Trivia: Having acquired legions of loyal female followers with his portrayal of the ever-horny and dimwitted Kelso in the popular television comedy series That 70s Show, it may come as a surprise that male model-turned-actor Ashton Kutcher ironically majored in biochemical engineering at the University of Iowa before his "discovery" in an Iowa bar and subsequent stint on the catwalk for such fashion industry luminaries as Versace and Calvin Klein.Born in Cedar Rapids, IA, along with a fraternal twin named Michael, Kutcher was bitten by the acting bug in high school. Balancing his love for the stage with his talent for wrestling before gravitating toward the former in such high school productions as Annie, Kutcher worked numerous odd jobs during his tenure at the University of Iowa before winning the Fresh Faces of Iowa contest in 1997 and heading for New York. Competing in that same year's International Model and Talent Agency competition before being signed to the next agency, Kutcher relocated to Los Angeles the following year and soon landed his breakthrough role on That 70s Show. Though he had small roles in Down to You and Reindeer Games (both 2000), Kutcher's first major big-screen role was in Dude, Where's My Car? (also 2000), in which he teamed his airheaded goofiness with that of American Pie's Sean William Scott. Breaking out of the mold with a more serious turn alongside James Van Der Beek in 2001's Texas Rangers, a return to comedy wasn't far behind with a role in My Boss's Daughter scheduled for release later that same year. Though My Boss's Daughter would ultimately be pushed back to a late February 2003 release date, Kutcher and actress Brittany Murphy (8 Mile) scored a modest hit when Just Married was released into theaters in early January of the same year. Despite receiving only a lukewarm reception from critics, positive audience turnout ensured that Just Married would nevertheless hold on to a position in the box office top-ten for nearly a month after its release. Though My Boss's Daughter failed to stir up much at the box-office, the one-two punch of his immensely popular MTV prank show Punk'd and a high-profile romance with Demi Moore (whom he later married and then divorced) shot Kutcher's celebrity stock through the roof in 2003. He subsequently closed out the year with a self-depricating role in the holiday hit Cheaper by the Dozen.2004 saw Kutcher trying his hand at drama once again with the supernatural thriller The Butterfly Effect. Though the reviews were mixed, the film had its share of fans among critics and went on to makeup its budget more than three-times over. Kutcher continued finding success on the small-screen by producing the series Beauty and the Geek. In 2005 he teamed with Bernie Mac for the racial comedy Guess Who, and 2006 found Kutcher trying his hand at more action oriented fare teaming up with Kevin Costner for The Guardian. The actor would continue to find his place in the romcom niche with 2008's What Happens in Vegas, 2010's Valentine's Day and 2011's No Strings Attached, but made particular waves with a return to television, when he famously signed on to replace Charlie Sheen on the sitcom Two and a Half Men in 2011. His movie career slowed due to his television commitments, but he did find time to play Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in the 2013 bio-drama Jobs. Two and a Half Men wrapped up in 2015, leaving Kutcher free to return to movies and producing.

