Trivia: Personifying the type of teen spirit most commonly found in Noxzema ads and pep squad meets, actress Jennifer Love Hewitt has brought new meaning to the word "effervescent." The 1990s saw Hewitt go from relative obscurity to a bona fide teen queen, to say nothing of one of the most frequently enshrined actresses on the Internet.Hewitt was born on February 21, 1979 in Waco, TX. She made her first appearance on television in 1984 in the show Kids Incorporated (which, coincidentally, once guest-starred Scott Wolf, her Party of Five co-star). She also did a multitude of commercials, even doing a stint as a LA Gear spokesgirl at the age of ten. After spending the majority of the 80s working in television, Hewitt got her first film role in the 1993 film Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, but it wasn't until she got her big break as Sarah Reeves on Party of Five (1994) that she began to gain recognition. More recognition came, first in the form of Trojan War (1997), and then from I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). The film, which capitalized on the growing trend in teen horror flicks catalyzed by Wes Craven's Scream (1996), proved to be immensely popular among audiences, if not critics. It was predictably followed by a sequel, the aptly titled I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998). In addition to her film work, which also included 1998's Can't Hardly Wait, Hewitt maintained her role in Party of Five and continued to star in commercials, most notably as the Neutrogena spokesgirl.

Trivia: With his doe eyes and April-fresh skin, Freddie Prinze Jr. seemed a natural leader of the late-'90s Hollywood teen invasion. Noted as much for his looks as for his acting, Prinze has proven to have a natural appeal that has endured him to legions of fans.The beginning of Prinze's life was a turbulent one, as his father, the actor Freddie Prinze (best known for his starring role on NBC's Chico and the Man) committed suicide when the younger Prinze was only ten months old. Born in Los Angeles on March 8, 1976, Prinze moved with his mother to Albuquerque, NM, shortly after his father's death. Growing up in New Mexico, Prinze was a poor student who decided to follow in his father's celluloid footsteps. After his high-school graduation in 1994, Prinze took off for Los Angeles with little money and few prospects. However, he soon found work in Hollywood, first appearing in various television shows, including an episode of Family Matters and a few afterschool specials.The actor first broke into film as Claire Danes' boyfriend in To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1996). The part was a small one, but helped Prinze to secure his next and more sizeable role in The House of Yes (1997), a wicked little black comedy that starred Parker Posey as Prinze's deliciously unstable sister. The film's release was mainly limited to art houses, unlike Prinze's next film, I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). The film was a huge commercial, if not critical, success that propelled Prinze into, if not the limelight, then the hearts of many girls and more than a few boys everywhere. Following this triumph, Prinze went on to do a couple of forgettable films before the 1998 sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. The combined impact of that film and the success of Prinze's next major project, She's All That, gave the actor even greater fame and caused least one writer to dub him the next Leonardo Di Caprio. Unfortunately, Prinze's following endeavor, Wing Commander (1999), proved to be an unmitigated disappointment, serving to illustrate the extreme fluctuations of success in Hollywood. Prinze's growing popularity, however, seemed to survive relatively unscathed, judging by the slew of websites erected in his name.If there was any question that the actor's popularity was waning in the wake of Wing Commander's lackluster performance, that doubt would soon be confirmed with hard numbers, as a triple threat of romantic comedies unceremoniously removed the teen-crowd superstar crown from Prinze's head. The cookie-cutter offerings Down to You and Boys and Girls (the latter of which reteamed him with She's All That director Robert Iscove) attempted to posit Prinze as a collegiate heartthrob, but both films' mix of moony romance with gross-out gags did little to attract moviegoers of any age. Anticipation for his next starring role, alongside Jessica Biel and Matthew Lillard in 2001's Summer Catch, was understandably low; the film was even saddled with a late-August release, traditionally reserved by studios as a "dumping ground" for unpromising product. As it turned out, Summer Catch's mixed reviews proved more forgiving than its paltry $19 million take.Prinze's next project brought him out of the romantic comedy trend and into the doghouse, or at least the Mystery Machine. Re-teaming with his usual foil Lillard and starring -- yet again -- opposite his longtime love interest Sarah Michelle Gellar, Prinze took on the role of Fred in the live-action adaptation of Scooby-Doo in 2002. Though almost universally panned by critics, the film reversed Prinze's dwindling status as a box-office draw by appealing to a demographic he'd yet to conquer: preteens. Not one to look a gift franchise in the mouth, Prinze signed on for another installment, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, and took nearly two years off between the blockbusters as he tied the knot with Gellar.

