Trivia: Born Walter Willis -- an Army brat to parents stationed in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany -- on March 19, 1955, Bruce Willis grew up in New Jersey from the age of two. As a youngster, he developed a stutter that posed the threat of social alienation, but he discovered an odd quirk: while performing in front of large numbers of people, the handicap inexplicably vanished. This led Willis into a certified niche as a comedian and budding actor. After high-school graduation, 18-year-old Willis decided to land a blue-collar job in the vein of his father, and accepted a position at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deep Water, NJ, but withdrew, shaken, after a co-worker was killed on the job. He performed regularly on the harmonica in a blues ensemble called the Loose Goose and worked temporarily as a security guard before enrolling in the drama program at Montclair State University in New Jersey. A collegiate role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof brought Willis back in touch with his love of acting, and he instantly decided to devote his life to the profession.Willis made his first professional appearances on film with minor roles in projects like The First Deadly Sin, starring Frank Sinatra, and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict. But his big break came when he attended a casting call (along with 3000 other hopefuls) for the leading role on Moonlighting, an ABC detective comedy series. Sensing Willis' innate appeal, producers cast him opposite the luminous Cybill Shepherd. The series, which debuted in 1985, followed the story of two private investigators working for a struggling detective agency, with Willis playing the fast-talking ne'er-do-well David Addison, and Shepherd playing the prim former fashion model Maddie Hayes. The show's heavy use of clever dialogue, romantic tension, and screwball comedy proved a massive hit with audiences, and Willis became a major star. The show ultimately lasted four years and wrapped on May 14, 1989. During the first year or two of the series, Willis and Shepherd enjoyed a brief offscreen romantic involvement as well, but Willis soon met and fell in love with actress Demi Moore, who became his wife in 1987.In the interim, Willis segued into features, playing geeky Walter Davis in the madcap 1987 comedy Blind Date. That same year, Motown Records -- perhaps made aware of Willis' experiences as a musician -- invited the star to record an LP of blue-eyed soul tracks. The Return of Bruno emerged and became a moderate hit among baby boomers, although as the years passed it became better remembered as an excuse for Willis to wear sunglasses indoors and sing into pool cues.Then in 1988, Willis broke major barriers when he convinced studios to cast him in the leading role of John McClane in John McTiernan's explosive action movie Die Hard. Though up until this point, action stars had been massive tough guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, execs took a chance on Willis' every-guy approach to the genre - and the gamble paid off. Playing a working-class cop who confronts an entire skyscraper full of terrorists when his estranged wife is taken hostage on Christmas Eve, Willis' used his wiseacre television persona to constantly undercut the film's somber underpinnings, without ever once damaging the suspenseful core of the material. This, coupled with a smart script and wall-to-wall sequences of spectacular action, propelled Die Hard to number one at the box office during the summer of 1988, and made Willis a full-fledged movie star.Willis subsequent projects would include two successful Die Hard sequels, as well as other roles the 1989 Norman Jewison drama In Country, and the 1989 hit comedy Look Who's Talking, in which Willis voiced baby Mikey. Though he'd engage in a few stinkers, like the unsuccessful Hudson Hawk and North, he would also continue to strike told with hugely popular movies like The Last Boyscout , Pulp Fiction, and Armageddon.Willis landed one of his biggest hits, however, when he signed on to work with writer/director M. Night Shyamalan in the supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense. In that film, Willis played Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist assigned to treat a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) plagued by visions of ghosts. The picture packs a wallop in its final minutes, with a now-infamous surprise that even purportedly caught Hollywood insiders off guard when it hit U.S. cinemas in the summer of 1999. Around the same time, tabloids began to swarm with gossip of a breakup between Willis and Demi Moore, who indeed filed for divorce and finalized it in the fall of 2000.Willis and M. Night Shyamalan teamed up again in 2000 for Unbreakable, another dark fantasy about a man who suddenly discovers that he has been imbued with superhero powers and meets his polar opposite, a psychotic, fragile-bodied black man (Samuel L. Jackson). The movie divided critics but drew hefty grosses when it premiered on November 22, 2000. That same year, Willis delighted audiences with a neat comic turn as hitman Jimmy the Tulip in The Whole Nine Yards, which light heartedly parodied his own tough-guy image. Willis followed it up four years later with a sequel, The Whole Ten Yards.In 2005, Willis was ideally cast as beaten-down cop Hartigan in Robert Rodriguez's graphic-novel adaptation Sin City. The movie was a massive success, and Willis was happy to reteam with Rodriguez again the next year for a role in the zombie action flick Planet Terror, Rodriguez's contribution to the double feature Grindhouse. Additionally, Willis would keep busy over the next few years with roles in films like Richard Donner's 16 Blocks, Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation, and Nick Cassavetes' crime drama Alpha Dog. The next year, Willis reprised his role as everyman superhero John McClane for a fourth installment of the Die Hard series, Live Free or Die Hard, directed by Len Wiseman. Though hardcore fans of the franchise were not overly impressed, the film did expectedly well at the box office.In the latter part of the decade, Willis would keep up his action star status, starring in the sci-fi thriller Surrogates in 2009, but also enjoyed poking fun at his own persona, with tongue-in-cheek roles in action fare like The Expendables, Cop Out, and Red. He appeared as part of the ensemble in Wes Anderson's quirky Moonrise Kingdom and in the time-travel action thriller Looper in 2012, before appearing in a string of sequels -- The Expendables 2 (2012), A Good Day to Die Hard, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Red 2 (all 2013) and Sin City: A Dame to Die For (2014).

