Trivia: An actor whose hulking presence belies his ability to slip quietly into an astonishing variety of roles, Vincent D'Onofrio is one of Hollywood's most unpredictable and compelling performers. Throughout his career, D'Onofrio has played a diverse range of characters, from Full Metal Jacket's fatally unhinged army recruit to a wholly convincing Orson Welles in Ed Wood to a bisexual porn star in The Velocity of Gary.Born in Brooklyn, NY, on June 30, 1959, D'Onofrio was raised in the diverse locales of Hawaii, Colorado, and Miami's Hialeah section. His career as an actor began on the stage, with study under Sonia Moore of New York's American Stanislavsky Theatre and Sharon Chatten at the Actors Studio. D'Onofrio's early years in the theater were filled with an obligatory helping of obscurity and miniscule paychecks (so miniscule that he worked for a time as a bouncer to help pay the bills). His fortunes began to shift in 1984, when he joined the American Stanislavsky Theatre as a performer. There, he appeared in such well-regarded productions as Of Mice and Men and David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and also made his Broadway debut in Open Admissions.D'Onofrio debuted onscreen in the straight-to-oblivion 1983 comedy The First Turn-On!, but it was not until his haunting portrayal of Pvt. Pyle (a role for which the actor gained 70 pounds) four years later in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket that he earned much-deserved notice for his work. Defying easy categorization, D'Onofrio next appeared in the romantic comedy Mystic Pizza (1988), slimming down to his normal weight and giving a convincing portrayal as Lili Taylor's lovestruck boyfriend.Having thus given audiences a glimpse of his remarkable versatility, D'Onofrio spent the next few years making his presence felt in such films as JFK (1991), in which he played assassination witness Bill Newman; The Player (1992), which cast him in the pivotal role of ill-fated screenwriter David Kahane; and Nancy Savoca's Household Saints (1993), which, through a particularly odd feat of casting, had him playing the father of Lili Taylor. Although D'Onofrio worked at a prolific pace, it was not until he portrayed Conan the Barbarian author Robert E. Howard in the 1996 The Whole Wide World that he really had his screen breakthrough. A low-key romantic drama about the relationship between Howard and a schoolteacher (Renée Zellweger), the film allowed D'Onofrio to take center stage, rather than lend support to better-known co-stars. Critics roundly applauded his performance, but although the actor kept working steadily, he was by no means a Hollywood fixture. Eschewing the limelight, he turned in particularly memorable performances in Feeling Minnesota (1996) as Cameron Diaz's cuckolded fiancé and in the 1997 blockbuster Men in Black, which cast him as the film's resident bad guy.D'Onofrio had long since become an established actor by the 2000's, and he would remain a solid force on screen in such films as The Cell, Happy Accidents, Steal This Movie, andThumbsucker. D'Onofrio would also find just as much notoriety on the small screen, most notably as Detective Robert Goren on the phenomenally successful Law & Order spin-off Criminal Intent, and even step behind the camera, penning, helming and starring in the drama Mall.