Trivia: If there's one word that can best describe Brandy, it's synergy. Dominating pop charts wasn't enough for the young R&B singer, so she followed in the footsteps of Madonna, Charo, and many a one-named diva and began to take more acting and modeling gigs. Brandy was born in McComb, MS, on February 11, 1979, but grew up in Carson, CA, with her parents and younger brother Ray-J, another aspiring musician. She declared precociously at age four that she would sing professionally and drew attention performing with youth groups in her middle-class neighborhood.Brandy made her acting debut in 1993 with a supporting role on ABC's short-lived television series Thea. Shortly after Thea's demise in 1994, the 15-year-old released her self-titled first album, which went triple-platinum and featured hit singles like "I Wanna Be Down" and "Baby."But interestingly enough, music sat on the back burner while Brandy pursued her acting career. She won the title role in UPN's family drama Moesha in 1996 and starred a year later as Cinderella in ABC's star-studded TV-movie version of the fairy tale. During breaks from these and other projects, she recorded Never S-A-Y Never, the eagerly awaited follow-up to her first album. Powered by "The Boy Is Mine," her duet with fellow teen star Monica, the 1998 album sold extraordinarily well and also produced the hits "Have You Ever" and "Almost Doesn't Count." 1998 and 1999 were busy years for her. In addition to Moesha, she starred in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer with Jennifer Love Hewitt and starred and executive produced Double Platinum, a TV-movie feature with Diana Ross. Brandy also spent time touring in support of her album, performed on VH1's Divas Live, and became a spokesmodel for Cover Girl cosmetics. It's a wonder she had time to go to the prom with future basketball star and good friend Kobe Bryant.But it was all due to catch up to her. In November 1999, amid rumors that she was addicted to diet pills and squabbling with producers on her TV show, Brandy collapsed and was hospitalized three days for dehydration. Moesha ended its run in 2001 and Brandy focused her energies on attending classes at Pepperdine University.In 2006, she served as a judge on America's Got Talent for one season, and had a recurring role on One on One. She appeared on her brother's reality show, For the Love of Ray J, before the two had their own show together, Brandy & Ray J: A Family Business. She also competed on season 11 of Dancing with the Stars in 2010. She joined BET sitcom The Game in 2012 as a recurring character before being bumped up to a series regular.

Trivia: Although he had almost no prior acting experience, Mekhi Phifer made a highly auspicious screen debut as Strike, a 19-year-old petty drug dealer in Spike Lee's gritty urban drama Clockers (1995). A veteran of the Harlem streets, Phifer got his break when he attended an open casting call with only photo booth pictures of himself to give to interviewers. Displaying a rare charisma and intensity that was perfect for the role of Lee's ambitious protagonist, the novice actor beat the considerable odds against him and out-acted nearly 1,000 other applicants for the part. Following the success surrounding his Clockers debut, Phifer appeared in The Tuskegee Airmen, a powerful drama starring Laurence Fishburne that first aired on the HBO cable network. In 1997, Phifer made another strong impression playing the volatile but good-hearted Lem in George Tillman Jr.'s comedy drama Soul Food. The following year, he took part in the rage of teen horror films as one of the stars of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and further established himself as one of Hollywood's more photogenic up-and-comers by starring alongside Julia Stiles and Josh Hartnett in O (2000), a loose adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello that saw Phifer as a high-school basketball star betrayed by his jealous best friend.Though a well-known performer, Phifer didn't have a bona fide hit until 2002 when he played Future alongside hip-hop star Eminem in the urban drama 8 Mile. That same year, Phifer found success on the small screen as well, joining the cast of NBC's long-running hit medical series ER. Phifer played the role of Dr. Greg Pratt for six seasons before exiting the show at the beginning of season 15 in 2008. Phifer continued to stick with television work after leaving the series, first joining the cast of Fox's crime-drama Lie to Me as an FBI agent, and then playing a CIA agent on the fourth season of the BBC's Torchwood.

