Trivia: Despite spending the first 25 years of his life in Adelaide, Australia, Anthony LaPaglia is best known for playing street-savvy Italian New Yorkers. This was not, however, LaPaglia's original plan. Rather than testing the waters of show business, LaPaglia traveled to the United States intending to pursue a full-time teaching career. As luck would have it, however, one of LaPaglia's odd jobs was a small role in Cold Steel (1987), a low-budget detective drama. LaPaglia began pursuing theater and television in his spare time -- one of his more notable early performances was in 1988's Frank Nitti: The Enforcer -- and considered himself a full-time actor by 1989, when he made his feature-film debut in Slaves of New York. It was 1990, however, when the young actor earned critical recognition for his role as an exceedingly polite mobster in Betsy's Wedding.LaPaglia continued to build his résuméthroughout the early '90s, most of which he spent playing either kindly policemen or good-hearted mobsters, and was delighted to work alongside a variety of noted actors so early in his career. Among those actors were Alan Alda in Betsy's Wedding, Michael Keaton in One Good Cop (1991), and Nathan Lane, Sharon Stone, and Kevin Bacon in He Said, She Said (1992). Later in 1992, LaPaglia could be found playing his first leading role in George Gallo's gangster farce 29th Street. Though the film did not fare particularly well, audiences were nonetheless impressed with LaPaglia's intensity, and he played a more serious gangster with great success opposite Susan Sarandon in The Client (1994). The actor switched gears for his next handful of films; in Mixed Nuts (1994) he played a disillusioned Santa Claus, while Empire Records (1995) found him as a down-on-his-luck store manager, and the Australian-helmed Brilliant Lies (1996) featured him as the defendant in a sketchy sexual-harassment case.Despite a smattering of mediocre films between 1995 and the early 2000s, LaPaglia continued to earn critical acclaim for many of his endeavors, such as Steve Buscemi's directorial debut, Trees Lounge (1996), for which LaPaglia joined a star-studded supporting cast, as well as for his role as a detective in Spike Lee's Summer of Sam (1999). Luckily for him, 2000 and 2001 proved excellent for his career, as it was during this period that he played a wealthy businessman in The House of Mirth and an adulterous police detective in Lantana. In addition to receiving international success, Lantana earned LaPaglia the prestigious Best Actor award from the Australian Film Institute, as well as a nomination from the Film Critics Circle. In the meantime, he was adding several major television credits to his résumé, including a starring role as the head of the FBI's Missing Persons Squad on CBS's Without a Trace, and a recurring role on the long-running sitcom Frasier, a performance for which he would receive an Emmy in 2002. Far removed from his fledgling days as a teacher, 2002 also found LaPaglia working with Val Kilmer for The Salton Sea; Sigourney Weaver for The Guys; Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal in Analyze That; and Eric Stoltz in Happy Hour. In 2003, after filming Manhood with Janeane Garofalo and the late John Ritter, LaPaglia agreed to star in director Josh Sternfeld's Winter Solstice (2004).Over the next several years, LaPaglia would appear in a number of big screen projects, like Balibo (2009), Overnight (2012) and A Good Marriage (2014).

Trivia: Supporting actor Rory Cochrane made his film debut with a small role in James Dearden's A Kiss Before Dying (1991). Prior to that, while still enrolled at New York City's LaGuardia High School, he had appeared in the CBS television docudrama Saturday Night With Connie Chung (1989); he then appeared in an episode of the ABC series H.E.L.P. (1990). Cochrane has subsequently earned recognition for playing memorable character roles in independent features. He is best known for playing the constantly zoned-out teenaged stoner Slater in Richard Linklater's ode to adolescence in the 1970s, Dazed and Confused (1993). Other notable roles include a turn as a troubled teen wrangling with a dysfunctional father (Jeff Goldblum) in Fathers and Sons (1992) and Cochrane's multilayered and funny portrayal of a paranoid, gun-loving biker in Love and a .45 (1994). Cochrane continued to work steadily in little-seen independent films like Empire Records, and The Low Life. He did have a major role in James Toback's confrontational Black and White. He appeared in Hats's War opposite fellow Dazed and Confused alum Cole Hauser. Cochrane scored a role on the CSI spin-off CSI: Miami, but his character was killed off. In 2006 Cochrane would be cast again by Richard Linklater in his adaptation of A Scanner Darkly. Cochrane would remain active on screen as the years rolled on, apperaing in movies like Public Enemies and on shows like The Company, CSI: Miami, and 24.

