Trivia: With picture-perfect good looks and a genuinely warm and personable smile, it's little wonder that actor Rick Yune began his career in front of the camera as a model. And though the former stock trader may not have anticipated an entertainment career while studying at Philadelphia's Wharton School of Business, his subsequent training at the Actor's Studio found him developing his acting skills and embarking on a successful Hollywood run. Born in Washington, DC, in August 1971, Yune's early love of tae kwon do found the future actor qualifying for the Olympics at the age of 19. Following his graduation from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994, he pursued a career in business by attending Wharton. It was there that he was discovered by an agent while on his way to a job interview, which led to him becoming the first Asian model to work for Versace and Polo Sports. With Yune's comfort level and confidence in front of the camera steadily increasing, it wasn't long before the successful model was considering an acting career. Following years at the Actor's Studio, he began landing small television roles before making a transition to feature films with Snow Falling on Cedars (1999). Although his role was a fairly substantial one, it was his next film, The Fast and the Furious (2001), that found the late-blooming actor gaining widespread recognition in Hollywood, which later worked to Yune's advantage when he went toe-to-toe with James Bond in Die Another Day.

Trivia: From Neil LaBute mainstay to romantic lead and brainy action hero, versatile screen presence Aaron Eckhart has the talent to convincingly portray everything from the most despicable misogynist to affable love interests with equal zeal. How many other actors could purposefully and gleefully crush the soul of an innocent deaf woman before successfully charming one of the '90s most notable onscreen feminists with equal conviction? Born on March 12, 1968, to a computer executive father and a mother who wrote children's books in Santa Clara County, CA, Eckhart spent most of his childhood in Cupertino before moving with his family to England and Australia in his teens. Although he dropped out of high school before graduation, Eckhart eventually earned his equivalency before taking a few years off to hit the waves in Hawaii and the slopes in France. He later attended Brigham Young University as a film major, and it was there that he made the acquaintance of a young, aspiring director named Neil LaBute. Eckhart eventually moved to Manhattan and found himself swimming in a virtual sea of unemployed actors, though he did land a few notable commercial parts before returning to L.A., where he worked in a series of small supporting roles. He had done well enough on his own to this point, but it was only under the direction of his old college friend that he truly broke out of the mold and crafted one of the most despised cinematic characterizations of the decade. Cast in the lead of LaBute's pitch-black debut In the Company of Men, Eckhart's performance of a woman-hating, low-level executive was a cruel, but three-dimensional, villain that both repelled and fascinated moviegoers. After sticking with LaBute and gaining 30 pounds for the role of a sexually frustrated husband in LaBute's follow-up, Your Friends & Neighbors, Eckhart branched out in 1999 with a pair of memorable and entirely unexpected performances: Molly and Any Given Sunday. Cast as a caring brother of an autistic sibling in the former and a gridiron giant in the latter, his versatility began to attract casting agents. By the time he romanced Julia Roberts' eponymous character in Steven Soderbergh's acclaimed drama Erin Brockovich, Eckhart had become one to watch. He re-teamed with LaBute for Nurse Betty and Possession, but by this point, the rising star was gaining quite a reputation on his own. In 2001, Sean Penn tapped him to appear opposite Jack Nicholson in the searing drama The Pledge, and soon Eckhart was plunging headfirst into the center of the Earth alongside Oscar-winner Hilary Swank in the big-budget summer disaster flick The Core. By this time, the actor had truly established himself as a diverse talent capable of donning many hats, and following his role in Ron Howard's brutal thriller The Missing, the action flew fast and furious in John Woo's Paycheck. Eckhart next appeared in Suspect Zero (2004), which was experimental filmmaker E. Elias Merhige's eagerly anticipated follow-up to 2000's acclaimed Shadow of the Vampire.If some fans had lamented the gifted Eckhart's turn towards overly seriously roles as of late, a scathing performance in director Jason Reitman's critically-acclaimed 2005 comedy Thank You for Smoking would serve as a refreshingly funny change of pace. Alas, the laughs wouldn't keep coming for long, as it was soon back to grim dramatics with his turn as a well-schooled psychiatrist in the dramatic mystery Neverwas preceding a turn as a determined L.A. detective whose attempts to solve a particularly confounding murder lead him down a dark path of Hollywood corruption in Brian De Palma's The Black Dahlia. In 2008 he starred alongside Christian Bale inThe Dark Knight as good-man-gone-bad Harvey Dent/Two-Face, while 2010 found the actor co-starring with Nicole Kidman in the film Rabbit Hole (2010). In 2011, Eckhart played a wealthy real estate developer in The Rum Diary, an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's autobiography of the same name.

