Trivia: Despite a thick Australian accent in some of his earlier films, actor Mel Gibson was born in Peeksill, NY, to Irish Catholic parents on January 3rd, 1956. One of eleven children, Gibson didn't set foot in Australia until 1968, and only developed an Aussie accent after his classmates teased him for his American tongue. Mel Gibson's looks have certainly helped him develop a largely female following similar to the equally rugged Harrison Ford, but since his 1976 screen debut in Summer City, Gibson has been recognized as a critical as well as physiological success.Though he had, at one point, set his sights on journalism, Gibson caught the acting bug by the time he had reached college age, and studied at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, Australia, despite what he describes as a crippling ordeal with stage fright. Luckily, this was something he overcame relatively quickly -- Gibson was still a student when he filmed Summer City and it didn't take long before he had found work playing supporting roles for the South Australia Theatre Company after his graduation. By 1979, Gibson had already demonstrated a unique versatility. In the drama Tim, a then 22-year-old Gibson played the role of a mildly retarded handy man well enough to win him a Sammy award -- one of the Australian entertainment industry's highest accolades -- while his leather clad portrayal of a post-apocalyptic cop in Mad Max helped the young actor gain popularity with a very different type of audience. Gibson wouldn't become internationally famous, however, until after his performance in Mad Max 2 (1981), one of the few sequels to have proved superior to its predecessor. In 1983, Gibson collaborated with director Peter Weir for the second time (though it was largely overlooked during the success of Mad Max 2, Gibson starred in Weir's powerful WWI drama Gallipoli in 1981) for The Year of Living Dangerously, in which he played a callous reporter responsible for covering a bloody Indonesian coup. Shortly afterwards, Gibson made his Hollywood debut in The Bounty with Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins, and starred opposite Sissy Spacek in The River during the same year. He would also star in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) alongside singer Tina Turner.After the third installment to the Mad Max franchise, Gibson took a two-year break, only to reappear opposite Danny Glover in director Richard Donner's smash hit Lethal Weapon. The role featured Gibson as Martin Riggs, a volatile police officer reeling from the death of his wife, and cemented a spot as one of Hollywood's premier action stars. Rather than letting himself become typecast, however, Gibson would surprise critics and audiences alike when he accepted the title role in Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990). Though his performance earned mixed reviews, he was applauded for taking on such a famously tragic script.In the early '90s, Gibson founded ICON Productions, and through it made his directorial debut with 1993's The Man Without a Face. The film, which also starred Gibson as a horrifically burned teacher harboring a secret, achieved only middling box-office success, though it was considered a well-wrought effort for a first-time director. Gibson would fare much better in 1994 when he rejoined Richard Donner in the movie adaptation of Maverick; however, it would be another year before Gibson's penchant for acting, directing, and producing was given its due. In 1995, Gibson swept the Oscars with Braveheart, his epic account of 13th century Scottish leader William Wallace's lifelong struggle to forge an independent nation. Later that year, he lent his vocal talents -- surprising many with his ability to carry a tune -- for the part of John Smith in Disney's animated feature Pocahontas. Through the '90s, Gibson's popularity and reputation continued to grow, thanks to such films as Ransom (1996) and Conspiracy Theory (1997). In 1998, Gibson further increased this popularity with the success of two films, Lethal Weapon 4 and Payback. More success followed in 2000 due to the actor's lead role as an animated rooster in Nick Park and Peter Lord's hugely acclaimed Chicken Run, and to his work as the titular hero of Roland Emmerich's blockbuster period epic The Patriot (2000). After taking up arms in the battlefield of a more modern era in the Vietman drama We Were Soldiers in 2002, Gibson would step in front of the cameras once more for Sixth Sense director M. Night Shyamalan's dramatic sci-fi thriller Signs (also 2002). The film starred Gibson as a grieving patriarch whose rural existence was even further disturbed by the discovery of several crop circles on his property.Gibson would return to more familiar territory in Randall Wallace's We Were Soldiers -- a 2002 war drama which found Gibson in the role of Lt. Col. Hal Moore, commander of the First Battalion, Seventh Cavalry -- the same regiment so fatefully led by George Armstrong Custer. In 2003, Gibson starred alongside Robert Downey Jr. and Robin Wright-Penn in a remake of The Singing Detective. The year 2004 saw Gibson return to the director's chair for The Passion of The Christ. Funded by 25 million of Gibson's own dollars, the religious drama generated controversy amid cries of anti-Semitism. Despite the debates surrounding the film -- and the fact that all of the dialogue was spoken in Latin and Aramaic -- it nearly recouped its budget in the first day of release.The actor stepped behind the camera again in 2006 with the Mayan tale Apocalypto and was preparing to product a TV movie about the Holocaust, but by this time, public attention was not pointed at Gibson's career choices. That summer, he was pulled over for drunk driving at which time he made extremely derogatory comments about Jewish people to the arresting officer. When word of Gibson's drunken, bigoted tirade made it to the press, the speculation of the actor's anti-Semitic leanings that had circulated because of the choices he'd made in his depiction of the crucifixion in Passion of the Christ seemed confirmed. Gibson's father being an admitted holocaust denier hadn't helped matters and now it seemed that no PR campaign could help. Gibson publicly apologized, expressed extreme regret for his comments, and checked himself into rehab. Still, the plug was pulled on Gibson's Holocaust project and the filmmaker's reputation was irreparably tarnished.

