Trivia: Whether he's acting or co-writing brilliantly quirky character studies with director/writing partner Wes Anderson, Owen C. Wilson's work exudes an insouciant yet earnest charm and eccentric comic sensibility, making him one of the most promising new talents to emerge in the 1990s.Born in Dallas on November 18th, 1968, Wilson raised enough hell in high school to get expelled from one institution in tenth grade, but he managed to attend college at the University of Texas in Austin and graduate in 1991. Along with his degree, Wilson's Austin years resulted in a budding partnership with a like-minded creative classmate, aspiring filmmaker Wes Anderson. Their first film together, a short about a bookstore heist called Bottle Rocket, played at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, attracting the attention of producer Polly Platt and writer/director James L. Brooks. With Brooks' support, Wilson and Anderson expanded the short into a feature, indie cult favorite Bottle Rocket (1996). Though it made little impression at the box office, Anderson and Wilson's distinctly offbeat, wry, and optimistic tale about aspiring criminal Dignan and his best friend Anthony (played by Wilson's brother Luke Wilson) earned ardent fans among cinéastes. Wilson's inspired performance as Dignan, not to mention his blond hair, large grin, and affable drawl, became his Hollywood calling card. That same year, Wilson also began a fertile association with actor/director Ben Stiller, appearing in one memorable scene as a smooth, ill-fated date in Stiller's black comedy The Cable Guy (1996).Alternating between supporting roles in Hollywood spectacles, collaborations with Anderson and Stiller, and smaller independent projects, Wilson worked steadily for the rest of the 1990s. Though he always seemed to fill the generic slot of Guy Marked for Death, Wilson still managed to bring a reliably laid-back, humorous spark to the bombastic proceedings in Anaconda (1997), Armageddon (1998), and The Haunting (1999). On a more artistically successful front, Wilson's next script with Anderson resulted in the lauded coming-of-age film Rushmore (1998). With its singular cast of characters, distinctive combination of deadpan humor and true emotion, and superb performances by Jason Schwartzman as teen prodigy Max Fischer and Bill Murray as depressed millionaire Blume, Rushmore earned prizes from the critics (if not the Academy) and proved that Bottle Rocket was no fluke. As far as acting, Wilson's ability to suggest complexity beneath a breezy surface earned positive notice for his unsettling performance as a laconic, self-styled Good Samaritan serial killer in indie thriller The Minus Man (1999).By 2000, Wilson began to take center stage in larger Hollywood projects as well. Though it was another Jackie Chan vehicle, Wilson's hilarious co-starring turn as a surfer dude-tinged outlaw in the chop socky Western Shanghai Noon (2000) nearly stole the movie. Wilson's brief appearance as a Jesus-loving, super rich romantic rival to Ben Stiller's put-upon Greg Focker was a comic highlight of the hit Meet the Parents (2000). Stiller's supermodel farce Zoolander (2001) further sealed Wilson's status as a superlative comic actor. As Zoolander's rival Hansel, Wilson's offbeat timing made him the ultimate bubble-headed mannequin; his catwalk competition with Stiller provided the biggest laughs in a hit-or-miss movie. Even as he flourished in broad Hollywood comedy, Wilson continued his partnership with Wes Anderson, co-writing with Anderson and co-starring (with his brother Luke and Stiller among others) in the unusual family story The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). Branching out into serious roles, Wilson then co-starred with The Royal Tenenbaums patriarch Gene Hackman in the military drama Behind Enemy Lines (2001). An increasingly prevalent figure in action films following the millennial turnover, Wilson followed Behind Enemy Lines with I Spy (2002) and the Shanghai Noon sequel Shanghai Knights (2003) before appearing opposite Morgan Freeman in the critical and commercial disappointment The Big Bounce and co-starring in the underwhelming big screen adaptation of Starsky & Hutch. He made his third appearance in a Jackie Chan vehicle in the 2004 Disney production Around the World in 80 Days; though poised to be a blockbuster, the mega-budgeted film was one of the biggest flops of the season.A rebound was in order, and if his supporting turn in the 2004 holiday-season blockbuster sequel Meet the Fockers wasn't enough, Wilson found his greatest leading-man success to date as foil to the bawdy Vince Vaughn in 2005's raunchy, runaway hit The Wedding Crashers. The Wilson-Vaughn pairing challenged the Wilson-Stiller hilarity quotient as a pair of divorce consultants who bide their free time crashing weddings to get laid. The $200-million smash was indeed a tough act to follow, and while 2006's You, Me and Dupree - a thematic reprise of his Wedding Crashers role in which he plays an irritating houseguest who refuses to vacate - was something of a letdown, Wilson more than made up for it that same year with a leading voice role in Pixar's Cars and a supporting turn in Stiller's special-effects comedy A Night at the Museum.For the next couple of years, Wilson continued to stick with what worked - collaborations with Anderson (The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)) and sequels in his hit franchises (Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian (2009), Little Fockers (2010) and Cars 2 (2011)). He also starred in Woody Allen's Mightnight in Paris (2011), earning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy.Romantically linked, by turns, with a pre-Ashton Demi Moore, rocker Sheryl Crow, and actress Kate Hudson, Wilson, with his shaggy blond mane, blue eyes, and (as one magazine cited humorously in its front cover headline) "unusual nose," also found himself the unlikely forebear of a new wave of Hollywood sex symbols.