Trivia: Morgan Freeman has enjoyed an impressive and varied career on stage, television, and screen. It is a career that began in the mid-'60s, when Freeman appeared in an off-Broadway production of The Niggerlovers and with Pearl Bailey in an all-African-American Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968. He went on to have a successful career both on and off-Broadway, showcasing his talents in everything from musicals to contemporary drama to Shakespeare. Before studying acting, the Memphis-born Freeman attended Los Angeles Community College and served a five-year stint with the Air Force from 1955 to 1959. After getting his start on the stage, he worked in television, playing Easy Reader on the PBS children's educational series The Electric Company from 1971 through 1976. During that period, Freeman also made his movie debut in the lighthearted children's movie Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow? (1971). Save for his work on the PBS show, Freeman's television and feature film appearances through the '70s were sporadic, but in 1980, he earned critical acclaim for his work in the prison drama Brubaker. He gained additional recognition for his work on the small screen with a regular role on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives from 1982 to 1984. Following Brubaker, Freeman's subsequent '80s film work was generally undistinguished until he played the dangerously emotional pimp in Street Smart (1987) and earned his first Oscar nomination. With the success of Street Smart, Freeman's film career duly took off and he appeared in a string of excellent films that began with the powerful Clean and Sober (1988) and continued with Driving Miss Daisy (1989), in which Freeman reprised his Obie-winning role of a dignified, patient Southern chauffeur and earned his second Oscar nomination for his efforts. In 1989, he also played a tough and cynical gravedigger who joins a newly formed regiment of black Union soldiers helmed by Matthew Broderick in Glory. The acclaim he won for that role was replicated with his portrayal of a high school principal in that same year's Lean on Me.Freeman constitutes one of the few African-American actors to play roles not specifically written for African-Americans, as evidenced by his work in such films as Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), in which he played Robin's sidekick, and Clint Eastwood's revisionist Western Unforgiven (1992). In 1993, Freeman demonstrated his skills on the other side of the camera, making his directorial debut with Bopha!, the story of a South African cop alienated from his son by apartheid. The following year, the actor received a third Oscar nomination as an aged lifer in the prison drama The Shawshank Redemption. He went on to do steady work throughout the rest of the decade, turning in memorable performances in films like Seven (1995), in which he played a world-weary detective; Amistad (1997), which featured him as a former slave; Kiss the Girls (1997), a thriller in which he played a police detective; and Deep Impact, a 1998 blockbuster that cast Freeman as the President of the United States. Following an appearance opposite Renee Zellweger in director Neil LaBute's Nurse Betty, Freeman would return to the role of detective Alex Cross in the Kiss the Girls sequel Along Came a Spider (2001). Freeman continued to keep a high profile moving into the new millennium with roles in such thrillers as The Sum of All Fears (2002) and Stephen King's Dreamcatcher, and the popular actor would average at least two films per year through 2004. 2003's Jim Carrey vehicle Bruce Almighty cast Freeman as God (a tall role indeed, and one he inherited from both George Burns and Gene Hackman). The story finds the Supreme Being appearing on Earth and giving Carrey temporary control over the universe - to outrageous comic effect. By the time Freeman appeared opposite Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood in Eastwood's acclaimed 2004 boxing drama Million Dollar Baby, his reputation as one of Hollywood's hardest-working, most-respected actors was cemented in place. When Freeman took home the Best Supporting Actor Oscar at the 77th Annual Academy Awards for his performance as the former boxer turned trainer who convinces his old friend to take a scrappy female fighter (Hilary Swank) under his wing, the award was considered overdue given Freeman's impressive body of work.The Oscar reception lifted Freeman to further heights. In summer 2005, Freeman was involved in three of the biggest blockbusters of the year, including War of the Worlds, Batman Begins and March of the Penguins. He joined the cast of the first picture as the foreboding narrator who tells of the destruction wrought by aliens upon the Earth. The Batman Begins role represented the first in a renewed franchise (the second being 2008's The Dark Knight), with the actor playing Lucius Fox, a technology expert who equips Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) with his vast assemblage of gadgetry. Freeman also provided narration for the most unpredictable smash of the year, the nature documentary March of the Penguins.That fall, Miramax's drama An Unfinished Life cast Freeman in a difficult role as Mitch, a bear attack victim reduced to near-paraplegia, living on a derelict western ranch. The picture was shelved for two years; it arrived in cinemas practically stillborn, and many critics turned their noses up at it. After a brutal turn as a sociopathic mob boss in Paul McGuigan's Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Freeman reprised his turn as God in the 2007 Bruce Almighty sequel Evan Almighty; the high-budgeted picture flopped, but Freeman emerged unscathed. Versatile as ever, he then opted for a much different genre and tone with a key role in the same year's detective thriller Gone, Baby, Gone. As written and directed by Ben Affleck (and adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane) the film wove the tale of two detectives searching for a missing four-year-old in Boston's underbelly. He returned to the Batman franchise in The Dark Knight, a film that broke box-office records, in 2008, and he would stick with the franchise for its final installment, The Dark Knight Rises, in 2012. Freeman would remain a top tier actor in years to come, appearing in such films as Red, Invictus (which saw him playing Nelson Mandela), Conan the Barbarian, and The Magic of Belle Isle.