Trivia: Rising to teenage idol status as the star of the hit romantic comedy La Boum (1980) and its sequel La Boum 2 (1982), Sophie Marceau has since managed to become more than "just another pretty face." She developed her dramatic skills in the romantic epic Fort Saganne (1984) and, most notably, in three films directed by her long-time companion, Polish/French director Andrzej Zulawski. As her career progressed during the early '90s, Marceau preferred to appear in such lighter fare as the romantic comedy Fanfan (1993), a huge hit in France, or the swashbuckler La Fille de D'Artagnan (1994). Meanwhile, her stage debut in Jean Anouilh's Euridyce in 1991 brought Marceau a Moliere award for Most Promising Newcomer. She also starred as Eliza Dolittle in Pygmalion at the Theatre des Arts Hebertot. In 1995, Marceau rose to international film stardom playing Princess Isabelle in Mel Gibson's epic Braveheart; that same year, she made her directorial debut with a nine-minute film, L'Aube à l'envers, which opened "Un Certain Regard" at the Cannes Film Festival. Marceau's international profile continued to grow throughout the decade thanks to her increasing appearances in both British and American productions, particularly A Midsummer Night's Dream and the 19th James Bond outing, The World Is Not Enough (both 1999). She stepped in front of the camera for Zulawski again the following year as the star of his La Fidélité.

Trivia: An American-born actor reared in Ireland and England, McGoohan made a memorable impression on the American and English viewing audiences by playing essentially the same role in three different television series. He began his performing career as a teen-ager, eventually played Henry V for the Old Vic company in London, and made mostly unremarkable films in the '50s. His movies include the delightful Disney film The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964). Success came in 1961, when McGoohan played government agent John Drake in Danger Man, a role he continued on Secret Agent (1965-66). He created, produced and often wrote episodes of the nightmarish, surrealistic cult series The Prisoner (1968-69). This show featured a character assumed to be the same John Drake (although he was known as Number 6 and his real name was never mentioned), who had been kidnapped and taken to a strange community. McGoohan later starred in the TV series Rafferty (1977) and directed the film Catch My Soul (1974). He won an Emmy Award in 1975 for his guest appearance on Columbo with Peter Falk.