Trivia: Born and raised in the Boston area, Erbe left her hometown to study drama at New York University. After making her TV debut as Lynn Redgrave's daughter on the short-lived TV sitcom Chicken Soup (1989), she returned to New York and was cast in the acclaimed 1990 Broadway production of The Grapes of Wrath. Erbe soon scored her first major film credit as Richard Dreyfuss' daughter in the Bill Murray comedy What About Bob? (1991) and alternated stage work as a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Atlantic Theatre Company with TV and films throughout the 1990s, most notably in Rich in Love (1992), George Wallace (1997), Kiss of Death (1995), The Addiction, (1995), and Stir of Echoes. Erbe also earned major acclaim on the HBO series Oz. As the 2000's unfolded for the actress, she found continued success in TV, playing the role of Detective Alexandra Eames on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Trivia: Character actor Jamey Sheridan has had a prolific acting career in theater, television, and film productions. Born in California to a family of actors, he made it to Broadway and earned a Tony nomination in 1987 for his performance in the revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons. After several TV movie appearances, he landed a reoccurring role as lawyer Jack Shannon on Shannon's Deal, which ran for one season in 1990. His later television roles include Dr. John Sutton on Chicago Hope (from 1995-1996) and Captain Deakins on Law & Order: Criminal Intent (since 2001). Sheridan started his film career in the late '80s with small roles, and by the '90s he was playing the token family man, a role he would continue in both film and television. He was also capable of playing villains, as he did in the 1994 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand. Other interesting roles include Marty Stouffer in Wild America and the psychotic neighbor in Video Voyeur: The Susan Wilson Story. After a long history of performing Shakespeare on the stage, Sheridan appeared in Campbell Scott's production of Hamlet in 2000 as well as the Hamlet-inspired modern noir film Let the Devil Wear Black in 1999. He's also given fine supporting performances in The Ice Storm, Cradle Will Rock, Life as a House, and numerous TV movies. In teh early 2000s Sheriden frequently alternated between film and television, though it was his role on the popular detective series Law and Order: Criminal Intent that offered him the most exposure. It was during his five year run on that show that he was diagnosed with Bell's palsy, a nerve disorder that temporarily causes partial facial paralysis, and the writers ultimately incorporated that condition into the show. In 2011 Sheridan joined the cast of the Showtime drama Homeland, which centered on a Marine sergeant and war hero who returns home to the U.S. after eight years missing in Iraq, only to be pursued by a CIA officer who's convinced he's been turned into a terrosit by Al-Qaeda.Sheridan and his wife, actress Colette Kilroy, have two children.

Trivia: Although he had been appearing in both film and television productions since the mid-'80s, it took nearly two decades for actor Courtney B. Vance to finally receive recognition. The Detroit native was bitten by the acting bug while a student at Harvard, and though he had originally intended to study history, he felt the lure of the stage and was soon appearing in productions at Harvard before eventually joining the Boston Shakespeare Company. After graduation, Vance continued his acting career at the Yale School of Drama, and it was there that he first gained notice for his role opposite James Earl Jones in the August Wilson drama Fences. In 1987, Vance made his film debut in the war drama Hamburger Hill, and though he remained true to his stage roots in the ensuing years, screen roles kept rolling in. The actor climbed the credits throughout the 1990s with a series of supporting roles in The Hunt for Red October (1990), Beyond the Law (1992), and The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993). 1995 proved something of a breakthrough year for the rising star, with roles in Panther, Dangerous Minds, and The Last Supper offering him more screen time than ever. In 1996, Vance held his own as a minister opposite Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston in The Preacher's Wife. Drawing from his own faith -- which had recently been reawakened by the suicide of his father -- for the role, Vance also had memorable performances in Cookie's Fortune in 1999 and Space Cowboys the following year. He portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in the dramatic miniseries Parting the Waters (2000) and made another solid impression on television viewers the next year with a role in the popular series Law & Order: Criminal Intent.Vance would stick with the series for five years, concurrently appearing on the long-running medical drama ER. By the time he had finished his run on both programs, he was on to the science fictions series Flash Forward from 2009-2010, before signing on to appear alongside Michael Biehn in the post-apocalyptic horror flick The Divide in 2011.

