Trivia: Forest Whitaker attended college on a football scholarship, then, interested in Opera, transferred to U.S.C. on two more scholarships to study Music and Theater. He landed small roles on television and in two films, beginning with Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). He got his big break when he appeared in Oliver Stone's Platoon and Martin Scorsese's The Color of Money (both 1986). After a few more supporting roles, Whitaker got his first lead in Clint Eastwood's Bird (1988), in which he played the title role -- heroin-addicted jazz great Charlie Parker, a performance which won him the 1988 Cannes Film Festival Best Actor award. Although now better-known as an lead actor, he was unable to greatly capitalize on his success and remained primarily a supporting player in films. He is the older brother of actor Damon Whitaker.

Trivia: Born Walter Willis -- an Army brat to parents stationed in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany -- on March 19, 1955, Bruce Willis grew up in New Jersey from the age of two. As a youngster, he developed a stutter that posed the threat of social alienation, but he discovered an odd quirk: while performing in front of large numbers of people, the handicap inexplicably vanished. This led Willis into a certified niche as a comedian and budding actor. After high-school graduation, 18-year-old Willis decided to land a blue-collar job in the vein of his father, and accepted a position at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deep Water, NJ, but withdrew, shaken, after a co-worker was killed on the job. He performed regularly on the harmonica in a blues ensemble called the Loose Goose and worked temporarily as a security guard before enrolling in the drama program at Montclair State University in New Jersey. A collegiate role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof brought Willis back in touch with his love of acting, and he instantly decided to devote his life to the profession.Willis made his first professional appearances on film with minor roles in projects like The First Deadly Sin, starring Frank Sinatra, and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict. But his big break came when he attended a casting call (along with 3000 other hopefuls) for the leading role on Moonlighting, an ABC detective comedy series. Sensing Willis' innate appeal, producers cast him opposite the luminous Cybill Shepherd. The series, which debuted in 1985, followed the story of two private investigators working for a struggling detective agency, with Willis playing the fast-talking ne'er-do-well David Addison, and Shepherd playing the prim former fashion model Maddie Hayes. The show's heavy use of clever dialogue, romantic tension, and screwball comedy proved a massive hit with audiences, and Willis became a major star. The show ultimately lasted four years and wrapped on May 14, 1989. During the first year or two of the series, Willis and Shepherd enjoyed a brief offscreen romantic involvement as well, but Willis soon met and fell in love with actress Demi Moore, who became his wife in 1987.In the interim, Willis segued into features, playing geeky Walter Davis in the madcap 1987 comedy Blind Date. That same year, Motown Records -- perhaps made aware of Willis' experiences as a musician -- invited the star to record an LP of blue-eyed soul tracks. The Return of Bruno emerged and became a moderate hit among baby boomers, although as the years passed it became better remembered as an excuse for Willis to wear sunglasses indoors and sing into pool cues.Then in 1988, Willis broke major barriers when he convinced studios to cast him in the leading role of John McClane in John McTiernan's explosive action movie Die Hard. Though up until this point, action stars had been massive tough guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, execs took a chance on Willis' every-guy approach to the genre - and the gamble paid off. Playing a working-class cop who confronts an entire skyscraper full of terrorists when his estranged wife is taken hostage on Christmas Eve, Willis' used his wiseacre television persona to constantly undercut the film's somber underpinnings, without ever once damaging the suspenseful core of the material. This, coupled with a smart script and wall-to-wall sequences of spectacular action, propelled Die Hard to number one at the box office during the summer of 1988, and made Willis a full-fledged movie star.Willis subsequent projects would include two successful Die Hard sequels, as well as other roles the 1989 Norman Jewison drama In Country, and the 1989 hit comedy Look Who's Talking, in which Willis voiced baby Mikey. Though he'd engage in a few stinkers, like the unsuccessful Hudson Hawk and North, he would also continue to strike told with hugely popular movies like The Last Boyscout , Pulp Fiction, and Armageddon.Willis landed one of his biggest hits, however, when he signed on to work with writer/director M. Night Shyamalan in the supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense. In that film, Willis played Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist assigned to treat a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) plagued by visions of ghosts. The picture packs a wallop in its final minutes, with a now-infamous surprise that even purportedly caught Hollywood insiders off guard when it hit U.S. cinemas in the summer of 1999. Around the same time, tabloids began to swarm with gossip of a breakup between Willis and Demi Moore, who indeed filed for divorce and finalized it in the fall of 2000.Willis and M. Night Shyamalan teamed up again in 2000 for Unbreakable, another dark fantasy about a man who suddenly discovers that he has been imbued with superhero powers and meets his polar opposite, a psychotic, fragile-bodied black man (Samuel L. Jackson). The movie divided critics but drew hefty grosses when it premiered on November 22, 2000. That same year, Willis delighted audiences with a neat comic turn as hitman Jimmy the Tulip in The Whole Nine Yards, which light heartedly parodied his own tough-guy image. Willis followed it up four years later with a sequel, The Whole Ten Yards.In 2005, Willis was ideally cast as beaten-down cop Hartigan in Robert Rodriguez's graphic-novel adaptation Sin City. The movie was a massive success, and Willis was happy to reteam with Rodriguez again the next year for a role in the zombie action flick Planet Terror, Rodriguez's contribution to the double feature Grindhouse. Additionally, Willis would keep busy over the next few years with roles in films like Richard Donner's 16 Blocks, Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation, and Nick Cassavetes' crime drama Alpha Dog. The next year, Willis reprised his role as everyman superhero John McClane for a fourth installment of the Die Hard series, Live Free or Die Hard, directed by Len Wiseman. Though hardcore fans of the franchise were not overly impressed, the film did expectedly well at the box office.In the latter part of the decade, Willis would keep up his action star status, starring in the sci-fi thriller Surrogates in 2009, but also enjoyed poking fun at his own persona, with tongue-in-cheek roles in action fare like The Expendables, Cop Out, and Red. He appeared as part of the ensemble in Wes Anderson's quirky Moonrise Kingdom and in the time-travel action thriller Looper in 2012, before appearing in a string of sequels -- The Expendables 2 (2012), A Good Day to Die Hard, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Red 2 (all 2013) and Sin City: A Dame to Die For (2014).