Trivia: A respected actress of the stage, screen, and television, Angela Bassett has been one of the few African-American actresses to break Hollywood's color boundary. She has specialized in playing strong women familiar with adversity and has worked in genres from "chick flick" (Waiting to Exhale) to sci-fi action (Strange Days) to biography (What's Love Got to Do with It?), the last of which featured her in a star-making performance as Tina Turner.Born in New York City on August 16, 1958, Bassett was raised in St. Petersburg, Florida by her mother. Growing up in a household where money was tight, she was taught determination and independence. These values were called into service after an eleventh grade Upward Bound trip to Washington, D.C., when Bassett saw James Earl Jones in a Kennedy Center production of Of Mice and Men. Deciding that acting was her calling, she became involved in a number of local productions in St. Petersburg. She continued to act at Yale University, where she earned a scholarship; after completing a B.A. in African-American studies, she also spent three years at the Yale School of Drama. One of Bassett's mentors at Yale was the drama school's dean, stage director Lloyd Richards, who was so impressed with her talent that he cast her in two of his productions, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Although she enjoyed relative success on the stage, Bassett, like other African-American actors, had a difficult time finding roles in television and film.In 1986, Bassett made her screen debut in the cult favorite F/X. Following supporting roles in Kindergarten Cop (1990) and John Sayles' City of Hope (1991), she had her first significant screen role in John Singleton's acclaimed Boyz 'N the Hood, playing a struggling single mother. Two years later, after playing the wife of civil rights leader Malcolm X in Spike Lee's biopic and the Jackson Family matriarch in the made-for-TV The Jacksons: An American Dream, Bassett had her screen breakthrough as Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do with It?, a performance that earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe. As her newfound status allowed her to expand her range of work, Bassett went on to star in a series of diverse films. In 1995, a foray into futuristic action in Strange Days was complemented by a lead in the successful women's ensemble drama Waiting to Exhale (based on the novel by Terry McMillan), in which Bassett starred alongside Whitney Houston, Lela Rochon, and Loretta Devine. In 1998, she starred as the title character in another McMillan adaptation, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, playing a divorcee whose discontent is ably assuaged by a hunky twenty-year-old (Taye Diggs). The following year, she had a supporting role in Music of the Heart and again tried her hand at action in Supernova, a sci-fi thriller. Starring in former Orson Welles collaborator and blacklisted director John Berry's critically panned swansong Boesman and Lena in 2000, Bassett (along with co-star Danny Glover) earned praise for their sensitive performances as a troubled South African couple striving to seek stability in the face of Apartheid.Her career continued to evolve with a part in The Score in 2001. The next year she executive produced and starred in a biopic about civil rights figure Rosa Parks. She was part of the large ensemble John Sayles brought together for Sunshine State, and co-starred opposite Bernie Mac in the sports comedy Mr. 3000. In 2006 she played the mother in the spelling bee drama Akeelah and the Bee, and she continued to land parts in big-budget blockbusters such as Green Lantern and This Means War.Since 1997, Bassett has been married to actor Courtney B. Vance, whom she had known since their days at Yale.