Trivia: Actor Johnny Whitworth racked up a lengthy resumé tackling everyman roles in American films, honing in largely on supporting parts in mainstream studio features, with the occasional indie effort. His film credits, which run the gamut in terms of quality and genre, include such outings as the John Grisham legal drama The Rainmaker (1997), the slasher picture Valentine (2001), and the Andy Warhol-centered drama Factory Girl (2006), about the tragic life of Edie Sedgwick.

Trivia: Possessing an unusual beauty marked by perhaps the most distinctive set of lips in the business (an inheritance from father Steven Tyler), Liv Tyler unsurprisingly made her entrance into acting via the world of modeling. Since her breakthrough role in 1996's Stealing Beauty, she has emerged as a performer with bona fide talent, dropping her "model-actress" hyphenate in favor of just "actress."Born in New York, NY, on July 1, 1977, to model and former 1970s rock groupie Bebe Buell, Tyler spent most of her youth believing that rocker Todd Rundgren was her father. However, as she grew older, she began to notice more than a passing resemblance between herself and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, who was a family friend, and she ultimately discovered that he was indeed her biological father. When she was 12, she took Tyler's last name as her own.After experiencing obligatory preteen awkwardness -- hers featured braces and a bit of a weight problem -- Tyler had blossomed enough by the time she was 14 to consider modeling. She moved to New York City in the company of her mother and began to pursue a career. After appearing on the covers of magazines like Seventeen and Mirabella, Tyler got her first taste of acting while filming a television commercial. She made her film debut in 1994, as the sister of an autistic boy in Bruce Beresford's Silent Fall, appearing in the mystery alongside Richard Dreyfuss and Linda Hamilton.Following this fairly auspicious debut, Tyler's next project, 1995's Empire Records, proved a disappointment on both commercial and critical levels. Tyler kept at it, next starring as the unrequited love interest of a reclusive pizza maker (Pruitt Taylor Vince) in James Mangold's Heavy that same year. Her work in the critically hailed film won her wide praise and her career began to take off. Tyler's breakthrough came the following year in Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty. Starring as a 19-year-old who comes to Italy to find her father and lose her virginity, she suddenly became Hollywood's new "It" Girl, appearing on magazine covers and as one of People's "50 Most Beautiful" in 1997.After a lead as one of the titular Abbott sisters in Inventing the Abbotts (1997) and a brief cameo in U-Turn the same year, Tyler stepped into the realm of bloated budgets and even more bloated box-office returns with her role as Bruce Willis' daughter and Ben Affleck's girlfriend in Armageddon (1998). The following year, she returned to the art house circuit with Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune. The film was widely praised, as was its ensemble cast, which included Tyler, Glenn Close, Julianne Moore, Charles S. Dutton, Chris O'Donnell, and Ned Beatty. The same year, Tyler lent her talents to the 18th century road movie genre, starring opposite Robert Carlyle and Jonny Lee Miller in Plunkett and Macleane. She also had a leading role as the object of Ralph Fiennes' jaded affections in Martha Fiennes' Onegin, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.After taking the role of an irresistibly destructive seductress in the 2001 comedy One Night at McCool's, Tyler took another trip back in time, this time putting her pixyish beauty to ideal use as Arwen, an elf faced with the daunting dilemma of choosing between love and immortality in director Peter Jackson's grandiose, three-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolken's Lord of the Rings.She was the love interest for Ben Affleck in Kevin Smith's Jersey Girl. In 2007, she stretched her dramatic range in Mike Binder's Reign Over Me, and the next year played the love interest of Dr. Banner in The Incredible Hulk, and also took the lead in the home-invasion thriller The Strangers. She was the love interest for a frustrated wannabe superhero in James Gunn's Super in 2010, and the next year she had a major part in the thriller The Ledge. In 2014, she starred in the HBO series The Leftovers.