Trivia: Handsome leading man Matthew Perry has managed to translate the fame and popularity he garnered from playing Chandler Bing on the hit NBC sitcom Friends into an increasingly successful film career as a romantic comedy lead. Born in Massachusetts, the son of actor John Bennett Perry, his parents divorced when he was still a baby. His mother got full custody and moved Perry to Ottawa, Canada, where she worked as a political assistant (years later, Perry's mother would work as a press secretary for prime minister Pierre Trudeau). As a youth, Perry was an extremely talented tennis player and was once ranked third in Canada's doubles competition. At the same time, the teenaged Perry was interested in acting and had been appearing in school productions since he was 13. At age 15, he relocated to L.A. to join his father, in hopes of becoming both a tennis pro and a working actor. However, in 1984, Perry suffered a devastating loss during a major tennis event and decided that he would have more success as an actor. Shortly after the fateful sporting match, he debuted on an episode of the sitcom Charles in Charge. Though Perry was still in high school, it rapidly became apparent that his education would take a backseat to acting. While in a restaurant, he was spotted by director William Richert, who offered the 16-year-old a small role opposite River Phoenix in A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon (1988). Though Perry wanted to become a successful professional actor, his father was pressuring him to attend U.C.L.A. As a compromise, Perry agreed that if he could not find an acting job in the first year after high school graduation, he would attend college. Not long after that, he was hired by Fox television to star in the series Boys Will Be Boys. The series bombed, but Perry was then starred opposite Valerie Bertinelli in a new series, Sydney. While this show too was short-lived, it started Perry on a professional guest-star career that would land him roles on such series as Beverly Hills 90210, Growing Pains, and his father's show 240 Roberts. He made his sophomore film appearance in She's Out of Control (1989) opposite Ami Dolenz and Tony Danza. In the early '90s, Perry and his colleague, Andrew Hill, penned the pilot to a situation comedy about a bunch of friends in their twenties who like hanging out. They called their show Maxwell House and sold it to Universal. They pitched the idea to NBC, but the network had a similar vehicle in the works. Instead of taking Perry and Hill's show, they offered to co-star Perry in their program, Friends. The first episode aired in 1994 and became a Top Ten hit. In features, Perry had his first success with the romantic comedy Fools Rush In (1997), though it was The Whole Nine Yards -- released the same year that Friends went off the air -- that really got moviegoers laughing. A return to television in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was shortlived after being eclipsed by the similar-themed 30 Rock, and in 2007 Perry erceived an Emmy nomination for his turn as a devoted high school teacher working with inner-city teens in The Ron Clark Story. In 2011 Perry could be seen as a sports arena manager experiencing a mid-life crisis in the ABC series Mr. Sunshine, though it was promptly cancelled by the network after failing to perform. Nevertheless, subsequent small screen roles in Go On and The Good Wife showed an actor determined to persevere at all costs.