Trivia: After supporting roles in a handful of small films and a short stint on the soap opera All My Children, New York-born Melissa Leo gained prominence on the critically-acclaimed Barry Levinson-produced television drama Homicide: Life on the Streets. After leaving the show in 1997, Leo continued to appear in a range of features, including 1999's 24 Hour Woman. But it was her role as Benicio Del Toro's wife in 2003's 21 Grams that gave Leo her first exposure to a wide moviegoing audience. The performance also won her recognition from the L.A. Film Critics Association, who named Leo the runner-up for the Best Supporting Actress honor.Leo continued to work steadily in a series of independent films including American Gun, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, and Stephanie Daley. In 2008 she landed the lead role in Courtney Hunt's debut feature Frozen River. As a financially strapped woman who turns to human-trafficking in order to earn a living, Leo earned thunderous critical praise as well as Best Actress nominations from both the Screen Actors Guild, and the Academy.Frozen River led her to steady work un a variety of projects, but it was as the matriarch of the boxing brothers in The Fighter that Leo had the biggest success of her career capturing numerous year-end critics awards as well as the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. In the years after that she appeared in works as diverse as the remake of Mildred Pierce for HBO, and Kevin Smith's Red State.

Trivia: Blessed with a rare combination of beauty, brains, and talent, actress Ashley Judd spent the 1990s gaining critical acclaim, industry respect, and a broad fan base that made her one of the most in-demand actresses of the latter half of the decade.The daughter of country-music superstar Naomi Judd and the younger half-sister of singer Wynonna Judd, Judd was born in Los Angeles, on April 19, 1968. A single parent, her mother supported Judd and her sister by taking odd jobs in California and Kentucky. The actress spent her first 13 years shuttling between the two states and attended 12 different schools, often living in poverty in remote areas of Kentucky. With no external sources of entertainment, Judd read books and amused herself by pretending to be various characters while her sister and mother whiled away the time singing. Their singing paid off; after Naomi and Wynonna Judd became country-music sensations, the family was finally able to leave their financial hardship in the past. Judd went on to attend the University of Kentucky, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1990 with a degree in French.At her sister's encouragement, Judd, blessed with an outgoing, forthright nature, was able to secure an agent on her first try and, in 1987, won a part on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. She went on to do more TV, landing a recurring role as Swoosie Kurtz's daughter on Sisters in 1991 (she stayed with the show until 1994). The following year, she made her film debut with a small part in Kuffs (1992). She was originally meant to have a larger part, but rejected it when she learned of a nude scene. The actress' first major film role was in the hit independent drama Ruby in Paradise (1993). She garnered considerable acclaim for her subtle, realistic portrayal of a spoiled Tennessee heiress who runs away to sell tourist trinkets in a ramshackle resort, winning Best Actress at the 1994 Independent Spirit Awards. After filming Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, only to have her scenes end up on the cutting-room floor, Judd next found acclaim with her turn in the 1995 film Smoke, in which she played the pregnant, drug-addicted daughter of Harvey Keitel and Stockard Channing. The same year, she appeared in the much-lauded Heat, then went on to star with Mira Sorvino in the 1996 made-for-TV Marilyn Monroe biopic Norma Jean and Marilyn.Following a substantial role as Matthew McConaughey's wife in Joel Schumacher's adaptation of John Grisham's A Time to Kill in 1996, and a lead in the crime film A Normal Life (also 1996), Judd starred in the 1997 thriller Kiss the Girls. The film received mixed reviews but did decent business at the box office, further increasing Judd's glowing star wattage. She landed another lead role the following year, in the well-received drama Simon Birch and, in 1999, could be seen starring in Bruce Beresford's Double Jeopardy as an ex-convict planning revenge on those who framed her for a crime she did not commit. The film was a substantial box-office hit, further cementing Judd's arrival as a major Hollywood star. Judd didn't turn up again until 2004's Twisted, a crime thriller about a female homicide detective who finds herself at the center of a series of murders. That same year, she starred alongside Kevin Kline in the critically acclaimed De-Lovely, a musical biography of Cole Porter. She then laid low until a project by a truly legendary filmmaker came her way. William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist, cast her in the leading role in his 2007 psychological horror film Bug. A gritty, pared down thriller with a five person cast, Judd handled the disturbing project like a pro. Ready for something more grounded in reality, the actress next chose a project that dealt with issues ripped straight from the headlines, signing on to appear in Crossing Over, a film about immigrants struggling to obtain legal citizenship in the US.