Trivia: Born June 19th, 1972, actress Robin Tunney became known in the 1990s for her work in a number of teen and independent films. A native of Chicago's South Side, where she attended Catholic high school, Tunney studied acting at the Chicago Academy for the Performing Arts. She spent her summers performing in such stage productions as Bus Stop and Agnes of God. At the age of 18, Tunney moved to Los Angeles, where she began finding work on various television shows. The actress made her screen debut in the 1992 Brendan Fraser/Pauly Shore comedy Encino Man. She had her first lead role in the teen ensemble film Empire Records (1995), playing a suicidal record store employee who announces her presence in the film by walking into the store and shaving her head. A year later, Tunney starred as a member of a group of high school misfits who use witchcraft to take revenge on their tormenters in The Craft. Sort of a Sixteen Candles meets Carrie, the film proved to be a cult hit, particularly with teenage girls. Tunney subsequently made her name in independent dramas and mainstream films alike, doing particularly strong work in Niagara Niagara, earning the Venice Film Festival's Volpi Cup for Best Actress, for her portrayal of a young woman with Tourette's Syndrome. In 1999, she entered into the realm of bloated budgets and equally bloated plot premises, starring as Satan's intended bride alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in End of Days. That same year, she played a 22nd century paramedic in Supernova, a sci-fi thriller that had her racing against time to escape from an exploding star. After braving icy mountains in the adventure nail-biter Vertical Limit (2000) Tunney would turn-up as a fantasy prone animator placed under house arrest after the mysterious hit and run death of a police officer in the comedy thriller Cherish (2002).In the wake of The In-Laws, Tunney would carry an impressive collection of independent thrillers including Paparazzi, Runaway, and The Zodiac, with a continuing role on the popular television drama Prison Break serving well to offer steady employment while letting her chose her film roles as she saw fit. A supporting role in frequent television director Allen Coulter's feature debut Hollywoodland found Tunney joining an impressive cast that included Ben Affleck, Diane Lane, Bob Hoskins, and Adrien Brody to explore the mysterious last days of television Superman George Reevs.Tunney became most recognizable for her starring role on The Mentalist as CBI Senior Special Agent Teresa Lisbon, who leads the Special Crime Unit and works directly with the show's protagonist, Patrick Jane (Simon Baker). The Mentalist first aired in 2008 on CBS and ran through 2015.

Trivia: Was a competitive gymnast during his youth and often performs his own stunts. Placed sixth in the overall competition of California finals for the U.S. Gymnastics Federation at the age of 10. Won a Young Artist Award in 1992 for his starring role of Doyle Standish in the drama Dutch (1991). Served as a producer and assistant director on the short film A Dog and His Boy (1992). With Vegas Vacation (1997), became the fourth actor to play Rusty Griswold.

Trivia: Versatile Great Britain-born actor Maxwell Caulfield has worked steadily on stage, television, and occasionally in film. Caufield got his start as a dancer in a London hotspot and moved to New York in the late '70s. He has appeared in productions on and off-Broadway. He made an inauspicious Hollywood debut in 1982 appearing with Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2. His subsequent films have been of varying quality.