Trivia: At age 19, Matthew Settle moved to New York City and joined a rock band. When his lack of musical talent eventually forced him to rethink his career, he chose to become an actor. Numerous drama classes, failed pilots, and television films later, this Johnny-come-lately to the movie business landed his first high-profile role as the oldest principal cast member in the teen scream flick I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998). He was almost 29 years old.Born on September 17, 1969, in Hickory, NC, Settle is the youngest of two girls and four boys. In 1983, his father, a Baptist preacher, and his mother, a church organist, relocated the family to Sevierville, TN. Settle sold records at Dolly Parton's nearby theme park, Dollywood, before deciding to become a musician himself. After getting kicked out of his New York-based rock group, he hawked meat and seafood off a truck on Long Island before Jay Julian, Robert De Niro's lawyer, got him into acting school. Settle borrowed money from friends to afford the classes, and then moved out to Los Angeles to begin his career.Settle made his small-screen debut opposite Sarah Paulson as an Irish-American settler in the 1996 CBS pilot Shaughnesy. He went on to portray a frat boy in the movie of the week What Happened to Bobby Earl? (1997) with Kate Jackson and Kristian Alfonso, land a small role in the television film Murder in Mind (1997) with Ellen Burstyn and Kristin Davis, and play Green Lantern in the pilot for Justice League of America (1997) with David Ogden Stiers and Miguel Ferrer. In 1998, Settle graduated to feature films when he starred as Jennifer Love Hewitt's deceptively perfect college boyfriend in the thriller I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, the much-hyped sequel to I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). After a brief return to television to play a young Bugsy Siegel in the Emmy-nominated HBO biopic Lansky (1998) and real-life teenage rapist Alex Kelly in the CBS television film Crime in Connecticut: The Story of Alex Kelly (1999), Settle joined Bill Paxton, Matthew McConaughey, and Harvey Keitel in the cast of the World War II submarine film U-571 (2000).Settle's next two films, The In Crowd (2000) and Attraction (2000), were psychosexual thrillers that failed both critically and commercially. In fact, after a disappointing premiere at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival, Attraction went straight to video. Yet, Settle's work in U-571 helped him join David Schwimmer, Ron Livingston, and Donnie Wahlberg as the officers of Easy Company in HBO's unforgettable World War II miniseries Band of Brothers. Executive-produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, the series earned unprecedented acclaim and garnered numerous awards, including the Golden Globe for Best Miniseries.After returning home from Band of Brothers' European shoot, Settle began taking fencing instruction, sailing classes, and tap-dancing lessons in an effort to widen his skills as actor. He landed a guest-starring role on five episodes of NBC's ER as Brian Westlake, the abusive young husband of Maura Tierney's next-door neighbor. Shortly after his ER stint ended, Settle appeared as Ashley Judd's love interest in Callie Khouri's Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002), which also featured Sandra Bullock, Ellen Burstyn, James Garner, and Maggie Smith. He went on to play Warren Beatty in The Mystery of Natalie Wood and had a major part in The Celestine Prophecy. In 2007 he was cast in the hit teen soap opera Gossip Girl as Rufus Humphrey.No stranger to the theater, Settle has also performed on-stage in productions of Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park, Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon, William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and Anton Chekov's The Seagull.

Trivia: Played clarinet in his high school band and sang in the choir. Theater debut was in a 1970 college production of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Taught an acting class at the Georgia State Penitentiary in the early 1970s. Made his big-screen debut in the 1989 thriller Black Rainbow. Has had recurring roles as an inmate on Prison Break and a former Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent on NCIS.