Trivia: As one of the stars of the 1999 summer smash American Pie, Tara Reid experienced an almost meteoric ascent into overnight celebrity. Possessing the kind of buxom blond good looks that ensure future employment and Internet shrines, Reid was best-known for her role as The Big Lebowski's trophy wife, Bunny Lebowski, before being cast in Pie. A native of Wyckoff, New Jersey, where she was born on November 8, 1975, Reid broke into acting at the age of six, when she was a contestant on the CBS children's game show, Child's Play. She went on to study at New York's Professional Children's School, where her classmates included Sarah Michelle Gellar, Jerry O'Connell, and Macaulay Culkin. After appearing in commercials for such products as Jell-O and Crayola, Reid landed a role on the sitcom Saved by the Bell: the New Class in 1994 and then had a recurring role on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives the following year. She got her first substantial film roles in 1998, appearing in the Ed Wood-scripted I Woke Up Early the Day I Died, The Big Lebowski, the independent film Around the Fire, and Urban Legend, the latest in a long line of teen slasher flicks. Reid won some amount of recognition for the last film, which featured a Who's-Who line-up of post-pubescent stars and cast her as a campus radio talk show host. The following year, Reid earned a form of screen immortality with her role as the girlfriend of one of four high school guys who make a pact to lose their virginity in American Pie. She also appeared in more low-profile roles in the independent film Girl and in Cruel Intentions, which featured her as one of Ryan Phillippe's more unfortunate conquests. Later that year, she had a starring role in Body Shots, playing one of a group of twenty-something friends on the prowl for love and/or sex in Los Angeles.Edging ever closer to leading woman status, Reid's star continued to rise as the vibrant young actress took on roles in such high profile efforts as Dr. T and the Women (2000), Josie and the Pussycats (2001) and, of course, American Pie 2 (also 2001). After taming the savage party animal in the lowbrow comedy Van Wilder, Reid gave screen heartthrob Ashton Kutcher the runaround in the romantic comedy My Boss's Daughter. Sadly, Reid's star dwindled throughout the 2000s with a series of critical and commerical flops that failed in comparison to her highly publicized personal troubles. Reid was able to find some success when she rejoined the original cast of American Pie for American Reunion in 2012.

Trivia: Rough-hewn and soulful, Terence Stamp was one of the most recognizable faces of 1960s British cinema. During that decade, he became immortalized on the screen and off, his working-class charisma and battered good looks making him both a natural for leading man roles and a poster boy for the swinging Sixties lifestyle.Born in Stepney, London on July 22, 1939, Stamp made his film debut in 1962 as the martyred hero in Peter Ustinov's adaptation of Herman Melville's Billy Budd. He turned in a star-making performance that earned him an Oscar nomination and established him as part of a new wave of talent in British cinema. Stamp next made his mark in William Wyler's The Collector (1965), winning a Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of a warped recluse who kidnaps an art student he has lusted after from afar. Stamp spent the rest of the decade earning recognition for both his work and real-life exploits. On the screen, he worked with the likes of John Schlesinger (Far From the Maddening Crowd), Joseph Losey (Modesty Blaise), Ken Loach (Poor Cow), Pier Paolo Pasolini (Teorema), and, for Tre Passi nel Delirio, Federico Fellini, Roger Vadim, and Louis Malle. Off the screen, Stamp was known for his friendships with the likes of Michael Caine and his relationships with such preeminent beauties as Julie Christie and model Jean Shrimpton. He and Christie were immortalized in Ray Davies's song "Waterloo Sunset" in the lines, "Terry and Julie cross over the river, where they feel safe and sound."Despite the promise of his early career, Stamp spent much of the next couple of decades in relative obscurity. He popped up in a number of fairly forgettable films and was cast as a villain in the first two Superman movies. He also appeared in such disparate projects as Legal Eagles (1986), Wall Street (1987), and Young Guns (1988). In 1994, Stamp truly re-entered the filmgoing consciousness, going delightfully against type to play a world-weary transsexual in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The film was a surprise success, and Stamp's portrayal was singled out for particular notice. Once one of the cinema's most reliable hard men, Stamp revived his career with a poignent portrayal of a character who wore more make-up than most of the screen's actresses put together.Stamp followed this success with a turn as a mysterious tantric sex therapist in Bliss (1996). In 1999, he could be seen doing supporting work in Bowfinger, in which he had a hilarious turn as a L. Ron Hubbard-esque "guru;" and Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace. That same year, he starred in Steven Soderbergh's The Limey, back in top form as a grizzled ex-con bent on avenging his daughter's death. One of the film's highlights was the inclusion of footage from the 1968 Poor Cow, which allowed Stamp to appear as a younger version of himself. Building off the best buzz he'd had in quite some time, Stamp began the 21st century in Red Planet, and voiced Jor-El on the television series Smallville, before appearing in Get Smart, Valkyrie, Yes Man, The Adjustment Bureau, and Song for Marion.

