played Robin Williams' son in a 1994 episode of TV's Homicide that was directed by his father. Poised to make the transition from child to adult actor, Gyllenhaal earned rave reviews, heralding him as a star in the making, for his emotionally sincere performance as real-life rocket builder Homer Hickam in the warmly received drama October Sky (1999). Though he opted to stay in school and attend college at Columbia University, Gyllenhaal continued his creative pursuits, playing in a rock band and starring as the oddball title character alongside Drew Barrymore in the Barrymore-produced Sundance Film Festival entrant Donnie Darko (2001). Gyllenhaal could be seen later that same year as the titular character in the ill-fated Bubble Boy.After co-starring on the London stage in This Is Our Youth in spring 2002, Gyllenhaal was declared one half of Entertainment Weekly's "It Gene Pool" (with sister Maggie Gyllenhaal) for his aversion to taking the easy, teen flick route. In keeping with his preference for off-center work, Gyllenhaal coincidentally played the younger love object of choice in two consecutive indie comedies, appearing as Catherine Keener's sensitive boss in Nicole Holofcener's slyly witty Lovely & Amazing (2002) and Jennifer Aniston's enticing yet disturbed co-worker in Miguel Arteta's sardonic The Good Girl (2002). As further proof that he had the acting chops to go with his sad-eyed good looks, Gyllenhaal subsequently co-starred with Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon as a young man enmeshed in his dead fiancée's family in Moonlight Mile (2002).With his star on the rise and his status as a heartthrob all but cemented, it became impossible for Gyllenhaal to avoid the draw of a big summer blockbuster. In 2004, he starred alongside Dennis Quaid in the mega-budgeted The Day After Tomorrow, and the success of that film put him in another league altogether. What followed was an interesting, challenging mix of roles for the young actor. He could be seen in the fall of 2005 starring in no less than three high-profile prestige films, all of them adaptations: the delayed big-screen version of the Pulitzer-prize winning play Proof, with Gwyneth Paltrow; the Gulf War memoir Jarhead, directed by American Beauty wunderkind Sam Mendes; and Ang Lee's cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain. The first two films received an indifferent response by critics, even though Jarhead's opening-weekend gross confirmed Gyllenhaal's bankability. Lee's film, however, garnered the most acclaim of 2005, and offered him perhaps his riskiest, most rewarding role to date. Playing the closeted, romantically frustrated rancher Jack Twist, Gyllenhaal added heartbreaking shades of vulnerability to his usual frat-boy cockiness, and more than held his own opposite a memorably gruff, taciturn Heath Ledger. As praise was heaped out upon the film and its two male leads, Gyllenhaal found himself the recipient of a BAFTA award, a National Board of Review notice, and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Gyllenhaal would spend the next several years enjoying his status as a leading man, appearing in projects like Zodiac, Brothers, Love and Other Drugs, and Source Code.