Trivia: A budding TV star, Jennifer Esposito (born April 11th, 1973) opted to focus more exclusively on movies after landing one of the lead roles in Spike Lee's incendiary Summer of Sam (1999). A native New Yorker, Esposito trained at the Lee Strasberg Institute and worked on TV in the early 1990s, including a recurring role on New York Undercover. Following small roles in indie films Kiss Me, Guido (1997) and A Brother's Kiss (1997), Esposito gained prime time notice in 1997 as Michael J. Fox's sassy "Noo Yawk" secretary on ABC's hit sitcom Spin City. During her two seasons on the show, Esposito also appeared in Edward Burns' blue collar romance No Looking Back (1998), the teen slasher sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), and Spike Lee's basketball drama He Got Game (1998). After playing the more substantial dramatic part of Adrien Brody's punk singer girlfriend in Summer of Sam, however, Esposito left Spin City in 1999. Dividing critics and audiences over its dicey slice of New York City 1977 life and Lee's visual pyrotechnics, Summer of Sam failed at the box office. Esposito next appeared as one of Chris O'Donnell's ex-girlfriends in The Bachelor (1999). The millennial turnover found the beautiful rising starlet establishing herself as a versatile actress in such efforts as Dracula 2000 (2000) and Don't Say a Word (2001), and after appearing alongside Dana Carvey in the family comedy The Master of Disguise (2002), Esposito joined an impressive cast including Luis Guzman, William H. Macy and George Cloony for the caper comedy Welcome to Collinwood (also 2002). In 2004, Esposito took on a role as the long-suffering supervisor of a bumbling police officer in the less than successful comedy Taxi. The following year, however, her luck would change when she joined the cast of filmmaker Paul Haggis' Academy Award-winning drama Crash, in which she played the girlfriend and partner of an emotionally distant police officer. Afterwards, the actress joined several television shows including FX's drama Rescue Me, in which she worked alongside the show's star Denis Leary, and also appeared in ABC's comedy Samantha Who?, NBC's medical drama Mercy and CBS's cop procedural Blue Bloods.

Trivia: Character actor Bill Cobbs began his acting career relatively late in life after working odd jobs in Cleveland, OH. At the age of 36, he moved to New York and joined the Negro Ensemble Company, making his Broadway debut in First Breeze of Summer. His film career started in the late '70s with small film roles and guest appearances on television. In the early '80s, he worked on several performances for the NBC Live Theatre series and a PBS anthology with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Usually cast as the token old black man dispensing words of wisdom, Cobbs' weathered-yet-honest looks got him several guest spots on TV shows from Good Times to The West Wing. He did end up with a few reoccurring roles on sitcoms like The Slap Maxwell Story, The Gregory Hines Show, and The Michael Richards Show. He even had a part in The Others, the NBC sci-fi drama answer to The X-Files. Perhaps his most memorable television appearance is his role as Regina Taylor's father on I'll Fly Away as well as in the TV movie version I'll Fly Away: Then and Now. Throughout his film career, he has built a long list of credits playing kindly fathers, grandfathers, and even Moses (in The Hudsucker Proxy). He was Whitney Houston's manager in The Bodyguard, an old man in New Jack City, and Grandpa Booker in The People Under the Stairs. Though he appears in nearly all genres of Hollywood films, he occasionally gets meatier roles in made-for-TV dramas like Carolina Skeletons, Nightjohn, and Always Outnumbered. In 2002, he played wisened elders in Sunshine State, Enough, and Sweet Deadly Dreams.

Trivia: Prolific character actor John Hawkes earned a new level of recognition with his role as Bugsy, the slow-witted fisherman who provides Wolfgang Petersen's The Perfect Storm (2000) with a degree of comic relief. Hailing from Austin, TX, Hawkes, who bears a vague resemblance to Tom Selleck, began his career as an actor and musician. After relocating to Los Angeles, where he moved to do further stage work, the actor wrote and performed Nimrod Soul, a one-man show staged at the Theatre at the Improv. He subsequently found work on television and broke into film in the late '80s. In addition to doing supporting turns in a large variety of films, including Flesh and Bone (1993), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), Hawkes also did guest work on such long-running TV shows as E.R. and The X-Files. In 1999, he was cast in one of his first leading roles in A Slipping-Down Life, a well-received big screen adaptation of Anne Tyler's novel of the same name that also starred Lili Taylor and Guy Pearce. With his casting the following year in The Perfect Storm, a summer smash that featured him acting alongside the likes of George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, and John C. Reilly, it seemed that Hawkes' career was entering a new and possibly more lucrative phase. Over the next several years, he would appear in a number of films, like Identity, Miami Vice, American Gangster, Winter's Bone, and Higher Ground.

Trivia: Burly character actor, onscreen from the '60s. He was Elvis Presley's bodyguard.