Trivia: Proving that there is a reason for the existence of the cliché "tall, dark, and handsome," Dylan McDermott has won many a heart, as well as many a critical nod, for his role on the Emmy-winning television series The Practice. The actor struggled for years before landing his part as a lawyer on the show in 1997. Since then, the critical appreciation he has garnered has been complemented by his regular appearances in the style sections of a number of magazines, making him one of the most visible actors in Hollywood.Born October 26, 1962, in Waterbury, CT, McDermott had a tumultuous childhood. After his parents' divorce, his mother died when the actor was very young. McDermott was, by his own account, something of a delinquent, but his life began to turn around when he discovered acting as a teenager. His interest in the theater was given an additional boost by his stepmother, the playwright Eve Ensler. Ensler encouraged the actor, whom she formally adopted when he was 19, and he began training for his career at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse. After acting in stage productions such as Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues, McDermott made his film debut as platoon leader Sgt. Franz in 1987's Hamburger Hill. His next notable role was as Julia Roberts' husband in Steel Magnolias. Despite being part of one of the biggest hits of 1989, real fame eluded McDermott, who secured limited recognition for his reported real-life role as Roberts' boyfriend rather than for his acting in the film.After appearing in leading man roles in a string of disappointing films, including Jersey Girl with Jami Gertz, McDermott's luck began to change, with a part in Clint Eastwood's 1993 smash In the Line of Fire. The following year, he got a lead role as Elizabeth Perkins' lawyer love interest in Miracle on 34th Street. The relative success of that film was inversely proportional to McDermott's next, the ill-received Woody Harrelson vehicle The Cowboy Way (1994). McDermott rebounded somewhat with his leading role as Holly Hunter's love interest in the following year's Home for the Holidays, but it wasn't until two years later, when he appeared in a few episodes of Ally McBeal and landed his role on The Practice, that McDermott began to find true success. Winning a 1999 Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe award for his work on the show, the actor (who by this point was also the subject of numerous articles and Best Dressed photos with his wife, stage actress Shiva Ashfar) found previously closed doors being opened, most notably in the form of a big-screen starring role in the 1999 romantic comedy Three to Tango, co-starring Matthew Perry and Neve Campbell. Increasingly in demand as a television actor in the following years, McDermott turned up in the boardroom jungle series Big Shots and the short-lived police drama Dark Blue before shattering small screen taboos as a cheating husband who unwittingly moves his family into a haunted house in the twisted FX Network series American Horror Story. In 2012, as if to balance the morbidity of his latest television endeavor, the handsome and versatile actor flexed his comic chops opposite Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis in the election year political comedy The Campaign. He also appeared in the teen pic The Perks of Being a Wallflower, playing the lead character's father. McDermott returned to TV shortly thereafter, starring in the short-lived Hostages before taking the lead in Stalker.

Trivia: Small, blonde, and Australian, Radha Mitchell first made an impression on international audiences as the paramour of a heroin-addled photographer (Ally Sheedy) in Lisa Cholodenko's High Art (1998). Mitchell, a native of Melbourne, began acting when she was still in high school and had her professional debut on the popular Aussie soap Neighbours in 1994. Two years later, she made her film debut in the romantic comedy Love and Other Catastrophes, in which she starred as a college student experiencing a messy breakup with her girlfriend (Frances O'Connor). The film proved to be fairly popular in Australia, but it wasn't until she was cast in High Art that Mitchell gained an introduction to a wider audience. The critical success of High Art made it possible for her to do more international work, and her increasing popularity was reflected by her subsequent casting in a number of projects. Among them were Pitch Black (2000), a sci-fi horror film in which Mitchell played a pilot whose ship crashes on a hostile planet, and Everything Put Together (2000), a drama about a suburban woman (Mitchell) shunned by her peers after the death of her baby. Her career continued with a diverse run of films including Nobody's Baby, Man on Fire, Finding Neverland, and landing the lead in Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda. Those last three films all hit screens in 2004, and although kept working steadily, she never quite capitalized on the buzz she generated that year. Her other credits include Silent Hill, Henry Poole Is Here, Surrogates, and the horror film The Crazies.