Trivia: Rubber-faced comic actor and vocal artist extraordinaire Hank Azaria initially plied his trade on the stand-up circuit, then subsequently landed stage appearances and tackled bit parts on television. Azaria scored his breakthrough in 1989 when he began providing a multitude of voices for the Fox network's groundbreaking animated series The Simpsons, an assignment that imparted the performer with an enviable degree of cult stardom. In 1991, Azaria nabbed a major role in the Fox live-action sitcom Herman's Head, which ran until 1994 and gave audiences a glimpse of the man responsible for the vocal intonations of some of the most famous characters to ever corrupt an animator's storyboard.A native of Queens, NY, where he was born into a family of Sephardic Jews on April 25, 1964, Azaria commenced film roles in the late 1980s, coincident with his Simpsons stardom. Work on that program (which, after graduating from a series of crude sketches on The Tracey Ullmann Show to its own animated sitcom, quickly shot up to qualify as the Fox network's most popular enterprise) easily outstripped Azaria's screen work in popularity and visibility for many years. Recurring parts included Indian convenience store owner Apu, quack doctor Nick Riviera, dim-witted bartender Moe, and the idiotic, pig-nosed Springfield Chief of Police, Clancy Wiggum. Though his Simpsons work continued unabated over the years, beginning in the mid-1990s Azaria branched out somewhat, placing a heavier emphasis on live-action portrayals. Even in that venue, however, his work tonally mirrored his animated contributions; he specialized in adroitly handling goofy, over-the-top character parts, often with an ethnic bent. The performer attained visibility and memorability, for example, as the klutzy and scantily-dressed gay houseboy Agador in The Birdcage (1995), Hector, a goofy Hispanic paramour with a permanent effeminate lisp, in Joe Roth's underrated showbiz comedy America's Sweethearts (2001), and Claude, a Gallic beach bum with no qualms about taking off with other men's wives, in John Hamburg's gross-out romantic comedy Along Came Polly (2004).Azaria has also departed from the boundaries of screen comedy from time to time, doing memorable work across genre lines in such films as Great Expectations (1998) (which cast him as Gwyneth Paltrow's lackluster fiancé), Mystery Men (1999) (as the superhero Blue Raja), and Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock (1999), a historical drama about art and politics in 1930s New York that cast Azaria as leftist playwright Marc Blitzstein. In 2005, Azaria presided as one of the many off-color monologuists in Penn Jillette's stand-up comedy showcase film The Aristocrats; the performer subsequently provided at least seventeen voices (including his usual series roles) for The Simpsons Movie (2007) and voiced both Abbie Hoffmann and Allen Ginsberg in the animated sequences of Brett Morgen's offbeat documentary Chicago 10 (2007).He appeared in the pre-historic comedy Year One, and provided several voices in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. He played an ethically challenged doctor in Love and Other Drugs, and portrayed Gargamel, the bad guy in the big-screen hit The Smurfs. He was in family film Hop, and lent his prodigious vocal talents to Happy Feet Two. In 2012 he acted in the biopic Lovelace.In July 1999, Azaria married actress Helen Hunt, with whom he co-starred in several episodes of the sitcom Mad About You. The two divorced within eighteen months.