Trivia: Known for her feline eyes and brash New York attitude, Queens native Debi Mazar began her show business career behind the scenes as a makeup artist for a star-studded clientele, the most lucrative of the bunch being Madonna. Attracted by her unique features, the iconic pop singer cast Mazar in the music videos for "True Blue," "Deeper and Deeper," and "Papa Don't Preach." It wasn't until 1990, however, that Mazar made her film debut as the cokehead girlfriend of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) in Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas. After portraying a series of small but indelible characters in Oliver Stone's The Doors, Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, and Jodie Foster's Little Man Tate (all 1991), Mazar had developed a small but devoted following and a reputation solid enough to land her the tough-talking role of legal defense secretary Denise Iannello on ABC's legal drama Civil Wars (1991-1993), a role she would reprise for NBC's L.A. Law in 1994.After taking on several more tiny supporting parts throughout the early '90s, including one which would reunite her with Jungle Fever director Spike Lee (in the Oscar-winning Malcolm X [1992]), Mazar made her debut as a lead character in Money for Nothing (1993), a blue-collar crime comedy co-starring John Cusack, with whom she would work for a second time in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (1994). After a brief performance as a manicurist in television's Witch Hunt (1994), Mazar could be found in the role of a femme fatale alongside Drew Barrymore, Jim Carrey, and Val Kilmer in Batman Forever (1995), and would portray an idealistic HIV-positive thief in Red Ribbon Blues (1995). Red Ribbon Blues wasn't the last time Mazar would delve into the complex world of sex and gender-related prejudice -- in 1996's Girl 6, Mazar co-starred as an anonymous member of a phone sex business, while Things I Never Told You found her playing a transsexual. Shortly afterward, Mazar chewed a respectable amount of scenery as one of Long Island barfly Tommy's (Steve Buscemi) potential hook-ups in 1996's Trees Lounge. The actress continued to exhibit her versatility in a series of roles during 1997, including those of a sleazy television show producer in Meet Wally Sparks, an intergalactic waitress in Space Truckers, and two decidedly more serious performances in the gay & lesbian drama Nowhere and Nick Cassavetes' romantic drama She's So Lovely.With the notable exceptions of bleaching her trademark jet-black tresses for 1998's Frogs for Snakes with Robbie Coltrane, and her role as Debbie De Luca in Michael Mann's tobacco industry exposé The Insider (1999), Mazar spent much of the late '90s on the small screen. After the failure of CBS's sitcom Temporarily Yours (1997), Mazar played lead roles in David and Lisa (a psychological drama co-produced by Oprah Winfrey) and NBC's Witness to the Mob. Following another NBC sitcom appearance in the short-lived Working (1998), the actress starred in 2000's CBS drama That's Life as an advice-dispensing hairdresser. In 2002, Mazar played right-hand woman to multi-millionaire Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs) in Jackie Chan's The Tuxedo, and went on to offer a poignant monologue in Ten Tiny Love Stories the same year. In 2004, Mazar took on a supporting role in the crime comedy Be Cool with John Travolta and Uma Thurman, and starred in Dennis Brooks' independent film Goodnight, Joseph Parker.She had a major role in 2008's A Beautiful Life, and that same year had a small part in the ensemble of The Women. In 2012 she could be seen in the porn queen biopic Lovelace.

Trivia: Since his 1995 debut as Heather Matarazzo's would-be rapist in Welcome to the Dollhouse, Brendan Sexton III has become a fixture on the independent film circuit. Often playing troubled and/or alienated young men, he has steadily established himself as one of the more compelling, hard-edged actors of his generation.Nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance for his work in Dollhouse (the award ultimately went to his co-star, Matarazzo), the Staten Island native immediately began to attract notice in the indie film arena. Following a small role as another troubled boy in that same year's Empire Records, he went on to appear in a number of independent features, including 1997's Arresting Gena and A, B, C . . . Manhattan. In 1998, John Waters cast him as the shoplifting friend of Pecker's titular hero; that same year, Sexton led a cast of up-and-comers (including Christina Ricci, Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck) in Morgan J. Freeman's Desert Blue, playing one of the denizens of a small desert town. He collaborated with director Freeman again that year in Hurricane Streets, starring as the film's delinquent streetwise protagonist who tries to mend his ways. In 1999, Sexton had a major role in Boys Don't Cry, the story of Brandon Teena, a woman whose decision to lead her life as a man met with brutal consequences. Over the coming years, Sexton would continue to remain a success on screen, appearing in films like Black Hawk Down and Everybody's Fine, as well as on the TV series The Killing.