Trivia: Malin Akerman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1978, but her European life turned a surprising corner when she and her family packed up and moved to Canada before her third birthday. Akerman's ravishing looks seemed harbingers of a successful acting and modeling career, and indeed, at five years old she began to snag a myriad of commercials and small acting roles. Her popularity and recognition was boosted by a win of the Ford Supermodel of Canada search at age 17, and she was soon tackling print and runway work across Europe, followed by an enrollment in York University in Toronto. In 2001, the actress moved to Los Angeles and secured almost instant representation. She landed a series of guest spots on TV shows including Entourage, Doc and Witchblade, as well as a regular role as Juna on the short-lived but critically acclaimed HBO comedy The Comeback, with Lisa Kudrow. She also had a memorable bit part in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004) as the attractive wife, Liane, of a disgusting truck driver known only as Freakshow (Christopher Meloni).Akerman achieved her first major acting coup when she signed on as one of the leads in the Farrelly Brothers' remake The Heartbreak Kid (2007), a comedy about a dissatisfied fortysomething newlywed named Eddie (Ben Stiller) who jilts his wife, Lila, only a few days into his honeymoon and instead snags a feisty and independent young free spirit named Miranda. In what seemed to those familiar with the 1971 film like a surprising casting choice, the Farrellys selected the alluring blonde Akerman to play not Miranda (as might be expected) but Lila -- a character no longer dowdy (or Jewish) in their hands. That same year, Akerman also essayed a part in the gag-laden comedy The Brothers Solomon, about a couple of socially impaired losers (Will Arnett, Will Forte) desperate to find a woman to have their baby.Her exposure in those two films soon led to steady work as a major supporting player in a variety of movies. She played the bride-to-be/sister Tess to Katherine Heigl's perpetual bridesmaid in 27 Dresses (2008), and had a busy 2009, with the release of big-budget superhero film Watchmen, followed by Couples Retreat and The Proposal. She showed off her singing chops playing a Rolling Stone reporter in the jukebox musical Rock of Ages in 2012.Akerman has also done extensive television work, playing Dr. Valerie Flame in Adult Swim's Childrens Hospital and a homeless bachelorette in the first season of the web series Burning Love. In 2012, she joined the cast of Suburgatory in the recurring role of Alex, Tessa's (Jane Levy) birth mother before nabbing the lead in her own show, Trophy Wife, the following year.

Trivia: Born January 17, 1988, screenwriter/actress Nikki Reed made an impressive Hollywood debut at the age of 14 when she co-starred opposite Oscar-winner Holly Hunter and fellow newcomer Evan Rachel Wood in the award-winning coming-of-age drama Thirteen. Reed co-wrote the script with director Catherine Hardwicke, who, at one point, had dated Reed's father. Said to be a semi-autobiographical account of her own life, Reed took on the role of Evie Zamora, a highly manipulative high school "It" girl whose lax attitudes toward drug abuse and sex, combined with a reprehensible family life, made for the downfall of good-girl Tracy (Wood). In addition to Thirteen, Reed played a small role in director Kenny Golde's 2003 crime thriller The Job with Daryl Hannah, Dominique Swain, and Brad Renfro. Reed teamed with Hardwicke again in 2004 for Lords of Dogstown. Nikki joined The Twilight Saga in 2008 to play the beautiful but emotionally distant vampire Rosalie Cullen. Once she was finished with her commitment to the big-budget Twilight films, she returned to smaller, independent films like Pawn, In Your Eyes and Murder of a Cat.

Trivia: Actress Deborah Ann Woll began her career with a series of TV guest appearances playing minor roles on episodes of ER, CSI, and My Name Is Earl. Her big break came in 2008 when she was cast in the HBO series True Blood as Jessica Hamby, vampire offspring of Bill Compton.