Trivia: After making a memorable impression on audiences as Mel Gibson's doomed love in Braveheart, British actress Catherine McCormack emerged as one of the most promising of Britain's new wave of young actors. Born January 1, 1972, in Hampshire, England, McCormack trained at the Oxford School of Drama. Following some stage and television work, she made her film debut in Anna Campion's Loaded (1994), playing a member of a group of friends who go away for a fairly disastrous weekend retreat. After a turn in the obscure Tashunga (a 1995 film that was released a year later under the title of North Star), McCormack got her break in the epic Braveheart (1995). Although her role was secondary, the huge success of the film won McCormack widespread attention, paving the way for her lead role in the 1997 World War II drama The Land Girls (which also starred fellow up-and-comers Rachel Weisz and Anna Friel). The following year, the actress gained further prominence through the lead role in Dangerous Beauty, in which she played a Venetian courtesan. The same year, she also had a prominent part in Dancing at Lughnasa, a screen adaptation of Brian Friel's acclaimed play, starring Meryl Streep. In 1999, McCormack headlined yet another film, with her turn in the British comedy This Year's Love, in which she co-starred with fellow rising stars Dougray Scott, Jennifer Ehle, and Ian Hart. In the years to come, McCormack would remain active on screen, appearing in films like 28 Weeks Later, and starring on the series Lights Out.Her onscreen career subsequently stalled by a series of weighty roles in such high profile but only moderately successfuls films as Shadow of the Vampire, The Tailor of Panama, and Spy Game, McCormack nevertheless managed to make an impression on stage in such efforts as the SoHo Theater production of Kiss Me Like You Mean It and the West End production of Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind. Later making her directorial debut with a West End production of Anna Weiss, McCormack was nominated for as Best Supporting Actress at the 2001 Oliver Awards for her memorable performance in a British National Theater production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons. In 2005 McCormack would go hunting for the fearsome baboonasaurus in the notorious flop A Sound of Thunder, with voice work in the visually extravagant 2006 sci fi action entry Renaissance marking the actress' first foray into the world of animation.

Trivia: A former teacher, burly Irish actor Brendan Gleeson spent the 1990s earning an increasing amount of acclaim for his work in a variety of films, most notably John Boorman's The General (1998). Gleeson, who made his feature film debut in Jim Sheridan's The Field (1990), first made an impression on audiences in the role of Hamish, William Wallace's hulking ally in Braveheart (1995).In 1997, the actor was given his first crack at a starring role in I Went Down, a likeable black comedy that cast him as a thick-skulled hitman. The role brought him a greater dose of recognition and respect on both sides of the Atlantic, but it was Boorman's The General (shot right after I Went Down wrapped) that truly demanded -- and received -- international attention. The story of real-life Irish criminal Martin Cahill, the film featured Gleeson in its title role, and his cocky, assured portrayal of Cahill was widely deemed the best part of an altogether excellent film. The numerous plaudits he won for his performance included awards from Boston and London film critics.His career flourishing, it was only a matter of time before Gleeson had the opportunity to expand his resumé to include the occasional Hollywood blockbuster. That opportunity came by way of John Woo's Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), which cast Gleeson, surprisingly enough, as one of the film's resident villains. After carefully balancing his roles between the mainstream and the more low-key, character-driven films in later 2000 and into 2001 (he gained notice for his starring role as a philanderous, boozing TV chef turned sensitive amnesiac in the romantic comedy Wild About Harry [2000]), Gleeson headed back to Hollywood with his lively turn as Lord Johnson-Johnson in Steven Spielberg's A.I. Appearing in Trainspotting director Danny Boyle's zombie thriller 28 Days Later the following year, it wasn't long before Gleeson was once again gracing stateside cinemas with appearances in such high-profile films as Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002) and the Kurt Russell police detective thriller Dark Blue (2003).Gleeson remained a presence in high-profile films over the ensuing two years. In 2004 he could be seen in both the M. Night Shyamalan brain-bender The Village and the sweeping historical epic Troy. The following year found the actor in another pair of big-budget Hollywood films, the box-office dud Kingdom of Heaven and the fourth installment in the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Subsequent years found him re-teaming with 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy for the Neil Jordan comedy Breakfast on Pluto and reprising his role of Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007).He had a memorable turn in the Irish comedy In Bruges in 2008. Two years later he returned as Mad Eye for the final Harry Potter movie. That same year he turned in one of his best performances in The Guard. He played opposite the Oscar nominated Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs in 2011, and enjoyed roles in a couple of high-profile Hollywood films - The Raven and Safe House the next year.

