Trivia: A soft-spoken, fair-skinned actor with startling blue eyes, a penchant for playing volatile characters, and a reluctance to forsake his critically lauded stage career for a life in film, American audiences may best know Irish actor Cillian Murphy as the bike courier making his way through infected London in director Danny Boyle's apocalyptic thriller 28 Days Later. Though the film may have been Murphy's first to find wide stateside exposure, he has been appearing onscreen in the U.K. and his native Ireland since 1997. Born in Douglas, Cork, Ireland, in 1974, Murphy's father was a school inspector and his mother a French teacher. Attending school at Presentation Brothers College Cork while intending to enter into a career in law, Murphy was an avid rugby player who was turned on to the Concordia Theater's unique stage productions in his fourth year. Murphy soon signed up for a workshop with Concordia's Pat Tiernan and it quickly became apparent that he had a natural flair for the stage. Soon cast as the wildly emotional Pig in Concordia's production of Disco Pigs, Murphy debuted to rave reviews and was soon skipping school to go on tour with the production. Though his acting had initially begun as a hobby and a way to kill time on the weekends, it was quickly taking over his life and a career in law seemed less and less appealing. Though he would attempt to continue his law studies, it was soon obvious to Murphy that his heart just wasn't in it.Subsequently cast in a series of interesting and complex roles, Murphy made his feature debut in the 1998 film Sweety Barrett and quickly followed with the coming-of-age comedy drama Sunburn. Though it was obvious that his stage talents translated well to the silver screen, Murphy still maintained that the rush of theater couldn't be touched by celluloid. The problem in Ireland of suicide and poor mental health among young men prompted Murphy to accept a role in the 2000 drama On the Edge, and his role of a suicidal psychiatric patient proved memorable and affecting. Following How Harry Became a Tree (2001), it was time to adapt Disco Pigs into a feature film, and with director Kirsten Sheridan at the helm, Murphy reprised his role of Pig to enthusiastic results. By the time 28 Days Later rolled around, it seemed that everyone except United States audiences were familiar with the rising star, and with the stateside release of the film in mid 2003, all that was soon to change. Noting that, in his opinion, the best actors alternate frequently between stage and screen, Murphy strived to keep a balance as his growing popularity found his film career taking precedence. Following 2003's Zonad, Murphy began preparation for such features as Intermission and Girl With a Pearl Earring (both 2003).Murphy's resumé amassed higher and higher profile roles. 2005 brought his most popular film to date as he played the villain opposite hero Christian Bale in Batman Begins. Murphy's "boy next door" face seemed to make his performance as the menacing Scarecrow all the more disturbing, and he would go on to play the bad guy again later that same year in Red Eye, though this time he wore makeup to cover his boyish features. Soon he was donning even more makeup, however, as a transsexual in the indie hit Breakfast on Pluto. Playing both a victim and a hero in the U.K. of the 1970s, Murphy's ethereal performance as a boy who leaves his Ireland home to live as a woman in London was praised by critics, and the film was a cult success. He followed it up with another passion project in 2006: Ken Loach's award-winning The Wind That Shakes the Barley, a look at the Irish Republicans of the early 20th century and the anti-British rebellion that would continue to tear families apart for decades to come. He next signed on to star with Lucy Liu in the romantic comedy Watching the Detectives, another independent venture that would find Murphy playing a shy film geek who's pulled out of his movie collection and into the real world when he meets a real-life femme fetal, played by Liu. Also on Murphy's calendar for 2007 was the Danny Boyle psychological sci-fi thriller Sunshine, about a small crew of astronauts sent to reignite Earth's dying sun. Over the next few years, Murphy would apper in a number of other films, like Inception, Retreat, and Broken.