Trivia: Born July 8th, 1944, character actor Jeffrey Tambor has built his career in comedies playing the role of the uptight boss, or more generally, the stuffy guy. After graduate school, teaching, and a prolific stage career, Tambor started making television guest-starring appearances in the early '70s. He showed up on Three's Company enough that he eventually got a spot on the spin-off series The Ropers as the disapproving next-door neighbor Jeffrey. After the show's two-season run, he did a few TV movies before landing a reoccurring roles on the television version of 9 to 5, naturally playing the Dabney Coleman boss character. Throughout the '80s and early '90s, he continued to play the role of the stuffy guy on television (The Golden Girls, L.A. Law, Max Headroom) and movies (Mr. Mom, City Slickers, Life Stinks). His big break came in 1992, when he was cast as Garry Shandling's smiling sidekick, Hank Kingsley, on HBO's The Larry Sanders Show, his most recognizable role. For the rest of the '90s, he frequently returned to playing snide characters for movies (Teaching Mrs. Tingle, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Muppets From Space), although he would be more well-known for his work on television. In 1999, he appeared on the AMC series The Lot for its two-season run and provided voice talent for the MTV cartoon show 3 South. He played another boss type in the heist film Scorched in 2002.In 2003, Tambor joined the cast of Arrested Development for the role of George Bluth, an imprisoned millionaire and patriarch to a seriously dysfunctional family. The role would earn two Emmy nominations. Tambor tried his luck at television success once again in Welcome to the Captain, a short-lived sitcom in 2006, and returned to the big screen for the buddy comedy Twenty Good Years. He played a supporting role in 2009's critically acclaimed comedy the Invention of Lying, and played father of the bride in the megahit The Hangover. In 2011, Tambor took another supporting role for the comedy drama Win Win, and reprised his role in The Hangover for The Hangover Part 2.

Trivia: While he rose to fame as a talk show sidekick, Andy Richter has since developed a reputation as a talented and likable comic actor with roles on a number of feature films and television series. Born in Grand Rapids, MI, in 1966, Andy Richter spent most of his childhood in Yorkville, IL. After graduating from high school (where he was voted Prom King in his senior year), Richter attended the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign; he later studied film and video production at Columbia College. Richter began pursuing a career as a performer in Chicago, where he studied improvisational theater with Del Close and worked with a number of improv comedy groups, including the Annoyance Theater, ImprovOlympia, and Comedy Underground. Richter's first notable success as a performer came in 1992 when he landed the role of Mike Brady in the off-Broadway stage success The Real Live Brady Bunch, a stage adaptation of the perennially popular TV sitcom; Richter was a member of the original New York cast, and moved with the show to Los Angeles later that year. While in L.A., Richter scored his first film role, a small but showy part in the Chris Elliott-vehicle Cabin Boy, but his biggest stroke of luck came when he was hired as a writer for a new talk show being hosted by former Simpsons and Late Night With David Letterman writer Conan O'Brien. Richter and O'Brien soon discovered they had a natural comic rapport, and by the time Late Night With Conan O'Brien debuted in the fall of 1993, Richter had become O'Brien's on-air sidekick, exchanging banter with the host and participating in a variety of comic sketches. The show's five-airings-a-week schedule kept Richter busy, but also allowed him to develop a strong fan following of his own, and he occasionally found time for outside projects, including appearing in an off-Broadway play written by David Sedaris and his sister, Amy Sedaris, Incident at Cobbler's Knob. In the summer of 1999, Richter announced he would be leaving Late Night in May of 2000 to devote himself to other projects, and he soon began appearing in a variety of film roles, among them one of Richard Gere's hunting buddies in Dr. T and the Women, Eugene in Dr. Dolittle 2, and Father Harris in Scary Movie 2; he also made occasional guest spots on television series, including Just Shoot Me. In 2002, he headlined the quirky cult sitcom Andy Richter Controls the Universe, which was prematurely axed. Two years later, he went on to helm another unsuccessful sitcom, Quintuplets, which also ended after failing to gain an audience. He then stuck to being a guest star on established shows like Will & Grace, Malcolm in the Middle, Monk, and The New Adventures of Old Christine. He also kept busy on the silver screen by taking small roles in a number of offbeat comedies including Elf (2003), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), and Semi-Pro (2008). Another attempt to headline a sitcom, Andy Barker, P.I., managed to charm critics but didn't have staying power and lasted only seven episodes in 2007. He maintained career momentum with guest starring TV roles and a number of small parts in movies. He also did well behind the scenes, voicing a character in the animated features Madagascar (2005)and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), which led to more voice work in the Nickelodeon animated series Penguins of Madagascar and Mighty B. In 2009, he returned to Conan O'Brien's side when The Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien launched on NBC. The gig ended when NBC infamously returned The Tonight Show to Jay Leno, and Richter quickly joined O'Brien's subsequent Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television stand-up tour.In his private life, Richter married actress Sarah Thyre -- who played Marcia alongside Richter in The Real Live Brady Bunch -- in 1994; the couple has one son. Richter also has the distinction of being one of the highest-scoring celebrity contestants in the history of the popular game show Jeopardy, winning over 29,000 dollars for charity.