Trivia: As the grizzled warrior Campbell in Braveheart, James Cosmo impressed filmgoers worldwide. His impassioned performance made it seem possible that such a man as Campbell really existed 700 years ago, a man who cared so much about his beloved Scotland that he could endure the bite of an English arrow, break it off, and go on fighting with Achillean fury. But it was not only Cosmo's formidable acting skills -- honed in scores of film and television productions dating back to the '60s -- that animated his performance. It was also his real-life love of Scotland. He believes his native country, small as it is, has a thousand and one other stories to tell just as exciting as Braveheart, and he has enlisted himself as actor, producer, and financier to bring them to the movie screen. For example, he singlehandedly engineered a project to construct Scotland's first film studio on a 40-acre site near Inverness. Both novice and experienced filmmakers will be welcome to reserve any of its sound stages. A nearby William Wallace Theme Park, named after the rebel leader depicted in Braveheart, will present reenactments of Wallace's rebellion against England between 1297 and 1305. Cosmo also was the brainchild of a major film project about Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), a national hero who attracted 30,000 mourners to his funeral. Cosmo selected Edinburgh as the setting, Scottish writer Alan Sharp to pen the script, and Scottish composer Derek William Dick to write an overture. The film, entitled Clarinda, centers on the love affair between Burns and an Edinburgh woman, Agnes Maclehose. Another Scottish writer, the great historical novelist Sir Walter Scott, provided the material for a triumphal Cosmo performance in the TV miniseries Ivanhoe, shown worldwide. Cosmo portrayed Ivanhoe's estranged father, Lord Cedric, with the same fiery spleen of Campbell in Braveheart. However, Cosmo does not perform only in films about the age of the horse and sword. In the critically acclaimed Trainspotting, he played the father of an Edinburgh heroin addict. Cosmo also portrayed a World War II POW in the heralded 2001 film To End All Wars, Mr. Weston in the 1996 Gwyneth Paltrow version of Jane Austen's Emma, and an oil-rig worker in the 1994 TV series Roughnecks. In addition, he was the voice of Thelonius, an orangutan, in Babe: Pig in the City. Cosmo grew up in Clydebank in west central Scotland, where he received an education in a stalwart brick-and-mortar high school while the smell of the sea invaded classrooms and beckoned aspiring young adventurers to set sail for exotic climes. Clydebank was a shipbuilding city; there, craftsmen puzzled together great Cunard liners, including the Queen Elizabeth II. Although Cosmo did not go to sea, he did set sail for a journey through the world of drama. For his outstanding work onscreen and his charitable work off, he received the lifetime achievement award of the Sunday Mail/McEwan's People's Film Festival.

Trivia: A product of Scotland, Angus MacFadyen possesses a burly build, deeply expressive eyes, and enviable charisma. He first made an impression on an international audience with his portrayal of Robert the Bruce in Braveheart (1995). Born in 1964, MacFadyen had a nomadic upbringing; thanks to his father's job with the World Health Organization, he spent his childhood and adolescence in places no less diverse than Africa, Australia, France, the Philippines, Singapore, and Denmark. He went on to attend the University of Edinburgh and received theatrical training at the Central School of Speech and Drama. MacFadyen got his professional start on the Edinburgh stage, appearing in a number of productions at the famed Fringe Festival. Breaking into television in the early '90s, MacFadyen appeared in a number of series for the BBC, including an acclaimed adaptation of David Leavitt's The Lost Language of Cranes (1992). Following the critical and commercial success of Braveheart, the actor got a rudimentary dose of recognition across the Atlantic, but remained largely unknown outside of the U.K. He starred with Gabriel Byrne and Bill Campbell in the World War II drama The Brylcreem Boys in 1996, playing a German pilot being held captive in neutral Ireland. Until 1998, when he portrayed Peter Lawford in the made-for-cable The Rat Pack, MacFadyen's other screen appearances tended to be in films that were widely ignored by audiences and critics alike. The sort of attention surrounding The Rat Pack paled in comparison to that surrounding MacFadyen's films the following year. In 1999, the actor could be seen in two highly publicized films, first playing Orson Welles in Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock and then starring as Lucius, son of the title character in Julie Taymor's Titus, an adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. Before returning to the big screen in such efforts as Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Equilibrium (both 2002), MacFayden took a brief turn as Zues in the made-for-television Jason and the Argonauts (2000) and turned up in such low-budget efforts as Second Skin and A Woman's a Helluva Thing (both 2000).