Trivia: A handsome young actor whose breakout role as a popular jock in Not Another Teen Movie found him in high demand, Chris Evans (born June 13th, 1981) followed with a role in the moderately successful comedy The Perfect Score before truly coming into his own before the cameras. Born in Sudbury, MA, Evans spent the majority of his childhood in Boston before his love of acting brought him to New York City the summer after his junior year of high school. It was during this time that the aspiring actor alternated between an internship at a casting office and summer acting classes. With a little help from a contact he made that summer, Evans began auditioning shortly after graduating from high school. A supporting role in the short-lived television series Opposite Sex gave the up-and-comer his first break on the small screen, and a supporting role in the feature The Newcomers preceded an appearance in the popular prime-time drama Boston Public.At this point it appeared as if everything was going smoothly for Evans, but his career would soon shift gears and kick into overdrive thanks to a featured role in the teen comedy parody Not Another Teen Movie. Cast as the popular jock who transforms an ugly duckling into a popular princess, Evans ran with the role and proved a more than capable comic talent. If audiences had wondered where Evans had disappeared to in the following few years, their curiosities were answered when the young actor took a leading role in the moderately successful comedy The Perfect Score. Though to many it may have seemed that Evans career had stalled somewhat, a role as an unsuspecting young man who receives a desperate phone call from a kidnapping victim in the 2004 thriller Cellular offered some relief from the seeming drought of choice roles. A subsequent role in the same year's The Orphan King served as a strong follow-up before hearty roles in such 2005 releases as Fierce People and The Fantastic Four found him leaning ever closer to becoming a true marquee draw.The role of Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four would be somewhat telling of what was in store for the actor -- though not for a few more years. He would appear in projects like the romcom The Nanny Diaries in 2007 and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in 2010, but none of these breaks compared to the big one he scored in 2011, playing the title role in 2011's Captain America: America's Soldier. He found similar success in 2012's wildly successful The Avengers, for which he reprised his role as Captain America.

Trivia: Though Australian-born actress Rose Byrne made her film debut in 1994, when she played a supporting role in the eccentric drama Dallas Doll alongside Sandra Bernhard and Jake Blundell, her breakout performances within her native country were both on the small screen; namely, in the soap opera Echo Point and the long-running drama series Heartbreak High. After developing a fan base and gaining some critical recognition, Byrne was cast alongside fellow Aussie Heath Ledger in Two Hands (1999), which featured the actress playing an innocent country girl whose would-be suitor has unwittingly found himself in the midst of a mafia scandal. Though she undoubtedly caught the eye of American filmmakers after Two Hands' premiere at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, Byrne wouldn't appear in an American film until several years later, when she made a very small appearance in a very big movie -- Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones. However, before Star Wars, Byrne starred in two little-known, but nonetheless significant, Australian parts, including her first lead role in The Goddess of 1967 (2000), in which she portrayed a blind, emotionally unstable orphan, and My Mother Frank, which featured her as the unrequited love interest of a pining college student. After the 2002 release of Attack of the Clones, Byrne could be seen in a minor but indelible supporting role in Matt Dillon's City of Ghosts. Byrne went on to perform in two critically acclaimed Australian features -- The Rage in Placid Lake (2003) and The Night We Called It a Day (2003) -- as well as the U.K. release I Capture the Castle (2003), in which she co-starred as the beautiful daughter of a once-grand English family. In 2004, Byrne played a supporting role in Wolfgang Petersen's big-budget historical epic Troy, and went on to star with Josh Hartnett, Matthew Lillard, and Troy alumna Diane Kruger in director Paul McGuigan's thriller Wicker Park. In 2006 she was cast in a supporting role in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. In 2007 she had a hit on the small-screen as one of the leads in the series Damages. Although she continued to work steadily in movies as well, she didn't find herself in a big hit until 2011 when she was one of the main characters in the Oscar nominated comedy Bridesmaids. That same year she also appeared in X-Men: First Class as Dr. Moira MacTaggert.Byrne soon became a mainstay in the comedy world, appearing in The Internship, Neighbors and Spy. She also appeared in the 2014 remake of Annie, playing Grace, and reprised her role of in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016).