Trivia: Michael Madsen, who admits to being more interested in delivering a good performance than the perks of fame, formerly worked as a gas station attendant in his hometown of Chicago, IL. The older brother of actress Virginia Madsen, Michael's first acting experience took place inside of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre, where he studied under the direction of fellow actor John Malkovich. This stage training provided him with the background needed to land a host of small roles, beginning with a bit part in the 1983 film WarGames. After relocating to Los Angeles, Madsen made several television and film appearances, including NBC's Emmy-winning Special Bulletin (1983), and The Natural (1984), director Barry Levinson's celebrated sports drama. Madsen continued to build credibility, gradually going on to land larger parts. Though his profile was raised substantially after appearing in the 1991 film Thelma & Louise, it was his 1989 performance as a psychotic killer in John Dahl's Kill Me Again that caught the attention of Quentin Tarantino, who would later give Madsen his true breakthrough opportunity in 1992's Reservoir Dogs. This ear-splitting performance earned Madsen critical acclaim, as well as further cementing his reputation for playing psychopathic murderers. Sure enough, Madsen would go on to perform in several decidedly evil roles. From the kitten-loving sociopath in The Getaway (1994), to mafia tough guy Sonny Black in Donnie Brasco, Madsen proved himself more than capable of playing a good bad guy. Rather than allowing himself to be typecast, however, Madsen readily accepted the role of a loving foster parent in Free Willy (1993), a seasoned alien assassin in Species (1995), and CIA Agent Damon Falco in director Lee Tamahori's Die Another Day (2002). Over the course of the next decade, however, the veteran actor largely stuck to his tough-guy image, though his reflective role in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films displayed a sense of depth that most filmmakers fail to coax out of him.

Trivia: Though he would remain one of the comedy world's best-kept secrets through the later half of the 1990s, improvisational comic-turned-actor David Koechner, (born August 24, 1962) later made a successful transition from SNL and Late Night With Conan O'Brien funnyman to supporting feature player roles when word of his talent spread, thanks to stellar supporting parts in such wide-release films as A Guy Thing and Anchorman. The Tipton, MO, native studied political science at the University of Missouri, with a subsequent career in the family business (manufacturing turkey coops) narrowly averted by a post-college move to Chicago. It was there that Koechner attempted to master his comic skills under the tutelage of improv master Del Close, with further studies at the Windy City's ImprovOlympic cementing the skills of the up-and-coming talent. A subsequent stint at Chicago's Second City Theater led to Koechner's lucky break when he was whisked away by SNL creator Lorne Michaels to become a player in the long-running weekly comedy mainstay. Though he would remain with SNL for merely one season, Koechner continued to impress on the small screen as a performer on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in the 1996-1997 season. As his reputation continued to grow due to appearances on such popular shows as Mad About You and Dharma & Greg, Koechner also made an impression in features thanks to small but memorable roles in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Man on the Moon, and My Boss's Daughter. Though he would continue to work in minor capacity on the small screen, Koechner seemed to be focusing on features at this point in his career, with a turn as a chauvinistic sportscaster in the 2004 Will Ferrell comedy Anchorman offering what was perhaps his most substantial feature performance to date. Koechner played a tobacco lobbyist in 2005's media satire Thankyou for Smoking, and reunited with Will Ferrell to for a supporting role in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby in 2006. In 2008 he joined the cast of Get Smart, the big-screen adaptation of Mel Brooks' popular 1960s-era comedy series, and proved himself no stranger to camp in Final Destination 5 (2011) and Piranha 3DD (2012).