Trivia: An alumnus of New York City's High School of Music and Arts and Bard College, actor/writer/director Christopher Guest made his initial Broadway appearance in the 1970 revival of Room Service; two years later, he co-starred in Moonchildren. Guest's early acting accomplishments have tended to become obscured in the light of his extensive work for the National Lampoon folks: he wrote several articles for the Lampoon magazine, and was a writer/performer for the organization's radio programs, record albums, and stage reviews. His extensive comic talents went largely untapped in such "mainstream" acting assignments as the made-for-TV Blind Ambition (1982), in which he portrayed Nixon intimate Jeb Stuart Magruder, and the theatrical feature The Long Riders (1982), in which he was co-starred with his younger brother Nicholas.In 1982, Guest played divorced suburbanite Bucky Frische in Million Dollar Infield (1982), a made-for-TV movie produced and co-written by Rob Reiner. His association with Reiner extended into appearances in the latter's big-screen directorial efforts: In This is Spinal Tap (1983), Guest not only penned the script but also played heavy metal rocker Nigel Tufnel; and in The Princess Bride (1986), cast as the evil Count Rubin, he offered a sly impression of British character actor Henry Daniell. Guest has since parlayed his "Spinal Tap" association into something of a second career, touring as Nigel Tufnel with fellow "Tap" members David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) and composing many of the group's "hits." On TV, Guest was a regular during the 1984-1985 season of Saturday Night Live and shared a scriptwriting Emmy for a 1976 Lily Tomlin special. Making his directorial debut with the Tinseltown satire The Big Picture (1989), Guest has gone on to helm the TV-movie remake of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1993), the "Johnny Appleseed" segment of Shelley Duvall's cable-TV anthology American Tall Tales and Legends, and most of the episodes of Rob Reiner's 1992 TV sitcom Morton and Hayes.After once again appearing as Nigel Tufnel in The Return of Spinal Tap (1992), the latter '90s found Guest expanding on his successes in the world of showbiz mockery by taking the directors chair with a few irreverent faux documentaries of his own. Re-teaming with fellow bandmates McKean and Shearer for the musical numbers in Waiting for Guffman (1996), the critically praised comedy proved that Guest's eye for satire was indeed as sharp as his pen. Following with some vocal work in Small Soldiers (1998), Guest returned to the director's chair for what would be comedian Chris Farley's last film, Almost Heroes (1998). Both of these projects proved to be brief diversions, though, and, as old habits die hard, Guest couldn't resist his urges for parody for long.Though not related (in a traditional sense) to show business, Best in Show targeted a subject that some may say was screaming for parody, the world of Championship Dog shows. His skills as a director more focused and refined than ever, Guest lead a talented cast of the usual suspects in creating yet another hilarious and scathing take on a what many considered to be well-deserving subject. After earning a Golden Globe nomination for "Best Comedy" at that year's ceremony, the film went on to live a healthy life on DVD and cable television. Guest's next film set its sights on a target that many may agree was begging for the treatment even more so than that of his last subject, and though A Mighty Wind's spot on folk song parodies would prove almost so effective as to be considered the real deal, the film itself differed from Best in Show in that it sharply divided its supporters and detractors as few of his films had. Guest worked as an actor, screenwriter, songwriter, and director for The Mighty Wind (2003), an award-winning mockuementary chronicling the ups and downs of a career in folk music, and again with For Your Consideration (2006). The actor would co-star with Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins in Mr. Henderson Presents (2005), which followed a wealthy eccentric determined to transform a dingy London theater into a thriving hotspot for entertainment, and take on roles in 2009's The Invention of Lying and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. Guest is married to actress Jamie Lee Curtis.