Trivia: Naomi Watts had already been a working actress for over a decade when she earned notice as a promising newcomer in David Lynch's Cannes Film Festival prizewinner Mulholland Drive (2001).Born September 28th, 1968, Watts began acting in her teens, landing her first film role in For Love Alone (1986). Watts subsequently appeared with future Hollywood headliners Nicole Kidman and Thandie Newton in John Duigan's disarming teen romance Flirting (1991). Watts's next film with Duigan, Wide Sargasso Sea (1992), was not so well received. After her first taste of Hollywood with Joe Dante's schlock movie homage Matinee (1992), Watts nabbed a starring role as Jimmy Smits's disturbed student in George Miller's little seen courtroom drama Gross Misconduct (1993). Watts then starred as Jet Girl to Lori Petty's Tank Girl (1995), but the science fiction fantasy suffered an ignominious box office fate. After a series of TV movies and thrillers, including Sleepwalkers (1997) and Children of the Corn IV (1996), Watts appeared in Marshall Herskovitz's high-toned Venetian courtesan costumer Dangerous Beauty (1998) and successful TV docudrama The Hunt for the Unicorn Killer (1999). Watts's breakthrough finally arrived when David Lynch cast her in his ABC pilot Mulholland Drive. Though ABC canceled the project in 1999 after Lynch turned in a typically mood-drenched work, StudioCanal financed its transformation into a feature that debuted to acclaim at Cannes in 2001. A Los Angeles dreamscape akin to Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive featured Watts as the blonde half of a female duo caught in a mystery of shifting identities. Drawing attention for her not-for-network TV love scene with co-star Laura Harring, Watts also earned praise as a rising "new" actress.Though ignored for an Oscar nomination, Watts's tour-de-force dual performance earned her numerous accolades and critics' awards, igniting her career. Working steadily in the wake of Mulholland Drive, Watts scored a box-office as well as critical success a year later with The Ring (2002), the Hollywood remake of the Japanese horror blockbuster. Starring Watts as an intrepid reporter investigating the origins of a lethal videotape, The Ring overcame studio doubts to become a sleeper hit, solidifying Watts's new star status. Watts subsequently donned period dress for the Showtime western The Outsider (2002), and to co-star alongside fellow Aussie Heath Ledger in The Kelly Gang (2003). Balancing her genre work with potentially headier fare guided by notable directors, Watts also appeared with Kate Hudson, Glenn Close and Stockard Channing in the Merchant-Ivory romantic comedy Le Divorce (2003), and won a leading role opposite formidable actors Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro in Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams (2003).In 2004, Watts worked opposite Mark Ruffalo for the independent film We Don't Live Here Anymore, and reteamed with Sean Penn for The Assassination of Richard Nixon. She landed the starring role of Ann Darrow in director Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong (2006), and starred in the 2006 remake of The Painted Veil. Watts was praised for her work as a British midwife who accidentally gets involved in the Russian mafia in director David Cronenberg's psychological thriller Eastern Promises. Watts starred along with Clive Owen in 2009's The International, for which she played the part of an assistant district attorney who participates in a plan to rob a bank, and co-starred alongside Samuel L. Jackson, Annette Benning, and Kerry Washington for the drama Mother and Child. Watts was later cast in Dream House (2011), a thriller starring Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, and worked with Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2011 biopic J. Edgar. In 2012 she played the mother of a family trapped in a catastrophic storm in The Impossible, garnering a Best Actress nomination for her work in the film.

Trivia: Having spent much of his youth on his father's Missouri cattle ranch, it is not surprising that supporting and leading actor of stage, screen, and television Chris Cooper has specialized in playing cowboys, ranchers, and other hardworking men. His rugged Everyman demeanor has best been put to use by filmmaker John Sayles, who cast him in a number of his films, beginning with 1987's Matewan.Cooper's interest in the theater began in his late teens, when he designed and constructed sets for a community group. Following high school, he studied agriculture and acting at the University of Missouri before moving to New York City in hopes of making it on the stage. It took awhile, but by 1980 he was starring in productions like Of the Fields Lately, The Ballad of Soapy Smith, and Cobb, in which he played the title role. His film debut came in 1980, in Nicholas Roeg's Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession. He didn't get his big break until seven years later, when Sayles cast him as Joe Kenehan, a member of the coalminer's union who is sent to a tiny mountain town to organize the workers in Matewan (1987). He again worked with Sayles in City of Hope (1991) and then in Lone Star (1996), for which he won great acclaim playing the enigmatic Sam Deeds, the prodigal son of a tiny Texas town's sheriff who solves a mystery and comes to grips with his relationship with his late father. Subsequently, Cooper -- who had also made his mark on the small screen as cowboy July Johnson in Lonesome Dove (1989) -- appeared as a deputy in a A Time to Kill (1996), Robert Redford's younger brother in The Horse Whisperer (1998), and Ethan Hawke's brother-in-law in Great Expectations. In 1999, the actor again demonstrated his impressive range, first playing a coalminer in October Sky and then turning in a chilling performance as Kevin Spacey's unbalanced neighbor in American Beauty. If Cooper was somewhat lost in the shuffle of 2002's Interstate 60, his Oscar winning performance in that same years' Adaptation would find Cooper receiving lavish praise for his portrayal of a lively orchid hunter. Cast opposite Meryl Streep, Cooper's toothless performance was in turns hilarious, sad and poetic, providing the perfect showcase for his impressive range. In 2003, Cooper was nominated for Best Supporting Actor by the Screen Actors Guild for his turn as a soft-spoken horse trainer in Seabiscuit. Cooper worked steadily through the early 2000s, largely in a supporting capacity. He won no small amount of praise for his work in Syriana and Capote (both 2005), and showed demonstrated his range as an actor in 2007, when he co-starred in The Kingdom, Married Life, and Breach. Cooper lent his voice to Spike Jonze's remake of Maurice Sendak's classic children's novel Where the Wild Things Are, and joined Ben Affleck for a supporting role in The Town, a 2010 crime thriller based on author Chuck Hogan's novel Prince of Thieves. Cooper found more success, however, for his role in Amiga (2010) John Sayles' war drama, in which he played an American military colonel deeply prejudiced against Filipinos. The actor took on a decidedly less serious role as a dastardly villain extraordinaire in The Muppets (2011).