Trivia: Best known in the West for her role as Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) before her international breakout role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Michelle Yeoh is not your ordinary Bond girl. Her elegant good looks coupled with a killer high kick have made Yeoh one of the most popular martial arts stars in Asia and one of Hong Kong's most famous icons abroad.Born on August 6, 1962, in the mining town of Ipoh, in Western Malaysia, Yeoh's ethnically Chinese parents taught her Malay and English well before she learned Cantonese. She began ballet dancing at the age of four, and, inspired by Fame (1980), she enrolled in England's Royal Academy of Dance, where she eventually earned a B.A. Though a back injury ended her career as a ballerina, she returned to her home country to be crowned Miss Malaysia of 1983. From there, she appeared in a television commercial with Jackie Chan which caught the attention of a fledgling film production company called D&B Films. Taking the stage name Michelle Khan, she acted in bit parts in a number of forgettable films until her breakout role in the girls-with-guns action-comedy Yes, Madam! (1985) alongside noted kung-fu femme fatal Cynthia Rothrock. Though she did not know any martial arts before signing on to the film, Yeoh reportedly spent nine hours a day in the gym, working out and learning to take a punch. She had come a long way from the Royal Academy of Dance. Within the first five minutes of Madam, Yeoh emasculates a flasher and wastes a quartet of thieves. Yeoh immediately became one of Hong Kong's biggest female action stars and was soon appearing in films at a dizzying rate. Always performing her own stunts, she teamed up again with Rothrock in the kung-fu fest Royal Warriors (1986), and she starred in a violent Thomas Crown Afffair remake, Easy Money (1987). While making the Indiana Jones-style action epic Magnificent Warriors (1987), she got engaged to department store tycoon and studio head Dickson Poon (the D in D&B Films). Taking the lead of earlier martial arts divas such as Angela Mao, Yeoh retired from the movie biz in 1988 and retreated to a life of quiet domesticity. It didn't last long. The marriage was not a happy one (the Hong Kong press reported -- falsely it turns out -- that Poon suffered two broken ribs after a well-placed kick) and it ended in divorce in 1992.Yeoh's career came roaring back after her show-stopping performance in Police Story 3: Super Cop (1992), where she matched the notoriously fearless Jackie Chan stunt for jaw-dropping stunt. At the beginning of the shoot, Chan was skeptical as to whether women could fight, preferring them to look pretty and to sit on the sidelines. By the end of the film, Chan was legitimately concerned that he might be upstaged. Yeoh's hair-raising high-speed motorcycle jump onto a moving train (she learned how to drive the motorbike the day before the stunt) was bested only by Chan's death-defying leap from a minaret to an airborne rope ladder hanging from a helicopter hundreds of feet above Kuala Lumpur. The film was a massive success, making Yeoh the highest paid actress in Asia. Now being billed as Michelle Yeoh, she starred in a string of popular action flicks, including Heroic Trio (1992) opposite Maggie Cheung and Anita Mui, Tai Chi Master (1993) along with kung-fu phenom Jet Li, and Wing Chun (1994), which is without a doubt the rockin'-est sockin'-est flick ever about tofu. Her career of high-flying stunts resulted in many a dislocated shoulder and broken rib, but in 1995, while shooting Ann Hui's Ah Kam, Yeoh managed to seriously injure herself. She misjudged a jump off an 18-foot wall (an easy stunt according to her) and landed on her head, cracking a vertebra. Yeoh was put in traction, and it was feared that she would never walk again. Yet within a month, she was back on the set as if nothing happened.The American release of Supercop caught the eyes of Western producers, and soon she was cast opposite Pierce Brosnan in the James Bond-epic Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Once again, Yeoh's natural charisma, along with her effortless ability to dispatch bands of baddies, threatened to outclass the male lead. That same year, Yeoh was named one of People magazine's 50 sexiest people of the year. Back in Hong Kong, Yeoh received accolades not for her kung-fu abilities but for her acting skills in her role as Soong Ai-ling in the widely praised historical melodrama The Soong Sisters (1997).In 2000 Yeoh fused the popular historical aspects of her previous work with an unmistakably modern aesthetic, again displaying her unyielding skills and speed in the wildly popular Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Teaming with international superstar Chow Yun Fat in an epic and gravity-defying quest to recover a stolen Excaliber-like sword named the Green Destiny, Yeoh cemented her status as an incredibly graceful fighter with the unusual ability to display a remarkable dramatic range as well.