Trivia: A respected character actor and occasional leading man of the stage, screen, and television, Scottish-born Ian Bannen acted in over 80 productions during his long career. Shortly after enrolling at Ratcliffe College, Bannen, who was born in Airdrie, Scotland, on June 29, 1918, made his first stage appearance at Dublin's Gate Theatre. A year after making his 1955 London theatrical debut, he entered films with A Private's Progress and Battle Hell. A prolific stage actor (with a special fondness for the works of Eugene O'Neill), Bannen nonetheless found time for quite a few impressive film characterizations. One of these, the cynical Crow in Flight of the Phoenix (1965), earned him an Academy Award nomination. His later screen assignments ranged from a cameo as a policeman in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (1982) to the irascible Grandfather George in John Boorman's Hope and Glory (1987) to a turn as Robert the Bruce's leprous father in Braveheart (1995). It was with the 1998 comedy Waking Ned Devine that Bannen earned some of his best notices, playing a loveably crafty Irishman. Sadly, Bannen's life was cut short the following year, as he died in an auto accident on November 3, 1999, near Loch Ness, Scotland. He was survived by his wife of 23 years, as well as a rich theatrical legacy that stretched over almost half a century.

Trivia: Growing up in Scotland, the descendent of Irish immigrants, Brian Cox always felt an affinity to American cinema that eventually led him to pursue his career stateside. Born on June 1, 1946, in Dundee, Scotland, Cox knew he wanted to act from an early age, but identified more with the characters portrayed in American films than in "zany British comedies," to use his phrase. While working at the local theater, where he started by mopping the stage, the 15-year-old Cox would watch the actors and study their styles to separate the wheat from the chaff. He attended drama school in London and got caught up in British theater and television during the 1970s. Cox landed on Broadway in the early '80s, but found more closed doors than open ones. It was while performing a play transplanted from the U.K. that a casting agent for Michael Mann's Manhunter (1986) noticed him. The film would become the first cinematic treatment of Thomas Harris' Hannibal Lecter (spelled "Lecktor" at the time) character, which Anthony Hopkins would make his own in Silence of the Lambs (1991). Cox was cast in the role, paving the way for the success that had eluded him until his 40th year.Despite the breakthrough, Cox remained better identified with television than film during the late '80s and early '90s, though his roles significantly increased in number. His initiation to regular film work came through appearances in two 1995 sword epics, Braveheart and Rob Roy. Over the latter half of the 1990s he materialized in character-actor roles -- police officers, doctors, fathers -- in such films as The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996), Kiss the Girls (1997), Rushmore (1998), and The Minus Man (1999). Although he appears more often in American than British cinema, Cox has also paid homage to his Scottish and Irish roots, such as playing an IRA heavy in Jim Sheridan's The Boxer (1997).In 2001, Cox secured major acclaim -- and an American Film Institute nomination for best supporting actor -- with the release of L.I.E., the debut film of director Michael Cuesta. Like Todd Solondz' critical darling Happiness (1998), the film presents a child molester (Cox) as one of its major characters without condemning him, if not actually leaving him altogether unjudged. Cox's complicated, intense portrayal enabled such shades of gray, raising the character above the bottom rung of the morality food chain.As the decade continued, so did Cox's visibility in bigger hollywood films. In 2002 alone, he took on substantial roles in The Bourne Identity, The Rookie, The Ring, The 25th Hour, and Adaptation, a film that saw him stealing scenes with an appropriately over-the-top turn as blowhard screenwriting guru Robert McKee. The following year audiences could see him in the blockbuster comic-book sequel X2: X-Men United, and in 2004 he starred alongside Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom in the epic retelling of the Iliad, Troy. He returned to the Bourne franchise for The Bourne Supremacy, and appeared in the thriller Red Eye. He was the psychiatrist in the comedy Running With Scissors, and in 2007 portrayed Melvin Belli in David Fincher's Zodiac. He was cast in the geriatric action film Red, and joined up with Wes Anderson a second time to lend his voice to a bit part in Fantastic Mr. Fox. In 2011 Ralph Finnes tapped Cox to play Menenius in his big-screen adaptation of The Bard's Coriolanus.