Trivia: Burly and heavyset character actor Mark Boone Jr. specialized in portrayals of thuggish rednecks and imposing blue-collar types, occasionally those with a slightly shady undercurrent. Boone first stepped in front of the camera in the early '80s, and grew more prolific over time; he was memorable in films such as the 1990 Die Hard 2 (as a terrorist), the 1995 Seven (as a greasy FBI agent), and the 2003 2 Fast 2 Furious (as a detective). His onscreen activity crescendoed circa 2005, with performances in four of that year's features, including Batman Begins. The following year, Boone signed for one of the key supporting roles in David Slade's supernatural horror opus 30 Days of Night (2007).

Trivia: Actor, musician, and cult idol ascendant, Jack Black is known for both the characters he portrays on the screen and as one of the forces behind Tenacious D, a rock band/standup routine that Black has described as "a Smothers Brothers for the Dungeons and Dragons misfits set."A native of Santa Monica, CA, Black attended the University of California at Los Angeles. He got his professional start on the stage, appearing in Tim Robbins' production of Carnage at the 1989 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He would go on to collaborate with Robbins throughout his career, making his screen debut in the director's 1992 political satire Bob Roberts and appearing in Robbins' Dead Man Walking (1995) and Cradle Will Rock (1999). Black spent the '90s playing supporting and lead roles in a variety of films, including Demolition Man (1993), The Cable Guy (1996), which cast him as the best friend of Matthew Broderick's character, and Jesus' Son (1999), in which Black had a small but extremely memorable role as a pill-popping hospital orderly.In 2000, Black had one of his most recognizable and enthusiastically received screen roles to date in High Fidelity. Stephen Frears' popular adaptation of Nick Hornby's novel of the same name, it featured Black as Barry, a thoroughly obnoxious record-store employee. The part allowed the actor to do some of his own singing, a talent that he had previously inflicted on numerous audience members during his years with the aforementioned Tenacious D. The band, comprised of Black and fellow holy terror Kyle Gass, had existed since 1994, and it had been featured on the TV comedy series Mr. Show and as the subject of their own HBO series entitled (tongue firmly in cheek) Tenacious D: The Greatest Band on Earth. It was only a matter of time before Black stepped up from supporting character to leading man, and with the Farrelly brother's Shallow Hal Black may just have found the ideal vehicle for the successful transition. As a superficial man who falls in love with a 300-pound woman after being hypnotized to see only the "inner beauty" of the opposite sex, Black co-starred alongside Gwyneth Paltrow and Jason Alexander in what promised to be a charmingly offensive addition to the Farrelly canon.Though MTV Films' heavily marketed Orange County (2002) was not a huge commercial success, Black's supporting role as the lead character's slacker brother was well received by critics and long-time fans alike, and the once obscure figure began appearing on media outlets including Saturday Night Live, Primetime Glick, commercials for The Osbournes, and various MTV music and film awards. In 2003, Black starred in his first big hit -- director Richard Linklater's musical comedy School of Rock, which featured Black as a disgruntled heavy metal-guitarist doing a substitute teaching gig for extra cash. Critics were so taken by his performance that he was honored with a Golden Globe nomination.2004 saw Black turn in a cameo in the Will Ferrell vehicle Anchorman, after starring opposite Ben Stiller in director Barry Levinson's black comedy Envy. While the film was a box-office bomb after having its release pushed back several times, Black still had much to celebrate when it was announced he would be taking the lead in Peter Jackson's highly anticipated 2005 remake of King Kong. The epic film helped transition Black from a cult hero to a traditional movie star, though he was still careful to keep his original fans happy. In 2006, he starred in Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess' comedy Nacho Libre. The part of a disgruntled monk turned Lucha Libre idol was a perfect fit for the bombastic star, and he followed the performance up with another comic offering for his serious fans as he and Kyle Gass, his partner in Tenacious D, starred in Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny. This big screen telling of the band's mythical history promised to be full of the over-the-top laughs that rocked fans of the group's HBO series, and also included appearances by rock and metal idols like Ronnie James Dio and Meatloaf, who portrayed Black's dad. Black didn't abandoning straight acting. He would appear in a number of more conventional, and even dramatic roles over the coming years, like in The Holiday and Margot at the Wedding, while still pursuing the broad comedic roles he was known for in full force, with comedies like Be Kind Rewind, Tropic Thunder, Year One, and The Big Year. In 2012, Black reteamed with Richard Linklater for a unique blending of comedy, drama, and crime, playing a congenial southern murder suspect in Bernie.