Trivia: Bearing sharp, blue-eyed features and the outward demeanor of an everyday Joe, Ed Harris possesses a quiet, charismatic strength and intensity capable of electrifying the screen. During the course of his lengthy career, he has proven his talent repeatedly in roles both big and small, portraying characters both villainous and sympathetic.Born Edward Allen Harris in Tenafly, NJ, on November 28, 1950, Harris was an athlete in high school and went on to spend two years playing football at Columbia University. His interest in acting developed after he transferred to the University of Oklahoma, where he studied acting and gained experience in summer stock. Harris next attended the California Institute of the Arts, graduating with a Fine Arts degree. He went on to find steady work in the West Coast theatrical world before moving to New York. In 1983, he debuted off-Broadway in Sam Shepard's Fool for Love in a part especially written for him. His performance won him an Obie for Best Actor. Three years later, he made his Broadway debut in George Firth's Precious Sons and was nominated for a Tony. During the course of his career, Harris has gone on to garner numerous stage awards from associations on both coasts. Harris made his screen debut in 1977's made-for-television movie The Amazing Howard Hughes. The following year, he made his feature-film debut with a small role in Coma (1978), but his career didn't take off until director George Romero starred Harris in Knightriders (1981). The director also cast him in his next film, Creepshow (1982). Harris' big break as a movie star came in 1983 when he was cast as straight-arrow astronaut John Glenn in the film version of Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. Twelve years later, Harris would again enter the world of NASA, this time playing unsung hero Gene Krantz (and earning an Oscar nomination) in Ron Howard's Apollo 13.The same year he starred in The Right Stuff, Harris further exhibited his range in his role as a psychopathic mercenary in Under Fire. The following year, he appeared in three major features, including the highly touted Places in the Heart. In addition to earning him positive notices, the film introduced him to his future wife, Amy Madigan, who also co-starred with him in Alamo Bay (1985). In 1989, Harris played one of his best-known roles in The Abyss (1989), bringing great humanity to the heroic protagonist, a rig foreman working on a submarine. He did further notable work in David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, and turned in a suitably creepy performance as Christof, the manipulative creator of Truman Burbank's world in Peter Weir's The Truman Show (1998). Harris earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his work. The following year, he could be seen in The Third Miracle, starring as a Catholic priest who finds his faith sorely tested.The new millennium found Harris' labor of love, the artist biopic Pollock, seeing the light of day after nearly a decade of development. Spending years painting and researching the modernist painter, Harris carefully and lovingly oversaw all aspects of the film, including directing, producing, and starring in the title role. The project served as a turning point in Harris' remarkable career, showing audiences and critics alike that there was more to the man of tranquil intensity than many may have anticipated; Harris was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for his work. 2001 saw Harris as a German sniper with his targets set on Jude Law in the wartime suspense-drama Enemy at the Gates, and later as a bumbling Army captain in the irreverent Joaquin Phoenix vehicle Buffalo Soldiers. With his portrayal of a well known author succumbing to the ravages of AIDS in 2002's The Hours, Harris would recieve his fourth Oscar nominattion. 2004 found the actor working with Zooey Deschanel for Winter Passing, a psychological drama in which he played a one-time popular novelist who claims he is working on one last book. Harris was praised for his work in Empire Falls (2005), a two-part miniseries from HBO chronicling a middle-aged man who is concerned he has wasted his life, though his work as a scarred stranger with a score to settle in David Cronenberg's award-winning psychological thriller A History of Violence was his biggest success in 2005. In 2007, Harris played a Boston police detective in Ben Affleck's adaptation of author Dennis Lehane's Gone, Baby, Gone. A year later, Harris wrote, starred, directed, and produced Appaloosa, a western following a small town held under the thumb of a ruthless rancher and his crew, and continued to work throughout 2009 and 2010 in films including Once Fallen, Virginia, and The Way Back. Praise came his way once more in 2011's What I Am, a gentle coming-of-age comedy in which Harris plays a teacher who is a catalyst for the friendship of two young boys. In 2012, he earned Emmy and SAG nominations and a Golden Globe award for playing John McCain in the HBO movie Game Change. The next year had him appearing in six films, including playing a detective in Pain & Gain and voicing mission control in Gravity, a throwback to his earlier work in Apollo 13.