Trivia: Originally wanted to be a film technician and enrolled in a Dublin acting school in order to get a foot in the industry. Enrolled in the Abbey Theatre's acting school, becoming a member of the company in 1967. While playing Thérnadier in Les Misérables in 1999, he was dropped and broke his ankle; he continued, despite the injury, for two more hours until the end of the performance.

Trivia: Thanks in part to Alun Armstrong, the works of Charles Dickens enjoyed widespread exposure before television and theater audiences in the late 20th century. A longtime fan of Dickens, Armstrong performed in two highly acclaimed TV productions of Dickens: David Copperfield as Dan Pegotty and Oliver Twist as Mr. Fleming. In addition, he played the cruel schoolmaster Squeers in the Royal Shakespeare Company's stage adaptation of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. The production won four 1982 Tony Awards, including the award for Best Play, after it moved from London to New York. Armstrong also played Squeers in a 1982 TV production of Nickleby that won an Emmy and was nominated for a British Academy Award. Such is Armstrong's passion for Dickens that he turned down a role in a high-profile Clint Eastwood film to do the David Copperfield production. However, he has gratefully accepted challenging roles in many other high-profile motion pictures. For example, he played Mornay in Braveheart, Owens in Patriot Games, Corporal Davies in A Bridge Too Far, Lacourbe in The Duellists, and Keith in Get Carter.Theatergoers who have never seen Armstrong on the stage have been missing performances of the first rank. He was nominated for the coveted Laurence Olivier Award six times for work in such plays as Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, Arthur Miller's The Crucible, and Victor Hugo's Les Misérables. He won the Olivier Award as Best Actor for his performance in Cameron Mackintosh's musical production of the Christopher Bond play Sweeney Todd. In film productions, Armstrong helped Jonathan Tammuz win a 1989 Oscar in the category of Best Live Action Short for his role as Stefano in The Childeater. And in TV productions, he earned a Best Actor nomination from the Royal Television Society for his performance in This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper. Armstrong was born on July 17, 1946, in County Durham, England. Though his face may have once been handsome, it is now a relief map of crevasses that make him ideal for roles as Dickens characters. Such a countenance works well, too, for Shakespeare characters whose visages are etched with the hardships of living. Armstrong put his wrinkles to work in the Royal Shakespeare Company productions of The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, The Winter's Tale, Troilus and Cressida, As You Like It, and Measure for Measure. Although never regarded as a famous actor, Armstrong has certainly been one of the hardest-working. Between 1999 and 2002, he performed in 17 productions, including two major films -- Sleepy Hollow and The Mummy Returns -- and a hit TV miniseries, The Aristocrats.

Trivia: Was persuaded to try acting by his friend and fellow actor Robert Carlyle. Got his start with a theater company in his native Glasgow in the early 1990s after working as a dance-club DJ. First TV roles were in a 1992 episode of the BBC anthology series Screen One and a '93 episode of Taggart, a long-running Scottish detective series. His breakout movie was Braveheart (1995). The scars on his face are the result of a mugging by knife-wielding assailants, an incident that occurred before he began acting.