Trivia: Broadway-to-Hollywood transplant Jason Antoon is no stranger to the hardships of show business. Raised in Pacific Palisades and Sherman Oaks, CA, he moved to Pittsburgh after graduating high school in order to study drama at Carnegie Mellon University. After earning his Bachelor's of Fine Arts in 1994, he relocated to New York City to begin his professional acting career. Unfortunately, paying gigs were few and far between and when Antoon did work it was most likely as a guest star or an understudy. He appeared in small roles on Fox's New York Undercover, ABC's Spin City, and NBC's Law & Order, as well as in the television film Path to Paradise: The Untold Story of the World Trade Center Bombing (1997). On-stage, he served as standby for the leads in Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile and the Roundabout Theater Company's Scapin. Antoon earned his breakout role in 2000, when Susan Stroman cast him as a principal performer in her innovative dance play, Contact. The Broadway production won the 2000 Tony Award for Best Musical and Antoon earned a Drama Desk Award nomination for his work. Many theater critics openly felt that he was unfairly shut out of the Tony nominations. When Antoon's contract ended in the winter of 2001, he left Contact to return to television and film. He appeared on the East Coast-based shows A&E's 100 Centre Street, NBC's Ed, and HBO's Sex and the City before leaving for Los Angeles. Antoon's career hit a snag when NBC did not pick up his sitcom pilot, "Count Me In," for its fall season and Paramount delayed his major feature-film debut, Phil Alden Robinson's The Sum of All Fears (2002), from its 2001 release. Antoon remained in Hollywood, even when asked by Contact director Stroman to audition for the part of Ali Hakim in the Broadway revival Oklahoma! His decision quickly paid off: The Sum of All Fears, which starred Morgan Freeman and Ben Affleck, opened at number one in the box office in the spring of 2002. Barely a month later, Antoon delivered a scene-stealing performance as an eccentric cyber parlor owner opposite Tom Cruise in Steven Spielberg's Minority Report (2002). Well on his way to becoming a recognizable supporting actor, the actor went on to appear alongside Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock in the romantic comedy Two Weeks Notice (2002).

Trivia: Citing Danny Kaye as one of his foremost idols, American actor Arye Gross has done well for himself in a variety of supporting roles in television and film; like Kaye, he shows a particular talent for playing affable, if quirky, young men. While his feature debut was rather unremarkable -- he was credited as, simply, "Turbo" in 1984's forgettable The Exterminator 2 -- he was able to achieve top billing throughout the late '80s and mid-'90s for his performances in House 2: The Second Story (1987), The Couch Trip (1988), Coupe de Ville (1990), For the Boys (1991), and Hexed (1993). 1992's A Midnight Clear earned him particular acclaim for his role as a GI alongside Ethan Hawke and Gary Sinise. However, it wasn't until 1994, when Gross landed the part of good-hearted but somewhat hapless Adam on the award-winning sitcom Ellen, that he found prominent mainstream recognition. Gross continued to work in film during Ellen's four-year run -- in 1996, he was able to act with Kirsten Dunst and Nick Nolte in Keith Gordon's war-themed satire Mother Night, and during that same year, he played Tadpole opposite Tony Curtis in The Continued Adventures of Reptile Man and His Faithful Sidekick Tadpole. Several years later, critics praised Gross' performance as a metropolitan artist forced to return to his hometown in Montana in Big Eden. After appearing in Seven Girlfriends (2000) and Burning Down the House (2001), Gross played the ill-fated, would-be criminal Howard Marks in Steven Spielberg's Minority Report. In 2003, Gross could be seen in a recurring role on HBO's hit series Six Feet Under.

Trivia: With a barrage of spot-on celebrity impressions to keep audiences laughing, Saturday Night Live cast member Darrell Hammond has memorably harassed Alex Trebek (or at least Will Ferrell doing an easily angered caricature of Trebek) and skewered former president Bill Clinton on the late-night television staple with equal aplomb.Finely tuning his impressions from the time of his childhood in Melbourne, FL, Hammond decided to pursue his niche after graduating from the University of Florida at Gainesville. Following his schooling Hammond relocated to New York to appear in off-Broadway plays, though he would soon return to Florida to sharpen his comedy skills in radio. After joining the SNL cast in September of 1995, Hammond also turned up on television in 3rd Rock From the Sun and performed stand-up for Comedy Central's Premium Blend. The versatile comic also followed the lead of numerous SNL cast members before him in shooting for the big screen in such efforts as Blues Brothers 2000 (1998) and with voice work in The King and I (1999). In 2006 he played a small supporting role in Ira & Abby, an offbeat romantic comedy following a neurotic thirtysomething who decides to make some major changes to his life after being dumped by both his girlfriend and his therapist. The following year he appeared in Epic Movie, and starred as a serial murderer known as the Kareoke Killer in the 2010 black comedy Buzzkill.

Trivia: At 14, was cast in her first movie, the short film Liminality starring Stephen Baldwin. Left home when she was 16 to study acting full-time in New York City. Beat out 500 hopefuls to land a role opposite Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart in the 2010 docudrama The Runaways. Was named after famed acting coach Stella Adler.