Trivia: Actress Rosanna Arquette, the granddaughter of actor Cliff Arquette (aka "Charley Weaver"), was born into a theatrical family; her father was a founding member of the Committee, an improvisational theater troupe. As a youth she moved often with her family. At age 17 she appeared on the Los Angeles stage in Metamorphosis. Her family settled in Virginia, where she worked in local theater where she was spotted by a casting director. She soon had much work in TV movies in the late '70s. She debuted onscreen in More American Graffitti (1979). Her breakthrough came with her portrayal of condemned murderer Gary Gilmore's girlfriend in the TV movie The Executioner's Song (1982), which earned her much praise. That success led to a lead role in John Sayles's Baby, It's You (1983). She gained her greatest fame in the hit film Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), co-starring Madonna. From there she has maintained a steady screen career, usually playing kooky, off-beat, spacey, slightly eccentric women. She is the sister of actress Patricia Arquette.

Trivia: Standing 6'5" and weighing over 300 pounds, African American actor Michael Clarke Duncan inarguably possesses one of Hollywood's more unforgettable figures. A former bodyguard and bouncer, Duncan first gained attention when he appeared as one of a group of oil drillers sent to stop an asteroid from annihilating the Earth in the 1998 blockbuster Armageddon. A year later, Duncan's career got another significant boost when the actor earned lavish critical plaudits for his portrayal of a wrongfully convicted death row inmate in The Green Mile.Born in Chicago on December 10, 1957, Duncan was raised on the city's south side by his single mother. A serious student, Duncan decided that he wanted to play football in high school; after his mother refused to let him, fearing he would get hurt, he developed an interest in acting instead. Following his graduation from high school, the aspiring actor studied communications at Mississippi's Alcorn State University. His studies were cut short when he returned to Chicago to attend to his mother, who had fallen ill. He subsequently found work digging ditches with the Peoples Gas Company and moonlighted as a club bouncer. His work led to a chance encounter with a stage producer who hired him as a security guard for a traveling theatre company, which eventually brought Duncan to Hollywood. Upon his arrival in L.A., Duncan, who was hovering dangerously close to bankruptcy, secured further work as a security guard and found his first agent. He got his professional start on television, appearing in commercials, sitcoms, and on the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. He started his film career playing -- surprisingly enough -- bouncers in such films as The Players Club and Bulworth (both 1998), finally getting his big break -- and the first role that didn't require him to boot people out of clubs -- in Armageddon. Thanks to the great commercial success of Armageddon, Duncan was able to find subsequent employment in a number of productions, most notably The Green Mile. He earned overwhelmingly strong reviews for his portrayal of doomed, saintly John Coffey, a man whose conviction for a brutal double murder seems at odds with his exceedingly gentle, almost child-like demeanor. Duncan garnered Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for his work in the film. He next switched genre gears, re-teaming with Armageddon co-star Bruce Willis to star in the comedy The Whole Nine Yards, which cast him a brutish thug who terrorizes mild-mannered dentist Matthew Perry. Once again utilizing his massive girth to maximum effect in the following year's The Planet of the Apes Duncan followed up the big budget remake with the made-for-television They Call Me Sirr before once again flexing formidably, this time opposite The Rock, in The Scorpion King. Later turning up as the villainous Kingpin in the comic book superhero film Daredevil (2003), Duncan would also loan his voice to the same character in Spider-Man: The Animated Series later that same year. A string of vocal performances in such animated efforts as Kim Possible: A Stitch in Time, The Proud Family, and Crab Nebula found Duncan's vocal chords in increased demand in television, films, and even videogames, yet by 2005 the hard-working actor was back on the big screen with roles in both Robert Rodriguez's Sin City, and Michael Bay's The Island. Though action may have always been the best genre for the physically imposing actor to make an impression on the big screen, fans would take note that the hulking Duncan also had a keen sense of humor, a point made all the more evident by his role in the 2006 Will Ferrell NASCAR laugher Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Duncan continued to work in television in the following years, making appearances on popular shows including Chuck, Two and a Half Men, and Bones. In 2012, Duncan landed a starring role in The Finder, a short-lived series in which he once again took on the role of former lawyer Leo Knox, whom he had portrayed in Bones. In July of that same year, Duncan suffered a heart attack and never fully recovered; he died on September 3rd at the age of 54.