Trivia: Steve Coogan's inspired, off-the-cuff lead performance in 2002's Brit-rock biopic 24 Hour Party People had American critics heralding the arrival of a unique new talent -- but to U.K. audiences, his star turn was the next logical step for one of that country's most celebrated comics. Born into a working-class, Catholic family in Manchester, England, Coogan took to performance in his teens, and hit the standup scene soon thereafter. It was there that television casting agents took notice of his spot-on impersonations of world leaders, pop stars, and sundry celebrities, and they soon put him to work playing various comedic bit parts in network shows. One of his early breakthroughs came when he provided several recurring voices on the long-running puppet show Spitting Image, a weekly satirical review that took aim at Margaret Thatcher, Michael Jackson, and Ronald Reagan, among others.Coogan's talents led him away from the small screen to radio, where he made an even bigger splash with the comedy program On the Hour. The show gave the comedian free reign to try out a number of vocal characterizations, among them the arrogant, ignorant radio announcer Alan Partridge, whose hilariously lame puns and non-sequiturs quickly made him -- and, by proxy, Coogan -- an audience favorite. Coogan parlayed the Partridge character into a mini-empire, first with his own mock radio talk show -- cheekily titled Knowing Me, Knowing You...With Alan Partridge -- then in the flesh on 1994's BBC 2 news satire The Day Today, and finally with the wildly successful TV show Knowing Me, Knowing You...With Alan Partridge.Not content to rest on Partridge's laurels, Coogan developed many other characters through the '90s, taking them on the road for a wildly successful standup tour late in the decade. It was around this time that he was approached by iconoclastic director Michael Winterbottom to play the part of Tony Wilson, the charismatic Manchester TV personality who found himself the unlikely founder of one of the most influential record labels of the '80s. 24 Hour Party People charted the rise and fall of Factory Records, home to such bands as Joy Division, New Order, and the Happy Mondays, all of which were nurtured by the intuitive, unpredictable Wilson. In Coogan, Winterbottom saw a spiritual heir: Both men were born and raised in Manchester, and both had been impetuous on-air performers. The director wouldn't take "no" for an answer, and as the two forged ahead on the picture, Coogan began to develop his own slant on Wilson, improvising dialogue and talking directly to the camera. The unconventional biopic won raves at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival, with Coogan in particular singled out for the wit and ingenuity of his freewheeling interpretation. Though touted in the press as British cinema's "next Trainspotting," 24 Hour Party People failed to perform at the U.K. box office, where it was effectively steamrolled by two other hit British comedies, Bend It Like Beckham and Ali G: Indahouse. 24 Hour's arthouse U.S. run later that year was solid, if unremarkable, as American audiences had less of a vested interest in the subject matter. Still, Hollywood casting agents were duly impressed with Coogan, and lured him to Tinseltown for the plum role of Phileas Fogg in the big-budget updating of Around the World in 80 Days, which was prepped for a high-profile summer 2004 release.Coogan would continue to enjoy his success on screen over the coming years in films like Hamlet 2 and The Trip.

Trivia: Born in Reading, England, Ricky Gervais worked in the music industry as a radio DJ, band manager, and music supervisor before getting into comedy. As a writer, he provided scripts for the U.K. television series Bruiser and The Sketch Show. As an actor, he was seen quite a bit on The 11 O'Clock Show and provided the voice of the Penguin in the animated show Robbie the Reindeer: Legend of the Lost Tribe. In 2000, he had his own show called Meet Ricky Gervais. On the big screen, Gervais appeared as the bouncer in the U.K. comedy Dog Eat Dog. He's most known, however, as the writer/director/star of the hit BBC comedy series The Office. He plays David Brent, regional manager of the Wernham Hogg paper company in the London industrial suburb of Slough. A brilliant observation of the contemporary workplace, the show has won a variety of awards over in Britain. Gervais received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Comedy Series in 2003. Projects for 2004 include voice work on the animated film Valiant and producing an Americanized version of The Office with director Greg Daniels. He created and starred in Extras, another bitingly funny TV series, this one about a struggling actor. In 2008 he had a leading role for the first time in an American film, the supernatural comedy Ghost Town. The next year he wrote, directed, and starred in the acerbic comedy The Invention of Lying. He earned a ton of buzz in 2010 for his prickly hosting of the Golden Globes, a job he would repeat the next two years as well. In 2011 he debuted a new show he created with actor Warwick Davis, Life's Too Short.