Trivia: Describing his career as a "five-years upwards first act and a 25-year sliding second act," actor Robert Forster finally got to settle into a satisfying third act when Quentin Tarantino worked his '70s resurrection magic by casting Forster in Jackie Brown (1997). Born and raised in Rochester, NY, Forster was a high school and college athlete, and occasional school thespian. After graduating from the University of Rochester (his third college) with a degree in psychology, Forster opted for acting over law school. Honing his craft in local theater, Forster subsequently moved to New York City where he landed his first Broadway role in 1965. After garnering attention in a 1967 production of A Streetcar Named Desire opposite Julie Harris, Forster made his movie debut in John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) as the au natural horseback-riding private who ignites military officer Marlon Brando's desire. Holding out for interesting offers after Reflections, Forster retreated to Rochester with his wife and worked as a substitute teacher and manual laborer.Enticed back into movies with a role opposite Gregory Peck in Robert Mulligan's Western The Stalking Moon (1968), Forster impressed cinephiles with his third film, Haskell Wexler's seminal counterculture work Medium Cool (1969). As a TV cameraman forced to confront the implications of the tumultuous events he so coolly records, Forster and his co-star, Verna Bloom, were thrust into the real-life turmoil surrounding the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention, while Forster's nuanced performance illuminated his narcissist's metamorphosis. Despite its timely subject, however, Medium Cool made little impression at the box office. Though he continued to work in such varied films as George Cukor's widescreen spectacle Justine (1969) and the location-shot Indian reservation drama Journey Through Rosebud (1972), Forster attempted to move to potentially greener TV pastures as the eponymous '30s detective in the series Banyon (1972). Banyon, however, lasted only one season, as did Forster's subsequent TV stint as a Native American lawman in the series Nakia (1974).Forster's slide into B-movie oblivion was hardly stanched by his forays into TV. Though he managed to acquit himself well onscreen in different kinds of parts, Forster professed no illusions about the quality of such movies as The Don Is Dead (1973), Stunts (1977), Disney's sci-fi The Black Hole (1979), and the Rock Hudson disaster flick Avalanche (1978). The smartly comic, John Sayles-scripted creature feature Alligator (1980) failed to thrive beyond its schlock status; Vigilante (1983), starring Forster as a, well, vigilante, was described by one critic as "truly distasteful." Trying his hand behind the camera, Forster produced, wrote, directed, and starred in, alongside his daughter, Katherine Forster, the detective spoof Hollywood Harry (1986), but he got more mileage that same year out of his performance as an Arab terrorist embarking on jihad in Delta Force (1986). Playing a host of bad guys as well as the occasional not-so-bad-guy, Forster put his four children through college from the late '80s into the early '90s with such video fodder as The Banker (1989) and Peacemaker (1990), as well as the TV series Once a Hero (1987) and the well-received indie 29th Street (1991).His career languishing by the mid-'90s, Forster taught acting classes between occasional roles and maintained an optimistic hope that, "some kid who liked me when he was young was going to turn into a filmmaker and hire me." Two casting near-misses for Reservoir Dogs (1992) and True Romance (1993) later (Lawrence Tierney and Christopher Walken respectively got the parts), the by then agent-less Forster finally got his wish when Banyon and B-movie fan Quentin Tarantino cast him in Jackie Brown (1997). Beating out bigger names for the part, Forster proceeded to steal the film from flamboyant co-stars Robert De Niro and Samuel L. Jackson with his subtle performance as weathered, rueful bail bondsman Max Cherry. Though stellar co-star Pam Grier got more attention as Tarantino's latest career rescue, Forster garnered Jackie Brown's sole Oscar nomination. After his Jackie Brown triumph, Forster's image of low-key, regular guy authority kept him steadily employed. Along with playing the de facto voice of sanity in the TV remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1998) and Gus Van Sant's retread of Psycho (1998), Forster faced down space (and production) chaos in Walter Hill's ill-fated Supernova (2000) and played the straight man as Jim Carrey's commanding officer in Me, Myself & Irene (2000). Though his brief appearance suggests David Lynch had more in mind for Forster's role in the aborted TV series, Forster's performance as a deadpan police detective still made it into the critically acclaimed film version of Mulholland Drive (2001).He continued to work in a variety of projects including the kids basketball movie Like Mike and the quirky biopic Grand Theft Parsons. He moved to the small screen to play the father of Karen Sisco in the short-lived TV series of the same name. He also appeared occasionally in the cable series Huff, and had a recurring role in the NBC series Heroes. He had his highest profile success in yeas in 2011 when he played the father of George Clooney's comatose wife in Alexander Payne's Oscar-winning The Descendants.