Trivia: Model-turned-actress Natasha Henstridge first earned fame -- to say nothing of notoriety -- as Sil, the human-alien clone with a deadly need to mate and reproduce in Species (1995). Due to the strenuous demands of her character, the blonde, willowy Henstridge was required to spend much of the film naked, something that inspired plenty of testosterone-laced men's magazine profiles but little chance for critical respect. However, the actress persevered, gradually finding work in films that focused on her verbal skills rather than her ability to shed her clothing.Originally hailing from Springdale, Newfoundland, Henstridge grew up in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. Leaving home at 14 to pursue a modeling career, she moved to Paris, eventually becoming successful enough to grace the cover of French Cosmopolitan when she was only 15. Henstridge also appeared in ads for Oil of Olay and Lady Stetson, but she soon realized that she was meant for a more creatively stimulating calling. Whether her starring role in Species could be deemed creatively stimulating is arguable, but it did provide Henstridge with her breakthrough. Unfortunately, she next opted for near-nonentity status in such critical missteps as the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Maximum Risk (1996) and Species II (1998), which was nowhere near as commercially successful as its predecessor. Henstridge broke into new territory with the romantic comedy Dog Park (1998), co-starring alongside Janeane Garofalo and Luke Wilson. She continued to flex her comedic muscles in 2000 with The Whole Nine Yards, sharing the screen with a cast that included Matthew Perry, Bruce Willis, and Michael Clarke Duncan. Later that year, she appeared in Bounce, a romantic drama about a man (Ben Affleck) who falls in love with the widow (Gwyneth Paltrow) of the plane crash victim to whom he had given his seat on a doomed airplane. In 2001 Henstridge replaced an injured Courtney Love in John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars, and over the course of the following decade she became increasingly active on the small screen, appearing in She Spies, Commander in Chief, Eli Stone, and The Secret Circle before turning up in the dubious sequel Raging Bull II in 2012.

Trivia: Born on January 11th, 1972, Amanda Peet grew up in New York and made a decidedly unconventional debut into showbiz: At three-years-old, a thoroughly uninvited Peet jumped onto a stage during the middle of a play. Despite the auspicious beginning, Peet treated acting as more of a hobby than anything else, and only began to consider it a potential career after her drama professor at Columbia University encouraged her to audition for renowned acting teacher Uta Hagen. Peet studied with Hagen for four years, during which time she participated in the off-Broadway revival Awake and Sing. Though she would eventually be voted one of the year's 50 most beautiful people in a 2000 issue of People magazine -- not to mention participate with the likes of Susan Sarandon, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jack Nicholson -- Peet worked as a waitress during the first few years of her acting career.The sloe-eyed brunette made her onscreen debut in Craig Singer's Animal Room (1996). That same year, she could also be seen in an episode of Law & Order, and went on to play a role in Grind (1996), a crime drama starring Billy Crudup. Before long, Peet landed a small role in the Michelle Pfeiffer-George Clooney romantic comedy One Fine Day. Since then, the actress has continued to build both her film and television credits: in 1997, she appeared in the AIDS drama Touch Me, and the following year she had sizable roles in South Boston crime drama Southie with Donnie Wahlberg and Rose McGowan, which won the American Independent award at the 1998 Seattle Film Festival. On television, she could be seen guest starring on a number of shows including Seinfeld and Ellen Foster. In 1999, she got her own television show, Jack & Jill, on the WB network. That same year, she could be seen playing Sean Patrick Flanery's fiancée in Simply Irresistible and then acting as his bedmate in Body Shots, another in the long line of explorations into pre-millennial twentysomething dating angst.After starring in director Neil Turitz's debut Two Ninas, Peet landed a leading role in Peter M. Cohen's independent comedy Whipped. While the film itself performed dismally, Peet met her boyfriend, Brian Van Holt, on the set. Despite it's independent status, Whipped was given a solid amount of mainstream marketing, and Peet was praised for a game performance in the face of an admittedly weak script.After a small role in 2000's Isn't She Great with Bette Midler and Nathan Lane, Peet was finally recognized by critics and audiences alike in The Whole Nine Yards. Though the film itself did not fare particularly well, Peet was praised for holding her own against Hollywood heavy-hitter Bruce Willis, which certainly didn't hurt her when it came time to audition for Saving Silverman, which placed her opposite Jason Biggs while he was still reeling from the success of American Pie. In 2002, Peet played a considerably less vicious wife in Changing Lanes with Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson, and won no small amount of praise for her performance as the heroin-addled mistress of Kieran Culkin's godfather in Igby Goes Down. Peet would go on to star opposite film veterans Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson in Nancy Meyers' Something's Gotta Give, in which she stars as Nicholson's scandalously young girlfriend, as well as James Mangold's psychological thriller Identity with John Cusack. In 2004, Peet signed on for the sequel to The Whole Nine Yards (aptly titled The Whole Ten Yards), and acted alongside Will Ferrell, Chloë Sevigny, and Josh Brolin in the Woody Allen feature Melinda and Melinda. The next year, Peet starred alongside Ashton Kutcher in the romantic comedy A Lot Like Love, before joining the cast of the politically charged thriller Syriana. Then, in 2006, the actress accepted a recurring role on the one-hour drama Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip. The Aaron Sorkin written series received major critical acclaim but was cancelled after just one season. Undeterred, Peet next teamed up with John Cusack for the quirky, heartfelt drama Martian Child. The sci-fi theme continued with voice work in Battle for Terra (2007), The X-Files: I Want to Believe, and 2012, though by 2010 Peet seemed to be focusing on honing her comedy skills with toles in Wainy Days, Important Things with Demetri Martin, and How I Met Your Mother. In 2010, after receiving numerous critical accolades for her performance in Nicole Holofcener's Please Give, Peet plunged into televosion full-time with Bent -- an NBC series that found her cast as a high-strung lawyer contening with a free-spirited construction worker. Unfortunately for Peet the series failed to perform, and was swiftly cancelled by the network, freeing her up to appear in such high profile fare as director Terrence Malick's romantic drama To the Wonder (2012), though her scenes were ultimately cut from the final film. She had a guest arc on The Good Wife and played a supporting role in the indie flick The Way, Way Back in 2013.