Trivia: Square-jawed comedic actor Bill Hader emerged as an onscreen presence in the mid- to late 2000s, both as a regular player on the hallowed Saturday Night Live and as an occasional performer in movies such as the animated Doogal (2004) and the Owen Wilson vehicle You, Me and Dupree (2006). Hader rose to higher billing with his guffaw-inducing turn in the frat-boy comedy Superbad (2007), playing a seriously irresponsible cop and the partnered with Seth Rogen. He was the brother to Jason Segel's character in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, had a brief but memorable cameo right at the beginning of Pineapple Express, and played a sycophantic assistant to Tom Cruise's monstrous Hollywood mogul in Tropic Thunder, all in 2008. The next year he had a huge hit voicing a character in the animated smash Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and earned good reviews for his work in Adventureland. He appeared in the sci-fi comedy Paul in 2011. Hader continued to appear in supporting and cameo roles in films, appearing in an impressive nine films in 2013 (many of them voice roles, including Monsters University and reprising his role in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2), before annoucing he was leaving Saturday Night Live. Once leaving SNL, he stretched his acting legs by starring opposite Kristen Wiig in the dramedy The Skeleton Twins in 2014.

Trivia: Actor Jon Bernthal went to great lengths to learn his craft, moving from his native Washington, D.C., to Russia where he attended the Moscow Art Theatre School. Following his return to the U.S., Bernthal then obtained his M.F.A. from Harvard University's Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at the American Repertory Theatre. After graduating, he pursued a career in theater, appearing in numerous Broadway and off-Broadway plays, before he began transitioning into onscreen work with appearances on shows like Boston Legal and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. In 2006, Bernthal was cast in a starring role on the short-lived CBS sitcom The Class, after which he appeared alongside Elijah Wood in the indie feature Day Zero. Berenthal scored the part of Al Capone in the sequel to the mega-successful Night at the Museum, and he had his most high-profile success to that point in 2010 when he was cast as Shane in the AMC zombie series The Living Dead. He also appeared in Oren Moverman's sophomore film, the cop drama Rampart.

Trivia: Is of Egyptian heritage. Has an identical twin brother who is four minutes younger. Starred in Johnny Boy at the Falcon Theater in Los Angeles in 2004. Appeared in a 2007 production of The Credeaux Canvas with Vitality Productions in Los Angeles. Played an ancient Egyptian in both The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 and Night at the Museum, but per his direction on set, he played each character with a different accent.

Trivia: A native of Canada who began taking acting lessons at the age of 12, Baruchel was first introduced to television audiences through his numerous appearances on the popular small-fry chiller series Are You Afraid of the Dark? Baruchel would next receive his first taste of sitcom life with a leading role on the short-lived sitcom My Hometown (1996). Though he equates his subsequent stint as host of Canadian television's Popular Mechanics for Kids with his mother showing a date his naked baby pictures, the exposure it gave Baruchel got him stateside attention and he soon made his feature debut, as an obsessive Led Zeppelin fan, in director Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. Relocating to Los Angeles from his hometown of Montréal, Québec for the filming of the cult favorite Undeclared proved an exciting experience. After appearing alongside an impressive cast of young actors in director Roger Avery's The Rules of Attraction (2002), Baruchel made his directorial debut (in addition to producing, editing, writing, and photographing) with the romantic horror-action film Edgar and Jane (2002). Baruchel would continue to find success with comedies, like Knocked Up, Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, and She's Out of My League.