Trivia: Moon-faced, dreamy eyed, and radiating the kind of lo-fi intensity that made him a natural for the kind of Thoughtful Young Man roles in which he made his name during the early years of his career, Tobey Maguire has proven to be one of the most thought-provoking actors of his generation. Whether portraying a disaffected young suburbanite in The Ice Storm (1997) or a geek turned superhero in Spider-Man (2002), Maguire always gives the kind of nuanced, engaging performances that have the effect of making the viewer believe that short of actually spinning webs from his wrists, there is very little he can't do.Maguire was born in Santa Monica, CA, on June 27, 1975. The son of a construction worker and secretary, he was raised predominately by his mother after his parents divorced when he was almost two years old. The two led an itinerant lifestyle, living with relatives all over the country. Maguire's childhood ambition was to become a cook, but his mother, once an aspiring actress herself, encouraged her son to go into acting. Following a sixth grade drama class, the young actor began getting roles in commercials, which led to a starring turn in the short-lived 1992 sitcom Great Scott!The following year, Maguire made his film debut in This Boy's Life, which starred Robert De Niro and a very young Leonardo Di Caprio. After a small part in 1994's S.F.W. and a lead in the same year's largely unseen Revenge of the Red Baron, Maguire attracted favorable notice for his role in the 1995 Oscar-nominated short The Duke of Groove, in which he co-starred with Uma Thurman.1997 proved to be Maguire's breakthrough year, as he worked with two widely respected directors on two high-profile projects. The first was Ang Lee's critically lauded adaptation of the Rick Moody novel The Ice Storm; in a film filled with exceptional performances, Maguire held his own amongst a cast that included Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Joan Allen, and Christina Ricci, and won acclaim for his portrayal of the dutiful and discontented Paul Hood. His other 1997 film, Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry, received mixed reviews, but Maguire's presence in an Allen film further bolstered his career.The year 1998 was another good year for the actor, who had a lead role in the highly acclaimed Pleasantville, in which he starred as a teenager who gets transported into the world of a '50s TV show. He also made a cameo appearance as a bedraggled hitchhiker in Terry Gilliam's adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. With a rising profile and coveted spot on the 1998 cover of Vanity Fair's annual Hollywood issue, Maguire was emerging as one of the more solid and worthwhile young actors in an industry where too many young performers fall prey to the lure of glitz over grit.His reputation was further established with his turn as the protagonist of The Cider House Rules, Lasse Hallström's 1999 Oscar-nominated adaptation of John Irving's novel about a young man who comes of age under the tutelage of an abortionist played by Michael Caine. Maguire's similarly strong work as a troubled but brilliant young writer in Wonder Boys (2000) undoubtedly helped him to win the attention of director Sam Raimi, who eventually cast the actor in the role of Peter Parker, the awkward teenager who becomes the eponymous, web-spinning hero of Spider-Man. The film, which was released in 2002, broke box-office records with its opening weekend draw of more than 110 million dollars, and finally separated Tobey Maguire from his mainstream status as Leonardo DiCaprio's basketball buddy into a mega-star in his own right. Its success catapulted Maguire -- who beefed up his skinny frame for the role and managed to assuage the misgivings of even the most die-hard Spidey fans with his astute performance -- into the rarefied realm of the A-list, complete with the promise of a multimillion-dollar paycheck for his future work, and led to his role as producer of 2002's The 25th Hour, as well as the wildly successful Seabiscuit. In 2004, Maguire returned to his role of Peter Parker in the hotly anticipated Spider-Man 2 and then finished up his superhero contract with the final installation of the trilogy, Spider-Man 3 (2007).Maguire would spend the ensuing years enjoying a selective career, appearing in Brothers, The Details, and The Great Gatsby.