Trivia: After making his film debut alongside a cast of future stars, Cole Hauser made his own mark as a TV and indie film actor in the 1990s. Raised in Santa Barbara, Hauser got hooked on acting in junior high. Shortly after he moved to Los Angeles at age 15 to pursue his chosen career, Hauser was cast in the prep school anti-Semitism drama School Ties (1992) along with up-and-comers Brendan Fraser, Chris O'Donnell, Matt Damon, and Ben Affleck. After this auspicious beginning, Hauser became part of an equally noteworthy ensemble of young stars-to-be in Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993), appeared in the NBC TV movie A Matter of Justice (1993), played a skinhead in John Singleton's college drama Higher Learning (1995), and starred as an abusive boyfriend in All Over Me (1997). Hauser was cast in the lead role in the ABC series High Incident in 1996, but the show lasted only two seasons. Following a supporting role as one of Damon and Affleck's Boston cronies in their breakthrough hit Good Will Hunting (1997), Hauser played a small part in Stephen Frears' little seen modern Western The Hi-Lo Country (1998) and scored a hit as one of the marooned travelers battling mutant aliens in the sci-fi sleeper Pitch Black (2000). After reuniting with his Tigerland (2000) co-star Colin Farrell in the box office failure Hart's War (2002), Hauser gained more notice for his supporting role later that year in the women's melodrama White Oleander (2002). Though he only appeared in a few scenes, Hauser's kindly and sexy young foster dad Ray easily caught the eye of the audience as well as troubled foster teen Alison Lohman. Returning to more testosterone-friendly work, Hauser subsequently co-starred with Hart's War officer Bruce Willis in Antoine Fuqua's action thriller Man of War (2003), and got behind the nitro-charged wheel for the sequel The Fast and the Furious 2 (2003). He continued to work in little-seen fare like Paparazzi and The Cave, but did score a part as one of Vince Vaughn's brothers in the aptly titled comedy The Break-Up. Over the next several years, Hauser would remain active on screen, appearing in films like The Cave, The Break-Up, and The FAmily That Prays, as well as on TV series like K-Ville and Chase. Hauser's father is actor Wings Hauser.

Trivia: Is of Korean descent. Grew up in Chicago. Has performed in stage productions in New York City, Cuba, Canada, England and the Czech Republic. Studied and performed improvisational comedy with Improv Olympic West, Upright Citizens Brigade and Chicago City Limits. Has taught improv-comedy classes.

Trivia: Scottish actor Gerard Butler spent seven miserable years studying law before trying his hand at acting on the London stage. Half a decade later, a much happier Butler had over a dozen theater, movie, and television credits under his belt, including starring roles in the stage version of Trainspotting (1996) and the award-winning film Mrs. Brown (1997).Born on November 13, 1969, in Glasgow, Butler is the youngest of Margaret and Edward Butler's three children; he has a sister and a brother. When Butler was barely six months old, his family relocated to Montréal, Canada, where his father undertook several failed business ventures. A year and a half later, Butler's parents divorced, and his mother took the children back to Scotland. He saw his father once more when he was four years old, and then not again until he was 16. In the meantime, Butler grew up in his mother's hometown of Paisley, where he frequented a nearby movie theater. Enamored with acting, he convinced his mother to take him to auditions, eventually joining the Scottish Youth Theatre and playing a street urchin in Oliver! at the Kings Theatre in Glasgow. An exceptional student, Butler graduated at the top of his class. Hoping to please his family and his teachers, who felt acting was an unrealistic career choice, Butler enrolled in Glasgow University's law program. He served as the president of the school's law society and earned an honor's degree. After finishing college, Butler took a year and a half off to live in Los Angeles, where he appeared as an extra in the Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston vehicle The Bodyguard (1992). He then traveled to Canada to be at his father's bedside as he succumbed to cancer. Shortly after his father's death, Butler returned to Scotland to begin a two-year law traineeship in Edinburgh at one of the country's top firms. But he was bored and discontented as a lawyer, and still dreamed about performing. He went to see Trainspotting on-stage at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh and knew he had made the wrong career choice. Soon enough, Butler's unhappiness began to show in his work, and his firm fired him with only a week left in his training. Two days later, at age 25, he moved to London to begin his acting career. Butler took on a series of odd jobs -- from waiting tables to demonstrating clockwork toys at a trade show -- while looking for work as an actor. He was supposed to be serving as a casting assistant for the play Coriolanus at the Mermaid Theatre when he ran into the show's director, actor Steven Berkoff, at a coffee bar and asked