Trivia: Born June 24, 1979, comedian and actress Mindy Kaling's portrayal of airhead Kelly Kapoor on the hit series The Office is so good, it's easy to forget that in real life, her considerable brain power has gone into producing and writing the show as well. Kaling graduated from Dartmouth College in 2001, but not before leaving her mark on the school's improv troupe The Dog Day Players, creating a comic strip in the Dartmouth newspaper called Badly Drawn Girl and portraying none other than male actor Ben Affleck in a satirical play that she co-wrote entitled Matt & Ben. The play went on to make Time Magazine's "Top Ten Theatrical Events of the Year" for 2003. Kaling joined the cast and crew of The Office in 2005. She also began appearing in feature films, starting with a cameo in Steve Carell's The 40-Year-Old Virgin and later appearing in Office co-star John Krasinski's romantic comedy License to Wed. Kaling left The Office at the beginning of the show's ninth season to produce and star in her own sitcom, The Mindy Project, on FOX.

Trivia: After earning his BFA in drama from the Tisch School of Arts at New York University in 2001, Keith Powell got to work founding the Contemporary Stage Company in Wilmington, DE. In addition to helping direct and produce several successful stage productions, Powell also set to work cultivating an acting career, making several small appearances on shows like Law & Order before landing the supporting role of comedy writer Toofer on the popular series 30 Rock.

Trivia: Dropped out of high school and joined Job Corps, where he learned to box. Won a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Won his first world heavyweight title in 1973 (against Joe Frazier) and his second more than 20 years later against Michael Moorer in 1994. Retired from boxing in 1977 but returned to the ring in 1987. Finished his career with a 76-5 (68 KOs) record. Named all five of his sons George. Opened the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in Houston. Spokesman for the George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine, which became so popular that the manufacturer bought out Foreman and his partner for nearly $140 million in 1999 (rather than continue to pay them royalties). Has released multiple cookbooks, an autobiography and a children's book. Is active in the Knock Out Pediatric Cancer initiative and continues to work with the George Foreman Youth & Community Center, which he founded in 1984.

Trivia: Created a show titled Rascal Rabbit in 1955. Served in the Air Force after college. Began his puppetry career in 1958 on The Judy and Goggle Show. Met Jim Henson after he watched Spinney perform at a 1969 Salt Lake City puppet festival; Henson offered him a place on Sesame Street, playing Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. Was declared a living legend by The Library of Congress in 2000. Published his memoir, The Wisdom of Big Bird in 2003. Was the commencement speaker at Villanova University in 2004. Received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Daytime Emmy Awards in 2006.

Trivia: Best known as the lead guitarist for teen pop band the Jonas Brothers, Kevin Jonas came from a musical family. Encouraged to sing and play instruments from a young age, he was only 15 when he collaborated with his brothers to help write and play for brother Nick's debut solo album. Execs were so impressed with the brothers' collective sound that they were signed as a band, releasing the debut album It's About Time in 2006. The trio then signed with Disney's Hollywood Records, through which they released their 2007 self-titled sophomore album, as well as 2008's A Little Bit Longer, and became a regular fixture on the Disney Channel, appearing on shows like Zoey 101 and Hannah Montana. The Jonas Brothers became a phenomenal hit with tween audiences and were soon selling out arenas, as well as starring in movies like Camp Rock and The Jonas Brothers 3-D. The success of Camp Rock led to the brothers getting their own Disney Channel series Jonas that lasted two seasons. The trio went to the well one more time with Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam in 2010. In December of 2009 he wed his girlfriend of two years, and the two appeared in a reality series together, Married to Jonas.

Trivia: Known to legions of fans as the mop-topped frontman of teen pop band the Jonas Brothers, Nick Jonas began his career at a young age, appearing on Broadway when he was only seven. A child of musical parents, the New Jersey native co-wrote a song called "Joy to the World (A Christmas Prayer") with his father, which he recorded with his castmates from the stage show of Beauty and the Beast for a charity Christmas album in 2002. The song reached the ears of Columbia record execs in 2004, who signed the 12 year old to a contract. While writing and arranging songs for his debut self-titled album, Nick collaborated with his brothers Kevin and Joseph, and the trio made such great music together that they were subsequently signed as a team. They released their debut album as a band, It's About Time, in 2006 when they were just 13, 14, and 16. The trio were then signed to Disney's Hollywood Records, through which they released their 2007 self-titled sophomore album, as well as 2008's A Little Bit Longer, and became a regular fixture on the Disney Channel, appearing on shows like Zoey 101 and Hannah Montana. The Jonas Brothers became a phenomenal hit with tween audiences and were soon selling out arenas, as well as starring in movies like Camp Rock and The Jonas Brothers 3-D. The success of Camp Rock led to the brothers getting their own Disney Channel series Jonas that lasted two seasons. The trio went to the well one more time with Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam in 2010. He also released his first solo album in 2010.