Trivia: In films since at least 1963's The Scarlet Blade, British actor Michael Byrne has had roles ranging from the benign to the malevolent. He was equally at home with the Olde English trappings of Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1973) as he was with the up-to-date gangster ambience of The Long Good Friday (1982). Among his credits were Butley (1974), A Bridge too Far (1977) (halfway down the cast sheet as Lt. Col. Vandelur), The Medusa Touch (1978) and Force 10 from Navarone (1978). In 1989, Michael Byrne played Vogel, one of the multitudes of plot motivators in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Trivia: Best known for his award-winning portrayal of a recovering alcoholic in Ken Loach's My Name Is Joe (1998), Scottish actor Peter Mullan has been appearing in films since 1990. He first worked with director Loach in 1991's Riff Raff, and he has appeared in a number of popular Scottish films, including Danny Boyle's Shallow Grave (1994) and Trainspotting (1996), and Mel Gibson's Braveheart (1995). In 1998, the same year that he won the Cannes Film Festival's Best Actor prize for My Name Is Joe, Mullan made his feature directorial and screenwriting debut with Orphans. The story of four siblings gathered in Glasgow for their mother's funeral, it earned fairly positive reviews and comparisons to Gillies MacKinnon's Small Faces (1995). The following year, Mullan starred opposite Saffron Burrows in Miss Julie, Mike Figgis' adaptation of August Strindberg's tale about the disastrous affair between a wealthy young woman and her servant. He then went on to act in prominent roles for Ordinary Decent Criminal (1999), The Claim (2000), and Session 9 (2001). In 2002, he returned to directing and screenwriting with the controversial film The Magdalene Sisters, which managed to both win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and be condemned by the Vatican.

Trivia: Born in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, character actor Gerard McSorley has played a lot of bad guys during his prolific acting career. He started with a theater background working with Jim Sheridan at the Project Theater. In 1981 he joined Dublin's Abbey Players, Ireland's national theater company. After a small role in the TV movie S.O.S. Titanic, he made his film debut in Neil Jordan's debut film, Danny Boy. He went on to appear in Jordan's later film work Michael Collins and The Butcher Boy. In 1993 he appeared in In the Name of the Father, directed by Jim Sheridan. He would continue to work with the director at his Hell's Kitchen production company in Dublin on the films Some Mother's Son, The Boxer, Agnes Browne, and Bloody Sunday. He was also in Atom Egoyan's Felicia's Journey, Alan Parker's Angela's Ashes, and Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Ordinary Decent Criminal. As a voice actor, he narrated the film Dancing at Lughnasa as well as the television documentary series In Search of Ancient Ireland. He's also worked extensively on Irish television. In 2003 he can be seen as the psychotic gangster John Gilligan in Joel Schumacher's Veronica Guerin.

Trivia: Irish supporting actor, onscreen from the '80s after many years of prestigious stage work.

Trivia: Cinematographer John Toll began his career by shooting a pair of low-budget exploitation movies in the early '70s, only to drop out and re-emerge as a camera operator on the film Tom Horn in 1979. He graduated to director of photography in 1989, and began shooting TV movies and episodic television. In 1992, he returned to theatrical films with Wind, a story about the America's Cup sailing competition, and soon developed a reputation for his work on historical epics, set mostly in the great outdoors. In 1994, he won an Academy Award for his work on Legends of the Fall and again the following year for Braveheart. He was nominated in 1998, for The Thin Red Line.

Trivia: One of the most popular and prolific film composers of the 1980s and 1990s, James Horner has displayed a gift for writing scores on the epic scale of such composers as Jerry Goldsmith, but has also shown a knack for bolder and more contemporary sounds as well as subtle and contemplative fare. Born in Los Angeles, California, in 1953, James Horner developed a precocious interest in piano at the age of five when he began learning the instrument. After graduating high school, Horner decided to study music, and he attended the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, before returning to the United States to receive a degree at the University of Southern California. Horner went on to earn a graduate degree in Composition at University of California, Los Angeles, and he wrote a contemporary classical piece entitled Spectral Shimmers, which was given its world premier by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Eager to find a larger audience for his work, Horner began seeking out commissions to write film music, and scored several short films for the American Film Institute. Horner's entry into commercial film music came courtesy of legendary exploitation filmmaker Roger Corman, who hired Horner to write music for several early-'80s releases for his production company New World Pictures, including Humanoids From the Deep and The Lady in Red (the latter scripted by another Corman discovery, John Sayles). Horner's breakthrough came in 1982, when he scored both Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and 48 Hrs. After composing for two of that year's biggest films, Horner found himself in great demand, and he had written 36 scores by the time he received his first two Academy Award nominations in 1986, having been cited for the animated children's feature An American Tail and the action-packed sci-fi thriller Aliens in the same year. Through the 1990s, Horner continued to work on a large number of prestigious productions, including Apollo 13, Braveheart, and Legends of the Fall, before finally winning an Oscar in 1997 for the score to James Cameron's blockbuster Titanic, and a second Oscar for the music to the film's theme song, "My Heart Will Go On," which became an international hit for Celine Dion. Over the coming years, Horner would remain one of the most prominent composers in Hollywood, penning scores for films like Apocalypto, Avatar, and The Amazing Spider-Man. Horner died at age 61 when his two-seater airplane, which he was piloting and was the sole passenger, crashed in the Los Padres National Forest in California.

