Trivia: Rocketing from obscure bit player to TV's resident über-sex god thanks to his role as FBI agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files, David Duchovny can claim to have had one of the 1990s' more remarkable career metamorphoses. Although his initial attempts to translate his TV stardom into celluloid success proved less than memorable, the tall, classically handsome actor has continued to enjoy a great deal of popularity, evidenced in particular by the countless estrogen-drenched internet shrines erected in his honor.Born in Manhattan on August 7, 1960, to a Jewish father and a Scottish mother, Duchovny did his undergraduate work at Princeton and then went on to pursue a Master's degree in English Literature at Yale. While working toward his degree, he began commuting to New York to study acting, and he was soon appearing in a few off-Broadway plays. His interest in acting ultimately eclipsed his dedication toward earning his degree, and Duchovny dropped out of Yale to pursue a career as a performer. He got his first break starring in a beer commercial, and in 1988, he made his film debut with a breathtakingly abbreviated appearance as a party guest in Mike Nichols's Working Girl. Work in a number of diverse and usually obscure films, including starring roles in Julia Has Two Lovers (1991), The Rapture (1991), and Kalifornia (1993), followed, but the actor was able to command a more steady paycheck from his TV work. Before The X-Files debuted in 1993, Duchovny was best-known to TV viewers as Dennis/Denise, Twin Peaks' resident transvestite detective. As The X-Files steadily grew from cult favorite to mainstream success, becoming recognized as one of the most groundbreaking shows of the decade, Duchovny also began to enjoy both industry respect and huge audience popularity. Dubbed as the latest in a long line of thinking women's sex symbols, he would also appear in films like Playing God and Return to Me.Duchovny would The X-Files during the show's seventh season, much to fans' dismay, returning only for the series finaly. Post X-files, Duchovny would continue to act on screen, most notably in films like Trust the Man and another X-Files movie, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, as well as on the debaucherous TV series Californication.

Trivia: When actress Gillian Anderson landed the role of Agent Scully for the Fox television series X-Files (1993- ) she could not have foreseen that within two years she would become an internationally known cult phenomenon. She was born in Chicago, but moved to London at age two and remained there until she was in her early teens. She and her family then moved to Grand Rapids, MI, where she rebelliously got heavily into the punk rock scene complete with spiky, brilliantly colored hair and body piercings with safety pins. When she was 14, she became romantically involved with a 20-year-old punk singer and occasionally sang in his band. Her punk period lasted through high school. Following graduation, she got involved in local theater and from there studied fine arts at the Goodman Theater School of Drama at Chicago's DePaul University. Following graduation, she moved to New York where she waited tables and appeared in off-Broadway plays, most notably in Absent Friends, in which she had a starring role that won her a Theater World Award. Anderson made her film debut in 1992 with the low-budget drama The Turning. She then appeared in a theatrical production of The Philanthropist and after that moved to Los Angeles. Though she was frequently courted for television roles, Anderson disdained the medium until the X-Files audition came along. Though the producers were looking for a brainy version of a Baywatch girl, the beautiful but more natural looking (having long passed her outrageous days) Anderson got the role thanks to the insistence of the show's creator Chris Carter. The show became a smash hit within two seasons and Anderson found herself an international star, as did her co-star David Duchovny, the subject of numerous pages on the Internet, and the recipient of such awards as a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In addition to continuing work on the X-Files, Anderson hosted a couple of television specials, including More Secrets of the X-Files and the BBC documentary series Future Fantastic. She also lent her voice as a documentary narrator on Spies Above and as animated characters on shows like The Simpsons and Reboot and films like the English version of Princess Mononoke.Anderson would spend the next several years working extensively in British television, starring in series like Bleak House, Any Human Heart, Moby Dick, and The Fall, as well as appearing in numerous UK films, like The Last King of Scotland and Shadow Dancer.

Trivia: Trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Zakes Mokae was for nearly twenty years one of the top stage actors in South Africa. Despite the many racial barriers inflicting his part of the world, Mokae, who is black, was applauded with equal fervor by audiences of all races. His first film role was a Haitian in 1967's The Comedians. Though retaining his South African citizenship, Mokae made most of his screen appearances in international productions. He was also a frequent visitor to U.S. television, usually cast as a doctor or scientist; conversely, in 1978 he played the convict friend of imprisoned baseball whiz Levar Burton in the made-for-TV biopic One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story and in 1991 he was seen as a gunslinger in Parker Kane. After essaying the politically volatile role of Father Kani in Cry Freedom (1987), Zakes Mokae found it necessary to move to America permanently.

Trivia: Laurie Holden took one of her first on-camera bows as a teenager, in Michael Anderson's sex farce Separate Vacations (1986), then forked off into a series of programmers that included the 1989 Burt Reynolds cop drama Physical Evidence; the 1996 historical saga The Pathfinder, based on the novel by James Fenimore Cooper; and the 2004 animal picture Bailey's Billion$. Holden also found some success on the small screen, playing a memorable recurring role on the seminal sci-fi series The X-Files, that of Marita Covarrubias, a mysterious government worker who becomes an informant to Special Agent Fox Mulder starting in the fourth season of that show through the final one (1996-2002). She also had a supporting role, as Mary Travis, on the shortlived Western series The Magnificent Seven (1998-2000). Holden achieved her cinematic big break in 2001 -- when producers tapped her to appear as the sunny romantic interest of Jim Carrey in Frank Darabont's colossal fantasy The Majestic; Holden followed it up with an equally lucrative and exciting part in yet another A-list film: Debbie McIlvane in the effects-heavy summer blockbuster Fantastic Four (2005). She also essayed a prominant role, as a police woman, in the critically panned but fiscally successful horror opus Silent Hill (2006), adapted from the popular video game of the same title, and re-teamed with Darabont for both the 2007 Stephen King adaptation The Mist (2007), and the hit AMC zombie series The Walking Dead. In addition to her film and television work, Holden is active with such children's charities as Planet Hope and Feed the Children.

Trivia: Widely recognized by television viewers for his role as Agent Marcus Dixon on the popular sci-fi action television series Alias, actor Carl Lumbly has been appearing on both the big and small screens since the late '70s. With early appearances on Cagney and Lacey and L.A. Law, as well as roles in such high-profile releases as Pacific Heights (1990) and How Stella Got her Groove Back (1998), chances are you'd recognize Lumbly's face even if his name doesn't immediately ring a bell. A native of Jamaica who attended Minnesota's Macalester College, his career in journalism eventually led to acting when he was assigned to write a story about a local workshop theater. Subsequently immersing himself in the improvisational company for the next two years, it wasn't long before Lumbly made his film debut in Escape From Alcatraz (1979). Gaining an impressive list of small-screen credits with appearances in such popular sitcoms as The Jeffersons and Taxi, the 1980s proved both busy and fruitful as offers continued to roll in. Cast in the lead of the series M.A.N.T.I.S. in 1994, Lumbly essayed the role of a paralyzed scientist who dons a specially designed exoskeleton in the name of fighting crime. Though the show had a small devoted fan base, it was soon taken off the air, and Lumbly rounded out the decade with roles in such made-for-television films as Nightjohn (1996), Buffalo Soldiers (1997), and Border Line (1999). After returning to series work in Alias, Lumbly provided voice work for the animated television series the Justice League, and took the lead in longtime friend Danny Glover's family-friendly drama Just a Dream. The following year found the popular Lumbly remaining family-friendly with a featured role in the made-for-television remake Sounder.