to read for a part. Impressed with the ex-barrister's moxie, Berkoff agreed and Butler secured his first professional acting role. While rehearsing for Coriolanus, he accompanied one of the other actors to an audition for the same stage adaptation of Trainspotting he had seen in Edinburgh and landed the lead part of Mark Renton. In 1997, with his theater career firmly established, Butler made his big-screen debut opposite Billy Connolly and Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown. Sometime later, he had returned to the film's shooting location, Taymouth Castle, for a picnic when he saw a child drowning in the nearby River Tay. Butler dove into the water and saved the boy. The actor received a Certificate of Bravery from the Royal Humane Society for his selfless act. That same year, he earned a small speaking part as a bad guy in the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies before spoofing ex-Wet Wet Wet singer Marti Pellow for the 1998 series The Young Person's Guide to Becoming a Rock Star. Butler finished out the '90s by appearing in the television comedy Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married, as well as returning to the stage to appear opposite Sheila Gish and Rachel Weisz in Suddenly, Last Summer in London's West End. Butler began the new millennium with supporting parts in the gangster film Shooters (2000) and the war drama Harrison's Flowers (2000). He then simultaneously landed the high-profile title roles in Wes Craven's Dracula 2000 (2000) and the USA television movie Attila (2001). Produced by the creators of The Mummy franchise, Attila chronicled the life of the eponymous fifth century barbarian and co-starred veteran actors Tim Curry and Powers Boothe. It also re-teamed Butler with his Coriolanus director, Berkoff, who played his uncle in the film. The hype that surrounded both Dracula 2000 and Attila was fueled by CNN's announcement that Butler was the frontrunner to replace Pierce Brosnan as the next James Bond. The following months, however, were anticlimactic for Butler. Dracula 2000 bombed at the box office and Attila, though one of the year's highest-rated television miniseries, proved to be forgettable. The rumors surrounding his involvement with 007 were quickly quelled when Brosnan announced that he was staying on for at least two more Bond films, and the series' producers never contacted Butler. Determined to get back on his feet, Butler signed on with a new agency. He returned to British television for ITV's miniseries The Jury (2002), which also featured Derek Jacobi and Antony Sher, while simultaneously filming a role as Christian Bale's dragon-slaying best friend in the special-effects spectacle Reign of Fire (2002). He then quickly landed a supporting role in Renny Harlin's Mindhunters with Val Kilmer and LL Cool J, but pulled out of the project to play the lead in Richard Donner's long-awaited adaptation of Michael Crichton's best-selling novel Timeline (2003). Butler also turned heads as Angelina Jolie's hunky love interest in the sequel Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life that same year.Though, to this point in his career, Butler had no doubt displayed immense talent as an actor, the films he had appeared in had almost consistently disappointed in terms of box-office returns. In 2004, that disheartening trend continued as Butler donned the famous mask of the disfigured musical genius made popular on the stage by actor Michael Crawford in the big-screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, with subsequent roles in The Game of Their Lives and Beowulf & Grendel doing little to increase his international recognizability. By 2006, it seemed that Butler was finally poised to break big, and as he prepared to lead the soldiers of Sparta in battle against the overwhelming forces of the Persian Empire in Dawn of the Dead director Zack Snyder's adaptation of Frank Miller's popular graphic novel 300, it appeared as if he was determined to do so in style.The movie was a huge international box-office hit, and Butler followed it up with the Guy Ritchie film RocknRolla the next year. In 2009 he took the starring role in the thriller Law Abiding Citizen, and appeared in the virtual reality action film Gamer. 2010 saw the release of his romantic comedy The Bounty Hunter opposite Jennifer Aniston, and in 2011 he starred in the drama Machine Gun Preacher. That same year he played the arch enemy of Coriolanus in Ralph Fiennes adaptation of that Shakespearean tragedy.

Trivia: Of Cajun ethnicity.Started acting at a young age in his sister's dance reviews.Moved to New Orleans with his girlfriend Teri Wyble after graduating college.Appeared in Mississippi Grind (2015) and Lost Bayou (2019) along with his girlfriend, actor Teri Wyble.Godfather of his niece Greta.

Trivia: Lived in an army base in Lawtey, Florida.Had a speech impediment when he was a child.Appeared as an extra in the tv series Kenan & Kel.Studied acting under the guidance of actor Rus Blackwell.Wrote and performed the songs "Looking for Charlie" and "I Want to Take Her Home to My Mama" featured in the movie Tigerland (2000).Is a skilled piano player.Supports the Children's Defense Fund.