Trivia: A gifted comic actor who also won acclaim as a writer and director, Eugene Levy was born on December 17, 1946, in Hamilton, Ontario, the home of McMaster University, where he enrolled after graduating from Westdale High School in the same city. Levy studied film at McMaster, and, in 1967, became vice president of the McMaster Film Board, a student film group where he met fellow aspiring moviemaker Ivan Reitman. (Other McMaster students at the time included Martin Short and Dave Thomas.) In 1970, Reitman began work on a low-budget horror movie called Cannibal Girls and cast Levy as Clifford Sturges. One of his co-stars was a struggling actress named Andrea Martin, who would later work alongside Levy's old pals Short and Thomas -- as well as John Candy and Joe Flaherty -- on the short-lived Canadian sitcom The David Steinberg Show. Levy and Martin's paths crossed again when they were cast in the Toronto production of the musical Godspell; the cast also included Gilda Radner and Paul Shaffer, in addition to Short, Candy, and Thomas. After Godspell closed in 1973 (just in time for the long-delayed Cannibal Girls to finally hit the grind-house circuit), Levy joined the Toronto company of the famed improvisational Second City comedy troupe, in which Candy and Flaherty were already cast members. After two years as a part of Second City, Levy, Candy, and Flaherty decided to move to California to try their luck in the States; they didn't fare well at first, but their idea for a television series about a ramshackle, low-budget television station eventually blossomed into Second City TV, or (SCTV, for short). While the show, ironically, brought Levy and his friend's back to Toronto (where it was shot), it also became a solid hit in Canada and developed a loyal cult following in the U.S., and, moreover, launched the careers of Levy, Flaherty, Thomas, Candy, Short, Martin, and Catherine O'Hara in America. (After SCTV's initial run ended in 1981, NBC brought the show back in an extended version called SCTV Network 90, which featured a higher budget, more guest stars, and ran until 1983. Levy also won two Emmy awards as a member of the show's writing staff.) Levy and Candy also created an acclaimed spin-off from the show based around their characters of polka musicians Stan and Yosh Shmenge, a 1984 cable special entitled The Last Polka. By the mid-'80s, Levy had become a familiar face on both episodic television and in movies, albeit almost always in comic supporting roles. In 1989, he began working behind the camera again, directing a special for his old partner Martin Short, and, in 1992, made his feature directorial debut with the John Candy/Jim Belushi comedy Once Upon a Crime. In 1996, however, Levy scored a bigger breakthrough when he and Christopher Guest began writing a screenplay for a mockumentary about a small town theater troupe. Waiting for Guffman became a surprise hit and gave Levy a meaty comic role as stage-struck dentist Allan Pearl. In 1999, the actor won another high-profile success with the blockbuster hit American Pie, in which he played the understanding but terminally non-hip father of hormonally charged teenager Jim (Jason Biggs); Levy reprised the role in the 2001 sequel American Pie 2 and again in 2003's American Wedding. Levy and Guest teamed up again in 2000 for the comedy, Best in Show, for which the two received a Best Screenplay nomination from the Writers Guild of America. He and Guest also co-wrote and starred in another 2003 mockumentary, A Mighty Wind, a parody about '60s folk musicians who reunite for a tribute concert several years after their heyday.For a few years after, it began to look as if Levy's primary occupation was reprising his role as Jim's dad in a series of lackluster, straight-to-video American Pie sequels -- with appearances in high profile films like A Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock becoming few and far between. In 2011, however, the comedy veteran received the prestigious distinction of being appointed a Member of the Order of Canada -- one of the nation's highest civilian honors -- before rejoining his former SCTV castmates in the made-for-television movie I, Martin Short, Goes Home, serving up a slice of nostalgia in American Reunion, and appearing opposite Tyler Perry in the 2012 comedy Madea's Witness Protection.