Trivia: Got serious about acting in junior high school, when she and her twin sister, Christina Bennett Lind (who played Bianca Montgomery on ABC's All My Children from 2010 to '11), portrayed twin siblings Sebastian and Viola in an eighth-grade production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. In 2010, was still in graduate school in New York City when cast in Shakespeare in the Park productions of The Winter's Tale and The Merchant of Venice, the latter of which had her playing Jessica, the daughter of Shylock, who was played by Al Pacino. Made Broadway debut later in 2010 when The Merchant of Venice opened at the Broadhurst Theatre, reprising her role as the daughter of Al Pacino's Shylock, which earned her a Theatre World Award. When AMC's Turn began in 2014, was reunited with actor Seth Numrich, who also made his Broadway debut in 2010's The Merchant of Venice.

Trivia: Of Irish and Russian Jewish descent.Was raised in Los Angeles, California.Started acting performing on stage at age 4.His parents founded a nonprofit children's theater troupe called Kids Interactive Theatre Ensemble, where he spent a lot of his childhood.Was one of the six actors who screen tested for the role of Spider-Man, which went to actor Tom Holland.

Trivia: Is of English, German, and French descent.Was raised between Chicago and Los Angeles.Started her career as an actress in Off-Broadway productions.Met her husband, Michael Wolff, while she was a guest in a TV show.Wrote The Tic Code inspired by her husband's Tourette condition.Created the series The Naked Brothers Band out of her family's fictional life.Has supported the Tourette Association of America for many years.

Trivia: His first role in a play came when he was 8; he played Howard in his sister's high-school drama production of Inherit the Wind. Started acting classes when he was 11, but didn't seriously pursue a career until he left college. Worked at Madame Tussauds in New York City, where he helped scare visitors to its "Scream" exhibit. His first professional acting job: a Nerf commercial. Originally auditioned for the role of Sebastian on The Carrie Diaries, but wound up cast as Walt instead. Wasn't a Sex and the City fan, though he did watch a few episodes with his mother. Enjoys playing basketball and Ultimate Frisbee; also plays guitar and writes songs.

Trivia: A classically trained actress with her roots in the theater, buxom performer Debra Monk spent years specializing in portrayals of matronly types, including aunts, mothers, and policewomen, on-stage and onscreen. Monk made one of her first film appearances as Aunt Dorothy in Norman Rene's fantasy comedy Prelude to a Kiss (1993) opposite Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan, then moved into a lengthy series of additional A-list Hollywood projects, including Fearless (1993), For Love or Money (1993), Quiz Show (1994), and Extreme Measures (1996). In the meantime, Monk also continued her stage work in such Manhattan-area productions as Death Defying Acts (1995) and Redwood Curtain (1997), for which she netted a substantial degree of acclaim. Monk found even greater success on the small screen, however, with two ongoing roles on popular series: that of Katie Sipowicz on Steven Bochco's NYPD Blue and that of Louise O'Malley on Grey's Anatomy. In 2008, Monk landed a supporting role opposite John Malkovich and Colin Hanks in the bittersweet show business drama The Great Buck Howard (2008). She was away from screens for four years after that, but returned in the 2012 Katherine Heigl vehicle One for the Money.

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.