Trivia: Perhaps more famous for her physical attributes than for her talent, Carmen Electra managed to parlay a stint as an MTV game show hostess into a career as a TV and movie actress. Born Tara Leigh Patrick and raised in Ohio, Electra left her performing arts high school with plans to become a singer. After a failed album for Prince's Paisley Park label in the early '90s, however, Electra shifted direction. Along with her first Playboy spread, the aspiring entertainer scored her career breakthrough when she replaced Jenny McCarthy as the co-host of MTV's highly-rated dating game Singled Out in 1996. After the show went off the air, Electra successfully stepped in for another buxom TV blonde when she took over lifeguarding duties from Pamela Anderson on the syndicated hit Baywatch from 1997 to 1998. Elektra moved to features with a bit part in the comedy Good Burger (1997) and larger roles in indie movies Starf*cker (1998), The Chosen One: The Legend of the Raven (1998), and Starstruck (1999). It was Electra's infamous several-day marriage to flamboyant basketball star Dennis Rodman in 1998, though, that further augmented her celebrity. Keeping her assets and tabloid fame in humorous perspective, Electra followed her role as what else, The Female, in the mockumentary The Mating Habits of Earthbound Humans (1999) with a self-parodic turn as the bodacious first victim in the hit horror send-up Scary Movie (2000).While Elektra failed to land any big successes in the ensuing handful of years, 2004 saw her emerge again, gaining notice on both the large and small screens. In the wake of such hit shows as The Osbournes, The Anna Nicole Show, and, most notably, Newlyweds, Elektra and husband-to-be Dave Navarro agreed to let an MTV camera crew record their lives for the reality show Til Death Do Us Part. Meanwhile, she also showed up to steal a few scenes in the tongue-in-cheek feature-film version of Starsky and Hutch. She appeared on Scary Movie 4 in 2006, and took on roles for a variety of unremarkable comedies throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s. Elektra has also worked as a fitness instructor in a series of aerobic striptease workout programs.

Trivia: Another Saturday Night Live cast member who has taken her act to the big screen, Molly Shannon is probably best known to TV and film audiences as Mary Katherine Gallagher, the hapless, armpit-sniffing Catholic school girl she originated on SNL and then brought to multiplexes everywhere as the heroine of Superstar.Born in Shaker Heights, a posh suburb of Cleveland, on September 16, 1964, Shannon developed a proclivity for performing at an early age and dreamt of being famous. After receiving a Catholic school education, she earned a B.F.A. in drama from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Circle in the Square Studio. Armed with her diploma, she headed West to L.A., where she proceeded to struggle in relative poverty and almost complete obscurity for the next nine years. Although she occasionally found bit parts in film and on such TV series as Seinfeld, Shannon mainly supported herself with odd jobs and waitressing. Finally, in 1994, she got her big break when she won a spot on Saturday Night Live. After making her debut during the 1995 season, Shannon became exceedingly popular with audiences, thanks to her impersonations of the likes of Monica Lewinsky, and Courtney Love.In 1998, Shannon joined fellow SNL cast members Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan to appear in the disastrous A Night at the Roxbury; the following year, she brought her own alter ego to the screen in Superstar. The film earned drastically mixed reviews, although it did fare somewhat better than any number of other SNL film adaptations. Also in 1999, Shannon played Drew Barrymore's newsroom colleague in Never Been Kissed and had a supporting role alongside Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal, and Lisa Kudrow in Analyze This. She subsequently starred alongside Jim Carrey in Ron Howard's 2000 screen adaptation of The Grinch.She continued to work primarily in comedies including Wet Hot American Summer, Good Boy, American Splendor, Scary Movie 4, Little Man, and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. After a small part in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, she starred in the Mike White film Year of the Dog, and appeared in the big-budget sequel Evan Almighty. She had a short-lived sitcom, Kath & Kim, before appearing in a number of animated films including Igor, Snow Buddies, and Hotel Transylvania. In 2012 she could be seen opposite her old SNL castmate Will Ferrell in the Spanish-language comedy Casa de mi Padre.