Trivia: Until she headlined Jerry Maguire opposite Tom Cruise in late 1996, Renée Zellweger claimed extremely limited public recognition. Though Zellweger essayed several key roles before Maguire, the vulnerability and versatility that the actress exhibited as Cruise's (long undeclared) love interest in Cameron Crowe's seriocomedy netted much-deserved praise from critics and audiences alike. Though the Academy passed her over when that year's Oscar nominations rolled around, she received several other laurels for her work in Maguire, including the title of Best Breakthrough Performer by the National Board of Review.Born April 25th, 1969, the willowy, strawberry blonde Zellweger began life in Katy, TX, a small town on the outskirts of Houston. The town was so small that it possessed neither cable television nor a movie theater. As a result, Zellweger reportedly did not see her first art film until she was a student at the University of Texas in Austin. Her career at U.T. was an exceptional one; a regular on the Dean's List, she graduated a year early with a B.A. in Radio, Film, and Television. While in college, Zellweger took an acting class and discovered a knack for performing; following graduation, she made her feature-film debut with a bit part in Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993). She then landed a role playing a whacked-out waitress in Love and a .45 (1994), for which she won her first Independent Spirit Award nomination; she won a second nomination for The Whole Wide World (1996), earning additional acclaim at various film festivals.Following the tremendous success of Jerry Maguire, Zellweger went on to prove herself as a versatile actress able to play roles ranging from an ambitious journalist (who temporarily shelves her career to care for her mother) in One True Thing (1998) to a rebellious Hassidic Jew in Boaz Yakin's A Price Above Rubies (1998). She then exhibited a capacity for romantic comedy in The Bachelor (1999), starring as the long-suffering girlfriend of a commitment-phobic Chris O'Donnell. Zellweger's second role as a deeply confused soap opera fanatic in Neil LaBute's offbeat crime comedy Nurse Betty won her the Best Actress in a Comedy Award at the 2000 Golden Globes. Nominated for yet another Golden Globe the following year for her memorable performance in Bridget Jones' Diary (2001), that same role also earned Zellweger her maiden Oscar nod. The following few years found Zellweger's leading lady status growing and numerous lucrative film offers flowing in, and the release of White Oleander (2002) the starlet received numerous positive reviews despite the film's lackluster performance. Later that same year, Zellweger was on top of the world when she received rave reviews for her role in Chicago. Based on the popular Broadway musical of the same name, director Rob Marshall's flashy cinematic extravaganza received nearly unanimous praise accompanied by multiple Academy Award nominations, including a second Best Actress in a Leading Role nod to Ms. Zellweger for her lively performance.Zellweger lost the award bid to Nicole Kidman, and then teamed up with that actress for Anthony Minghella's epic Cold Mountain. The performance netted Zellweger her third Oscar nomination, and on February 29, 2004, her losing streak ended as she took home the award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Attempting to keep up the momentum, Zellweger then returned to the character that earned her her first Oscar nod, starring in the sequel to Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004). Unfortunately, that outing (directed by To Wong Foo helmer Beeban Kidron) failed to draw the critical acclaim of its predecessor and was widely greeted with public apathy in the States, but in the final analysis, it grossed nearly as much as the premier outing (with a massive overseas take). After the second Bridget Jones installment, Zellweger's screen activity decrescendoed somewhat, but she placed a heightened emphasis on more offbeat and unusual roles, including a portrayal of children's author Beatrix Potter in the Weinstein Company outing Miss Potter (2006), and a throwback role to the days of classic Hollywood screwball comedy, as the romantic lead of George Clooney and John Krasinski in the period sports outing Leatherheads (2008). The actress lent her voice to the animated children's fantasy Monsters vs. Aliens, and will reprise her role as Bridget Jones for Bridget Jones' Baby. Off-camera, Zellweger has been romantically linked to funnyman Jim Carrey and to rocker Jack White, of The White Stripes. She was married very briefly to Kenny Chesney; the two received an annulment in less than a year.