Trivia: Randall Wallace planned on becoming a minister or a songwriter, not a filmmaker. After leaving the seminary to write music, he worked as a novelist and television scribe before penning the award-winning script to Braveheart (1995) and embarking on a directing career. Raised in Tennessee, Wallace began writing stories at the age of seven. He majored in religion at Duke University before joining a seminary, but took various writing classes all through school. He even opened his own record company to release his original songs, which were played on local radio stations throughout the Carolinas and Virginia. After exiting the seminary, Wallace moved to Nashville to try his hand at a music career. He ran the animal shows at Opryland while trying to establish himself as a songwriter. Unfortunately, because he did not write country music (the city's primary genre), he experienced very little success. In 1980, Wallace moved to Los Angeles where he began writing novels, such as Blood of the Lamb and Where Angels Watch. He earned rave reviews for his work -- critics compared him to Robert Penn Warren and Charles Dickens -- but his sales were disappointing. With the help of producer Stephen J. Cannell, Wallace tried his hand at television writing, composing teleplays for Hunter, J.J. Starbuck, Sonny Spoon, and Broken Badges. A Scottish American, Wallace formulated the idea for Braveheart -- the true story of medieval Scottish patriot William Wallace -- while visiting Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. After writing the screenplay, he developed the film with his own funds before teaming with its director and star, Mel Gibson. An extraordinary success, Braveheart garnered several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Wallace earned a Writer's Guild of America Award, a Golden Globe nomination, and an Oscar nod for his screenplay. Three years later, Wallace made his directing debut with Man in the Iron Mask (1998), an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' novel about the Three Musketeers' struggle to replace Louis XIV with a more worthy king. Despite its star-studded cast -- Leonardo Di Caprio, Gabriel Byrne, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, and Gerard Depardieu -- the film was not the blockbuster Wallace had hoped it would be. Shortly afterward, Wallace met director Michael Bay, who asked him to write the script for Pearl Harbor (2001). Though it began well, their collaboration hit a snag when Bay called in several script doctors to add more action sequences to the film. Disagreeing with Bay's decision, Wallace quietly quit the project, though he is still Pearl Harbor's only credited scriptwriter. He immediately started pre-production on his sophomore directing effort, the Vietnam drama We Were Soldiers (2002). After discovering its source material -- a memoir written by Lieutenant General Hal Moore and war correspondent Joseph Galloway -- in an airport bookstore, he bought the rights to the film adaptation with his earnings from Braveheart. Wallace spent several years writing and developing the project himself before joining forces with star Mel Gibson's Icon Productions. Released in 2002, We Were Soldiers also featured Greg Kinnear, Chris Klein, and Marc Blucas and was Wallace's most favorably reviewed film since Braveheart. He quickly went to work on polishing his pet combat script, a World War II film based on his father-in-law's experience as a German P.O.W. at the end of the war.

Trivia: The son of star Alan Ladd, Alan Ladd, Jr. started out as an independent producer in Great Britain during the late '60s. Returning to the States in 1973, he worked for 20th Century-Fox and by 1974 became the head of the feature production department. Three years later, Ladd was the president of Fox. Between 1979 and 1985, Ladd founded his own independent production company, The Ladd Company. From 1986-88, he served as the CEO of MGM/UA Entertainment and then moved to become the CEO of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. (1990-93). Ladd revived his defunct production company at Paramount in 1993.