Trivia: Actor Lee Pace was born in Oklahoma, but spent some of his childhood living overseas with his family. While studying back in the states, he got involved in regional theater and was accepted to the Juilliard School. His early stage credits include Romeo and Juliet, King Richard III, and Julius Caesar. After receiving his BFA, he made his professional stage debut in the off-Broadway play The Credeux Canvas. His striking television debut came the next year in the Showtime original movie A Soldier's Girl, based on a true story. He received recognition at the Golden Globes, Gotham Awards, and the Independent Spirit Awards for his portrayal of transgendered nightclub singer Calpernia Addams. The same year, Pace could also be seen in the Los Angeles regional theater production of Blackout.Riding high on the buzz from A Soldier's Girl, in 2004 Pace landed a role on the Fox dramedy Wonderfalls. While the show gained a cult-following, it only lasted half a season, but Pace's rise continued with roles in such well-received features as Infamous and The Good Shepherd. The coming years would find particular success for Pace in movies like A Single Man, Marmaduke, and When in Rome, not to mention franchise films like The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Trivia: During the early 2000s, actor Scoot McNairy quickly came to specialize in portrayals of colorful and individualistic young men with a slightly rebellious edge. McNairy began during the early to mid-2000s, with bit parts in films including Wonderland (2003), Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005), and Art School Confidential (2006). He took his first bow as a producer with 2007's In Search of a Midnight Kiss, in which he also starred. That indie romantic comedy concerns a young man (McNairy) all washed up on New Year's Eve -- until an impulsive ad on Craigslist leads him to the great love of his life (Sara Simmonds) and an extraordinary night on the town.

Trivia: Briefly worked as a model in college. The first film she acted in was Breathe In. Did gender studies in university and is an outspoken feminist. Audited online classes at MIT to learn the Python programming language in preparation for her role as computer hacker Cameron Howe on Halt and Catch Fire. Her hobby is making bone sculptures from mouse skeletons she retrieves from owl pellets.

Trivia: With an astonishing resumé that incorporates everything from Seinfeld to Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill, character actor Toby Huss qualifies as a staple of American pop culture. Born December 12, 1966 in Marshalltown, IA (the birthplace of many an actor or actress), Huss grew up in the American heartland, then briefly attended the University of Iowa after high school before dropping out and heading to Tinseltown. The elusiveness of Huss' name recognition is tied inextricably to his versatility -- most viewers will remember such inimitable creations as Cotton Hill (on Mike Judge's King of the Hill); Artie -- The Strongest Man in the World (on The Adventures of Pete & Pete); and The Wiz ("Nobody beats me, cause I'm the Wiz!"), a nutty appliance salesman who dates Elaine, on Seinfeld -- but only the most incisive of viewers could tie them to the same person. Huss also portrayed Felix "Stumpy" Dreifuss on the HBO period drama Carnivàle (2003-2005) and Big Mike on the irreverent Comedy Central series Reno 911! (2003-2007). In addition to his television work, Huss has graced nearly 40 feature films with his presence, and nearly all are laugh-fests that take full advantage of the actor's comic flair. These include: Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996), Harold Ramis' Bedazzled (2000), and The Country Bears (2002). As Beavis and Bears demonstrate, Huss is particularly adept at voice work.

Trivia: Made her off-Broadway debut in the Irish Repertory Theatre's 2006 production of The Hairy Ape; subsequently played the title role in the Alan Rickman-directed My Name Is Rachel Corrie. Made the jump to Broadway in 2007, portraying Clara in a Roundabout Theatre production of Pygmalion. Worked with Zach Braff on Night Life, an unaired 2008 drama pilot directed by the Scrubs star. Joined the cast of Scrubs the following year, taking over Braff's narration duties.