Trivia: A former standup comedian whose four-year stint as a Daily Show correspondent laid the groundwork for a successful onscreen career, Atlanta, GA, native Ed Helms has since gone on to keep fans in stitches as abrasive cubicle drone Andy Bernard on the hit television series The Office and as an undead flesh-eater who only wants a girlfriend and equal rights in the popular comedy short Zombie-American (2005). It was after a stint at Oberlin College in Ohio that Helms first began working the standup circuit, with regular appearances at some of the top comedy clubs in New York City quickly gaining him a loyal fan base. Helms' poker-faced sense of humor was an ideal fit for The Daily Show, and with only a handful of credits to his name, the rising star quickly became a regular fixture on the show. In 2006, shortly after wrapping a four-year stint on the Emmy Award-winning Comedy Central faux-newscast, Helms turned up as a member of the Stamford branch on The Office -- a series that also helped launch former Daily Show correspondent Steve Carell to stardom. When the Stamford branch eventually merged with the Scranton branch in the series, Helms' angry ass-kisser became a regular fixture on the show -- his decidedly short-fused character quickly becoming a foil for office prankster Jim Halpert (played by John Krasinski). Having previously studied improvisational comedy with the Upright Citizens Brigade, Helms became a semi-regular fixture at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City while simultaneously preparing for appearances in the Carell comedy Evan Almighty and the stoner-friendly sequel Harold and Kumar 2. He continued to get good reviews for his work on The Office, but he had a smash hit as one of the three bachelors trying to piece together their night in The Hangover. He would star in the very funny Cedar Rapids two years later, but that film would not do nearly as well at the box office as The Hangover Part II that same year. In 2012 he had a major part in The Duplass Brothers' Jeff, Who Lives At Home, and voiced one of the main characters in the smash animated film Dr. Seuss' The Lorax.

Trivia: Born and raised in Los Angeles, Jonah Hill first started to find success in show business as a cast member of the brilliant but canceled Judd Apatow series Undeclared. Like many of the actors who were fortunate to work for the successful writer/director/producer, Hill became a part of Apatow's extended stock company, going on to appear in a number of films including The 40-Year-Old Virgin, as a young man who really wants to buy some boots, and Knocked Up, as the buddy who suggested his friend's pregnant girlfriend get "something that rhymes with smushmortion." He also starred alongside his onetime roommate Justin Long in a variety of projects, including the college comedy Accepted. Hill re-teamed with Apatow and company for their second major effort of summer 2007, the Greg Mottola-directed, Seth Rogen-scripted comedy Superbad, but on that occasion, Hill scored his first lead. He starred as Seth, a slightly geeky high school senior desperate for sex and suffering from some fairly serious adolescent angst. The film rang in as a blockbuster and won critical raves across the board. At about the same time, Hill signed on for a much different screen assignment (and target audience), agreeing to provide one of the voices in the animated outing Horton Hears a Who (2008). He followed that up with a small but funny role in the heartbreak comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall as a starstruck hotel worker who really, really wants a visiting rock star to listen to his demo.He scored laughs in the Judd Apatow-directed Funny People, and worked again with Russell Brand in Get Him to the Greek. Hill shored up his indie cred by starring in the Duplass Brothers comedy Cyrus as a young man who is way too attached to his mother.2011 found Hill earning the best notices of his career in Moneyball, as the numbers-crunching Ivy Leaguer who helps Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) build the Oakland A's into a first-rate baseball team with seemingly second-rate players. His work in the movie brought him Best Supporting Actor nods from the Academy, BAFTA, the Golden Globes, and the Screen Actors Guild. Soon however, the actor was ready to get back to his comedic roots, pairing with Chaning Tatum for a satirical big-screen take on the 80's TV show 21 Jump Street, and following that up starring alongside Ben Stiller in The Watch.