Trivia: It sounds apocryphal, but it's true: 13-year-old Kevin Pollak did begin his Bar Mitzvah speech with "A funny thing happened on the way to the temple..." In fact, Pollak's rabbi had encouraged him to do so: even at this early stage, the boy evinced a gift for comic timing. By 17, he was doing stand-up in his native San Francisco. He went on to play the West Coast comedy-club and improv circuit, and was briefly teamed with Dana Carvey, a professional collaboration that ended amicably when Carvey was hired by Saturday Night Live. Though Pollak himself didn't make it to SNL, he flourished as an impressionist, writer and film and TV supporting actor. He was given several opportunities to shine in such films as Barry Levenson's Avalon (1990), Mick Jackson's LA Story (1991) and Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men (1992). Reiner went on to team Pollak with Bob Amaral in the weekly TVer Morton and Hayes (1991) a hit-and-miss homage to the 2-reel comedies of the 1930s and 1940s (Pollak had previously played a featured role in the short-lived 1988 sitcom Coming of Age). Kevin Pollak's film career went into warp-drive in the 1990s, with such choice roles as Jacob in the two Grumpy Old Men flicks, Todd Hockney in The Usual Suspects (1995), Phillip Green in Casino (1995), and Boss Vic Koss in That Thing You Do (1996).His film and television career still going strong into the 2000s, Pollak found a way to work his passion for poker into his schedule as host of Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown in 2003, and in 2009 he launched a weekly internet series entitled Kevin Pollak's Chat Show.

Trivia: An unpredictable comic whose talents as an artist and writer of children's books frequently goes unnoticed in favor of such antics as appearing on the Late Show With David Letterman in peanut butter-covered boots, Harland Williams set the tone for his cinematic career as a urine-chugging state trooper in the Farrelly brothers' sophomoric smash Dumb and Dumber (1994).Born in Toronto, Ontario, the artistically inclined Williams aimed to refine his passion for drawing and painting at Canada's prestigious Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. Childlike curiosity combined with his love of art drove Williams to create a series of popular children's books in which a similarly curious young dinosaur named Lickety Split embarks on a series of amazing adventures and learns important life lessons in the process. Finding a creative outlet in poetry and painting while working as a forest ranger for five years after dropping out of Sheridan College, Williams set his goals to leave the forest as a standup comic and actor, soon moving to L.A. to pursue his newfound calling.After his memorable debut in Dumb and Dumber, Williams appeared briefly in the television series Simon before attempting a starring vehicle with Disney's Rocketman in 1997. Trashed by critics and largely ignored by audiences, Rocketman may not have launched Williams' career into the stratosphere, but it did result in a number of memorably comedic roles in such popular comedies as Half-Baked (1998) and There's Something About Mary (1998). The new millennium also proved to be a busy year for Williams in both his career as a standup and an actor: serving as host of Comedy Central's Premium Blend, appearing in the Geena Davis Show, The Whole Nine Yards, and as an abrasive tyrant television star who learns the true value of love in Becoming Dick. In 2001, Williams appeared as the compound-fractured friend of a spastic Tom Green in Freddy Got Fingered. The following year found Williams as a gender-bending college student alongside co-stars Barry Watson and Michael Rosenbaum in Sorority Boys.