Trivia: Independent film star Aleksa Palladino began her career in a starring role, at the age of 15, in Lisa Krueger's debut feature Manny & Lo (1996). Palladino played Lo, the pregnant runaway sister of Manny (Scarlett Johansson). For the next couple of years, she continued getting starring roles in small indie films including Red Dirt, Wrestling With Alligators, and The Adventures of Sebastian Cole. Making a brief move to made-for-TV movies, she starred in the USA Network original movie The Huntress as a 19-year-old girl avenging her father's death. Eventually, she accepted a couple of supporting roles for two downbeat dramas in 2001, Todd Solondz's Storytelling and Tanya Wexler's Ball in the House. Over the coming years, Palladino would find particular success with the period series Boardwalk Empire.

Trivia: Performer Skylar Astin graduated to film by way of musical theater, where he ushered in a nearly constant presence on and off Broadway, with roles including Javert in Les Miserables, Timmy in Timmy the Great, and -- in a highly visible dual performance -- Georg and Dieter in Spring Awakening. Astin took his on-camera bow as Rand Posin, a closeted teenage homosexual, in director Andrew Fleming's musical farce Hamlet 2 (2008). Astin's career exploded when he played Jesse in the hit Pitch Perfect in 2012. He next took a role in 21 and Over and turned to television in 2013 with a starring role in the TBS comedy Ground Floor. He also reprised his role in Pitch Perfect 2 in 2015.

Trivia: Was a member of the Kilgore College Rangerettes dance team, with which she performed in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Spotted by a Los Angeles talent scout while acting in Dallas-area community-theater productions. Made her TV debut in a 2003 episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. First major big-screen role came in 2008, with the Martin Lawrence comedy Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins.

Trivia: Long-time character actor James Cromwell has spent much of his career on stage and television, only occasionally appearing in feature films until the early '90s, when his film work began to flourish. The tall, spare actor first became known to an international audience with his role as the taciturn but kindly Farmer Hoggett, the owner of a piglet that wants to be a sheepdog, in the smash hit Babe (1995). His work in the film earned Cromwell an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, as well as numerous opportunities for steady work in Hollywood.The son of noted director John Cromwell and actress Kay Johnson, he originally aspired to become a mechanical engineer, attending both Vermont's Middlebury College and the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). But after a summer spent on a movie set with his father, the acting bug bit, and Cromwell decided to become an actor. He started out in regional theater, acting and directing in a variety productions for ten years, and he was a regular performer at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles. Cromwell made his television debut in the recurring role of "Stretch" Cunningham on All in the Family in 1974, and he subsequently spent the rest of the decade and much of the 1980s on television, as a regular on such shows as Hot L Baltimore and The Last Precinct. Cromwell also appeared in such miniseries as NBC's Once an Eagle and in such made-for-television movies as A Christmas Without Snow (1980). Cromwell made his feature film debut in the comedy Murder By Death (1976). His film work was largely undistinguished until Babe; following the film's success, he began appearing in more substantial roles in a number of popular films, including The People Vs. Larry Flynt (1996), in which he played Charles Keating; Star Trek: First Contact (1996), which cast him as the reluctant scientist responsible for Earth's first contact with alien life forms; and L.A. Confidential (1997), in which he gave a marvelously loathsome performance as a crooked police captain. Adept at playing nice guys and bottom-dwelling scum alike, Cromwell next earned strong notices for his portrayal of a penitentiary warden in The Green Mile (1999).The respected character actor continued strongly into the next decade with appearances in Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys as well as the live-on-TV production of Fail Safe in 2000. He enjoyed a recurring role on E.R. in 2001. He played the president in the 2002 Jack Ryan movie The Sum of All Fears. In 2003 he took on a recurring role in the respected HBO drama Six Feet Under, and also appeared in the award-winning HBO adaptation of Angels in America. In 2006 he acted opposite Helen Mirren playing Prince Philip in The Queen, and played another head of state for Oliver Stone when he portrayed George Herbert Walker Bush in the biopic W. In 2011 he was the loyal butler to the main character in the Best Picture Oscar winner for that year, The Artist.