Trivia: Began his film career at age 5. Toured with the Royal Shakespeare Company in a 1999 production of King Lear, with Nigel Hawthorne playing the title role. Won a Japanese Academy Award for his work in The Twilight Samurai (2002). Received an honorary MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 2002. Has a black belt in karate.

Trivia: A ubiquitous actor specializing in ethnically oriented character roles of various racial backgrounds, New Zealand-born Cliff Curtis, who is of Maori decent, debuted onscreen in the very early '90s. He then proceeded to chalk up a myriad of effective supporting parts in A-list features including The Piano (1993), Six Days, Seven Nights (1998), Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Whale Rider (2002), Runaway Jury (2003), Sunshine (2007), and Live Free or Die Hard (2007). Curtis ascended to supporting billing opposite Harrison Ford and Sean Penn in the immigration-themed drama Crossing Over (2008) and tackled another major supporting role in Roland Emmerich's prehistoric adventure 10,000 B.C. (2008). Over the coming years, Curtis would continue to appear on screen, most notably on shows like Trauma and Missing.

Trivia: The son of actress Jane Fonda and political activist Tom Hayden, Troy Garity has shown interest in both of his parents' professions. (He adopted the surname Garity from his paternal grandmother's side.) As a child, he spent his summers at the Laurel Springs Arts Camp in Santa Barbara and appeared uncredited in On Golden Pond with his mom and grandfather. As an adult, he moved to New York City to study at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and later to Los Angeles to start a film career. After being named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People in 1998, he landed the role of his father in Steal This Movie, the historical biopic starring Vincent D'Onofrio as '60s activist Abbie Hoffman. The next year, Garity appeared in Barry Levinson's crime comedy Bandits as a getaway driver for eccentric bank robbers played by Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton. After a few more small-time features, he played token white guy Isaac Rosenberg in Tim Story's urban comedy Barbershop. His breakthrough role came in 2003 with the Showtime movie A Soldier's Girl, based on a true story. He played Pfc. Barry Winchell, a soldier who was beaten to death in 1999 after he fell in love with transsexual Calpernia Addams (Lee Pace). The job earned Garity nominations from both the Golden Globes and the Independent Spirit Awards. the actor starred in the critically acclaimed drama Milwaukee, Minnesota that same year as mentally disabled ice fisherman Albert Burroughs. In addition to continuing involvement with his nonprofit group the Peace Process Network, Garity appeared in the 2004 sequel Barbershop 2.

Trivia: First role was on a BBC radio play called Kai Mei Sauce in 1993. Was nominated for a British Independent Film Award for his supporting role in Dirty Pretty Things. Made his West End stage debut in 2013 in Chimerica.

Trivia: With a handsome visage, but also slightly gaunt and stark features that could suggest menace or intensity at the drop of a hat, raven-haired Englishman Mark Strong essayed a long and surprisingly diverse list of character roles throughout the 1990s and 2000s; many played perfectly off of these physical attributes. Early in his career, Strong remained almost exclusively in Britain, for such efforts as Captives (1994) , Sharpe's Mission (1996), Emma (1997), and Fever Pitch (1997). In time, however, the actor went transcontinental, turning up in fare as diverse as the István Szabó epic drama Sunshine (1999) and American indie helmer Mike Figgis' 2001 Hotel -- thus showcasing his own versatility. Strong's role choice during this period also suggested a strong predilection for cinematizations of classics, from Henry VIII (2003) to Tristan & Isolde (2005). He gained heightened recognition among U.S. audiences (particularly young viewers) in 2007, when he played Septimus, the one of the many heirs to the throne of Stormhold, in Matthew Vaughn's wondrous fantasy Stardust.

Trivia: Lived in refugee camps in Mozambique until she was 2. Developed her acting skills at a mixed-race theater company, Over the Edge, in Zimbabwe. Received the Trumbull College Arts Prize from Yale University. Is a member of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Council. Founded the charity Sponsored Arts for Education.