Trivia: Born January 30, 195, Charles Dutton attended the Yale School of Drama, and in 1983 he first appeared off-Broadway in Richard III. Before long he was delivering Tony-calibre performances in such Broadway productions as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and The Piano Lesson. In films since 1986's No Mercy, the forceful, thunder-voiced Dutton has been seen in movies ranging from the mirth-provoking Crocodile Dundee 2 to the spine-chilling Alien 3. In 1991, Charles Dutton began a long TV run as the star of the Fox Network sitcom Roc.Dutton became an actor while serving a seven and a half-year prison sentence for stabbing a man during a street fight. While in prison, Dutton was stabbed in the neck with an ice pick during a fight with another inmate. The incident proved to be the turning point in Dutton's life when he refused to retaliate. Shortly thereafter, he became interested in drama and while serving his sentence completed a two-year college degree course. Upon his release from prison, Dutton was admitted into the Yale School of Drama. There he studied under playwright August Wilson and director Lloyd Richards.In 2000, Dutton directed The Corner, an acclaimed miniseries from HBO adapted from David Simon and Ed Burns' novel "The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood". The Corner won several awards, including an Emmy for Best Miniseries, and Dutton himself was honored for his direction. This would not be the last Emmy he received; the actor won Emmy Awards in 2002 and 2003 for supporting roles in televisiond dramas The Practice and Without a Trace. In 2003, Dutton starred in the made-for-TV drama D.C. Sniper: 23 Days of Fear, and continued to make appearances on popular television shows including The L Word, The Sopranos, and House, M.D. Dutton joined the cast of Threshold in 2005. While the CBS science fiction series gained a loyal following, the show was short-lived. The actor went on to appear in filmmaker John Sayles' 2007 drama Honeydripper, which follows the owner of a blues club that was revitalized by a young electric guitarist.

Trivia: A graduate of the famous School for the Performing Arts, actor Rocky Carroll continued his studies at the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University before moving to New York in the mid-'80s to try his hand at a professional acting career. He soon found success with the Shakespeare on Broadway series, and cultivated a flourishing career on-stage. Carroll also branched into screen acting, with recurring roles on Roc and Chicago Hope, and in movies like Crimson Tide, Born on the Fourth of July, and Yes Man.

Trivia: A solid character actor whose balding head and craggy face are perfect for playing any number of stuffy bureaucrats, Mitch Pileggi gradually came to attention in the television world as FBI Deputy Director Walter S. Skinner, the man directly in charge of Special Agents Mulder and Scully in their investigations into The X-Files. At first played mainly as a brick wall for Mulder to run into periodically, Skinner has gradually taken on depth and nuance, as well as a certain mysterious quality -- he appears to be somehow involved with the mysterious Elders, yet has stood against them, and the Cigarette Smoking Man (William D. Davis) on more than one occasion. Skinner has also been the primary focus of several episodes, and has been tied directly into the mythology of the series. Neither Mulder nor Scully seem to have a firm idea of where Skinner stands and his position was supposed to be revealed in the 1998 X-Files motion picture.Pileggi is the son of a former Department of Defense contractor who took his family all over the world during Pileggi's youth. Pileggi himself also went to work, very briefly, for the Department of Defense, but abandoned that career track in favor of theater when he was 27 years old. He quickly graduated from the theater to parts in television and motion pictures, always playing relatively small, low-key parts. He had a recurring part in Dallas for a while. During his career he had lead billing only in Wes Craven's Shocker, in which he played a serial killer who manages to cheat the electric chair by becoming electrical energy himself. A couple of Pileggi fan clubs have been created since his first appearance on The X-Files, and his AudioBook readings of the various X-Files novelizations have done very well for HarperCollins. While Skinner's ultimate fate is unknown, he seems likely to survive the 1998 X-Files movie -- though one should be mindful of the ultimate fates of earlier characters Deep Throat and Mister X.

Trivia: Salt-and-pepper-haired, frequently mustachioed African-American character player Richard Gant tackled supporting roles in a plethora of Hollywood A-list features during the 1980s and '90s. Among other efforts, his resumé from that period includes Suspect (1987), Rocky V (1990), Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993), and CB4: The Movie (1993). Gant continued his big-screen roles through the tail end of that decade and well into the 2000s, but also achieved substantial recognition and audience identification on the small screen, with a regular role as Sgt. Bill Dornan on Steven Bochco's hit cop drama NYPD Blue. Gant later appeared memorably as the livery stable owner Hostetler on the HBO Western drama Deadwood, and joined the cast of long-running soap opera General Hospital as Dr. Russell Ford in 2007.