Trivia: Familiar to television addicts for sporting the trademark chrome-dome as (pre)criminal mastermind Lex Luthor on television's Smallville, self-assured actor Michael Rosenbaum has also provided voice-over work for such comic-book inspired animated series as Batman Beyond and Justice League (for which he voiced the role of the Flash). Born in Oceanside, Long Island, in July of 1972, Rosenbaum began his acting career in high school by landing a role in a play on a bet. Subsequently enamored with the stage, Rosenbaum earned a B.A. in theater and communications from Western Kentucky University. Continuing to act on-stage but hungering for more challenging roles, the aspiring actor packed his bags and set his sights on New York. Performing in off-Broadway plays and low-budgeted independent films, Rosenbaum fueled his passion and became familiar to nighttime television viewers in a recurring role as the "Amsterdam Kid" on Late Night With Conan O'Brien. It wasn't long before Rosenbaum was cast in the WB series Tom (starring Tom Arnold), and feature roles began to follow shortly after. Turning up in such films as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) and Urban Legend (1998), Rosenbaum would alternate between television (Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane, The Zeta Project) and film (Sweet November and Rave Macbeth [both 2001]) before turning up as one of a trio of gender-bending college students (alongside Harland Williams and Barry Watson) in 2002's Sorority Boys. In addition to acting, Rosenbaum is an avid hockey player/fan as well as a musician.

Trivia: An athletic, all-American actor whose remarkable audition opposite Colin Farrell led director Joel Schumacher to cast him in his 2000 war drama Tigerland on the spot, Shea Whigham may not be a household name, but with impressive performances in such subsequent features as All the Real Girls and Out of This World, he's certainly become a talent to watch for. Born the son of former Florida State University quarterback Frank Whigham, the young athlete excelled at tennis and soccer in his early years, eventually entering college on a tennis scholarship. It was during his higher education that Whigham discovered a passion for acting, and soon thereafter, the aspiring thespian was accepted into New York's prestigious S.U.N.Y. Purchase Conservatory. A friendship with roommate Kirk Acevedo led the burgeoning actors to co-found the New York-based theater troupe The Rorschach Group, following graduation, with Whigham serving double duty as both performer and artistic director at the downtown Manhattan theater company for three years. After making an impression on audiences with his performance in Tigerland, Whigham went on to appear opposite Sam Neill in the made-for-television nautical drama Submerged, and in the next few years he would continue to gain onscreen momentum by turning in impressive performances in such efforts as All the Real Girls. If the majority of his post-Tigerland roles didn't offer quite the exposure of his impressive debut, appearances in such high-profile Hollywood efforts as Cheer Up and The Lords of Dogtown showed that Whigham was ready and willing to work his way back into the spotlight. He followed through on his potential with a string of mostly indie films including Wristcutters: A Love Story, Splinter, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and Machete. He was cast as the corrupt police officer brother of the scheming prohibition-era gangster Nucky Thompson in HBO's Boardwalk Empire, and he would co-star in Take Shelter with his Boardwalk castmate Michael Shannon. In 2012 Wigham could be seen on the big screen in three big projects, Big Miracle, Oliver Stone's drug drama Savages, and David O Russell's crowd-pleaser Silver Linings Playbook.

Trivia: Brad Dourif is a quirky character actor whose gallery of killers, sociopaths, and other lost souls brought to life any number of contemporary horror and science fiction projects. Born March 18, 1950, in Huntington, WV, he began his professional acting career after graduating from college, honing his skills during a three-year apprenticeship with New York's Circle Repertory under the celebrated drama coach Sanford Meisner. While appearing off-Broadway in a production of When You Comin' Back, Red Rider?, Dourif was spotted by director Milos Forman, who immediately cast him in his 1975 film adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Dourif's turn as a suicidal teen asylum inmate was one of the most acclaimed film debuts in memory, earning a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe as well as an Oscar nomination. However, the performance also typecast him as a talent best suited to idiosyncratic, off-center character roles, a straitjacket he remained unable to break from for the duration of his career. He then did not reappear onscreen for another two years before co-starring in the 1977 West German production Gruppenbild mit Dame. Dourif's next major performance came in the 1978 Irvin Kershner thriller The Eyes of Laura Mars, followed by a superb starring turn as a damaged war veteran in John Huston's Wise Blood. Upon completing a supporting role in the 1980 television film Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones, Dourif next surfaced in Michael Cimino's legendary flop Heaven's Gate, the first in a string of big-budget disasters to which the actor was attached including Forman's Ragtime and David Lynch's Dune. A series of low-budget projects followed before Dourif reunited with Lynch for a small role in the director's 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet. However, no other offers of a similar caliber were immediately forthcoming, and instead he found himself providing the voice of the evil doll Chuckie in the Child's Play series of slasher movies. In the years which followed, Dourif occasionally reappeared in more substantial projects (including the 1988 Alan Parker film Mississippi Burning, the 1990 Ken Loach picture Hidden Agenda, and Hanif Kureishi's 1991 directorial debut London Kills Me), but he remained primarily confined to low-budget genre work; additionally, he often guest starred on television, appearing in series including The X-Files, Millennium, and Star Trek: Voyager. In 2001, Dourif took a break from low-budget fright flicks to appear in a decidedly more enormous production, director Peter Jackson's eagerly anticipated Lord of the Rings trilogy.