Trivia: Actress Amy Madigan is the daughter of Chicago political commentor John Madigan, well known in the Windy City for his WBBM radio signoff, "John Madigan...News Radio Ssssseventy-eight." After studying piano at the Chicago Conservatory and philosophy at Milwaukee's Marquette University, Madigan spent the next decade as a touring rock musician. In the late 1970s, she began preparing for an acting career at L.A.'s Lee Strasberg Institute, making her TV bow on an episode of Hart to Hart. While she may have looked like a standard blonde ingenue, Madigan's endearingly raspy voice and '60s-style ebullience secured her a series of offbeat leading roles, culminating with her performance as Kevin Costner's ex-activist wife in Field of Dreams (1989). In 1985, Amy Madigan was Oscar-nominated for her performance as Gene Hackman's embittered daughter in Twice in a Lifetime. She is married to actor Ed Harris, with whom she has co-starred in Places in the Heart (1984) and Alamo Bay (1985). Madigan would continue to act in the decades to come, memorably starring on Carnivale and Grey's Anatomy.

Trivia: Known to millions of early-'80s filmgoers as Elliot, the young boy who befriends a leathery, long-necked alien, Henry Thomas rocketed to fame with his starring role in Steven Spielberg's 1982 blockbuster E.T. the Extra-terrestial and then, just as quickly, plummeted out of sight. Unlike countless other child actors who seem to fall off the face of the earth with the onset of their first pimple, however, Thomas remained somewhat active in low-profile projects while maturing in the relative obscurity of his native Texas. When he eventually re-emerged on the big screen in the mid-'90s, he did so in a variety of projects that emphasized his versatility, until he was granted a sort of second coming, with his acclaimed supporting turn as a wandering cowboy in Billy Bob Thornton's 2000 epic All the Pretty Horses.By the time he was cast in E.T. the Extra-terrestial, Thomas had already made an impressive screen debut as Sissy Spacek's son in the 1981 drama Raggedy Man, which also starred Sam Shepard. A native of San Antonio, where he was born the son of a hydraulics mechanic on September 9, 1971, he returned to Texas after all of the hype surrounding E.T. the Extra-terrestial, acting in film and on TV from time to time while attending school and generally leading the life of a regular kid. In 1989, he appeared in his most high-profile project since E.T., playing the chivalrous young man who dispatches Colin Firth's titular ne'er-do-well in Valmont, Milos Forman's adaptation of Choderlos DeLaclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Although the film was nowhere near as successful as Stephen Frears' adaptation of the same work the previous year, it did give Thomas exposure in one of his first adult roles. Substantially greater exposure followed for the actor in 1994, when he was cast as one of Anthony Hopkins' three sons in Edward Zwick's Legends of the Fall. Co-starring with Hopkins, Brad Pitt, and Aidan Quinn, Thomas was on the screen for a relatively brief length of time, but the popularity of the lavish, big-budget film did allow the young actor to make an impression on audiences who hadn't seen him since E.T. He subsequently switched gears to portray a troubled drifter in the independent production Niagara Niagara (1997), in which he co-starred with Robin Tunney, and then returned to large budgets and lavish production values when he won a major role in the most hotly anticipated project to date of his adult career, Thornton's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses. Featuring stunning Southwestern cinematography and equally photogenic turns by co-stars Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz, the film cast Thomas as Lacey Rawlins, Damon's best friend. Although the film came in for very mixed reviews, most critics were in agreement about Thomas' wry, low-key performance, with some even asserting it was the best thing about the picture. Despite the adulation surrounding his work, Thomas kept a low profile, playing in his band the Blueheelers and spending time in Italy to shoot Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2001) alongside the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Liam Neeson, and Leonardo DiCaprio.Thomas continued to work throughout the 2000's on a wide variety of projects, completing at least a few films a year, including the horror film Dead Birds and the comedy Tennis, Anyone?.... In 2007, he signed up to star alongside Anne Heche, Carrie Fisher, and David Boreanaz in the Alan Cumming-directed black comedy Suffering Man's Charity.

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: Before making his career switch to acting, G.D. Spradlin had been a prosperous Texas business tycoon and a highly respected history teacher. In films from 1968's Will Penny, the actor is perhaps best remembered for his work as on-the-take Senator Pat Geary in The Godfather, Part 2 (1974). His regal, assured bearing made him a natural for such forceful characterizations as LBJ in the 1990 TV movie Robert Kennedy and His Times. Spradlin has also played his share of high-ranking military officers, most memorably in Apocalypse Now (1979). A somewhat more avuncular G. D. Spradlin was seen in the role of Baptist minister (and erstwhile movie producer) Reverend Lemon in Ed Wood (1994).