Trivia: Burly and heavyset American character actor Tyler Labine began his career with guest-oriented bit parts on television series during the early '90s, and ultimately parlayed this success into occasional, low-key film appearances. Though Labine's parts frequently took advantage of his build -- for example, his portrayal of Little John in the 1996 picture Robin of Locksley, and his evocation of the late John Belushi in the telemovie Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy (2005) -- he also demonstrated an adeptness for sinking into "everyman" roles -- such as his slicked-back fighter pilot Briggs Lowry in Tony Bill's period epic Flyboys (2006). Labine also lent supporting roles to the 2002 series That Was Then (as Donnie Pinkus) and the 2005 series Invasion (as conspiracy theorist and UFO expert Dave Groves). In 2006, he could be seen on the hit legal dramedy Boston Legal as an assistant district attorney, and the next year he was cast on the quirky supernatural drama Reaper. He was Dale in the well-regarded horror comedy film Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, and had a part in 2011's hit Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Trivia: Best known for his 2005 live-action rendering of the Bill Cosby character Fat Albert on the big screen -- a character he brought to life with the aid of a trusty fat suit and the trademark, "Hey, Hey, Hey!" -- wunderkind comic Kenan Thompson honed his skills as a small fry by entertaining classmates with uproarious comedy routines on the playground in his childhood home of Atlanta. Thompson landed his big break by auditioning at age 15 for All That, a Nickelodeon sketch comedy series that (like The Mickey Mouse Club of years prior) functioned as a kind of unofficial petri dish for burgeoning young talent. Series producer and director Brian Robbins reportedly viewed Thompson's audition, tagged his ability to mimic and his comic timing as "dead-on," and hired the young man on the spot. The young comic wowed Nickelodeon, and network heads not only offered him his own sitcom within a year, co-starring another young schtickmeister, Kel Mitchell, but a network-produced movie, the 1997 Good Burger (also starring Mitchell). Numerous additional film roles ensued, and though Mitchell began with goofy, schtick-heavy comedies (Master of Disguise [2002], My Boss' Daughter [2003]), he periodically revealed an interest in stretching his ability into other genres, such as avant-garde/experimental video (Public Lighting [2004]) and action-saturated horror (Snakes on a Plane [2006]). In 2008, however, Thompson hearkened back to comedy by voicing one of the titular primates in the goofy live-action fantasy Space Chimps. Meanwhile, alongside his film work, Thompson achieved even greater success on the small screen. His debut series, All That, had been conveniently described by more than one critic as "SNL for the small set," and paved the way for Thompson's involvement in the real Saturday Night Live; he joined the SNL cast in 2003.

Trivia: Born into the Carradine family of actors including dad Robert, uncle Keith, and grandfather John, Ever Carradine switched her major at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, OR, from anthropology to theater. Graduating in 1996, she found quick work doing bit parts on television shows from Diagnosis Murder to Tracy Takes On. After a reoccurring role on the series Conrad Bloom, she gained the role of the airhead Pepper on NBC's Veronica's Closet in 1997. It wasn't long until she was playing Rosalie on Party of Five and Tiffany on Once and Again. Following a couple of made-for-TV movies, she moved on to feature films with the David Spade comedy Lost & Found. She then appeared in the mainstream comedies Bubble Boy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and got some bigger roles in independent films such as Ropewalk, as well as a role on the primetime series Lucky. In 2002, she starred as Beth in the ABC series Couples about a group of Los Angeles couples in their early thirties. Carradine continued to find success on the small screen throughout the mid-2000s, including the prime-time political drama Commander in Chief (2005), detective show Women's Murder Club (2007), and the Fox network's long-running hit 24 (2009).