Trivia: A stand-up comic whose rock & roll sensibility and unwavering loyalty to his fan base have propelled him to become one of the most popular comedians of his generation, Dane Cook hit it big on the comedy circuit before breaking into feature films with bit parts in such movies as Buddy and Mystery Men in the late '90s. Born in Cambridge, MA, and raised in Arlington, Cook was an introverted child whose shy exterior betrayed a hyperactive and intensely creative imagination. By the time Cook was able to find his voice as a comic he was also able to recognize that his unique approach was an ideal blend of his mother's manic energy and his father's sarcastic swagger, and in 1990 it was time to take the stage for his debut stand-up performance. Having found enough success on stage to say goodbye to his day job just three short years later, Cook was finally prepared to make his bid for the big time. If his early screen roles weren't necessarily substantial enough to gain him notice on the big screen, it was his early short film Spiral that showed the promise needed for his career in front of the camera to continue gaining momentum. Back in the realm of stand-up comedy, Cook's debut release Harmful if Swallowed went certified gold after selling more than 450,000 copies in less than two years. It was around this time that the rising star first realized the career-boosting potential of the Internet, an epiphany that soon resulted in the creation of his popular personal website, danecook.com. Though the site did indeed provide the comic with a notable means to staying in touch with his rapidly growing fan base, it was Cook's subsequent MySpace page that would truly serve to show the humble comic's progressive mind for innovation. Appearances on such popular television comedy programs as The Man Show, Crank Yankers, and Jimmy Kimmel Live found success coming at a clip, and he was soon garnering roles in such features as Torque, Waiting, Employee of the Month, Dan in Real Life, My Best Friend's Girl, and Answers to Nothing. Cook would also continute to perform stand-up, releasing comedy albums and on his own stand up specials.

Trivia: The daughter of Goldie Hawn, Kate Hudson bears more than a passing resemblance to her famous mother in both looks and onscreen vivacity. Born in Los Angeles on April 19, 1979, Hudson made her screen debut in 1998. She first earned notice for her work in 200 Cigarettes (1999), an ensemble film that cast her as naive Cindy out on a date with caddish Jack (Jay Mohr). Although the film proved to be a substantial critical and commercial disappointment, Hudson's performance was singled out for some of the scant praise the film did receive. The following year, she could be seen starring opposite fellow up-and-comer Joshua Jackson in Gossip, a drama centered on the disastrous side effects of rumor-mongering on a college campus.If critical recognition had eluded her in the past, it certainly caught-up with her at the 2000 Golden Globe Awards, where she took home the Best Supporting Actress award for her performance in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous. Engulfed in the Hollywood hype machine following her winning role in Almost Famous, it seemed as if Hudson was set to follow her mother in taking the film industry by storm. After soaking in her nowfound fame in the early years of the new millennium, Hudson emerged from a whirlwind schedule of fashion shoots and awards shows to appear in the romantic war drama The Four Feathers in 2002. Though The Four Feathers was quickly and unceremoniously relegated to box-office obscurity, Hudson fired back with an almost surefire hit when she starred opposite quirky heartthrob Matthew McConaughey in the romantic comedy How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003). While subsequent roles in Alex and Emma, Le Divorce, and Raising Helen did little to elevate Hudson's already-comfortable star status, a venture into the unknown in the curiously original but largely underseen Skeleton Key at least showed the actress' willingness to explore new territory onscreen. Back in the realm of comedy, Hudson would do her best to tolerate onscreen husband Matt Dillon's eccentric best-friend when the down-on-his-luck Dupree (Owen Wilson) arrives on their doorstep looking for a place to stay in the farcical summer comedy You, Me and Dupree (2006). Hudson joined with Mathew McConaughey for a second time for the romantic comedy Fool's Gold (2008), and starred in another rom-com, My Best Friend's Girl, the same year. Hudson gained recognition for her previously unknown dance skills thanks to her performance in filmmaker Rob Marshall's musical film Nine, which also featured Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, and Nicole Kidman. In 2010, the actress starred in the film adaptation of Jim Thompson's The Killer Inside Me.Hudson conitnued to rotate between lighter romantic comedies and heavier dramas, appearing in Something Borrowed in 2011, followed by political thriller The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012), Larry David's TV movie Clear History (2013) and the drama Good People (2014). She also took a recurring gig on Glee, playing a dance instructor, allowing Hudson to showcase her singing skills and dancing chops.

Trivia: Jason Biggs gained overnight recognition for his role in the 1999 summer smash American Pie. As the boy who put the American in the Pie, Biggs earned a place alongside There's Something About Mary's Ben Stiller on the screen roster of Most Embarrassing Moments Involving Genitalia and Inanimate Objects. What many people who saw him as an overnight success didn't realize, however, was that he'd actually been acting--on the screen, stage, and television--for most of his young life. A native of Pompton Plains, New Jersey, where he was born May 12, 1978, Biggs began modeling and acting in commercials when he was a small child. When he was barely an adolescent, the young actor made his Broadway debut opposite Judd Hirsch in the acclaimed play Conversations With My Father and landed a recurring role on the short-lived sitcom Drexell's Class around the same time. At the age of fifteen, he joined the cast of the daytime drama As The World Turns as Pete Wendall. His performance on the show, on which he appeared from 1994 to 1995, earned him a Daytime Emmy nomination. With this honor to his name, Biggs segued into film a short time later, debuting in the 1997 Camp Stories.In 1999, the unequivocal hit that was American Pie came along, and Biggs, portraying Jim, one of the more perpetually humiliated members of a group of four friends trying to lose their virginity by high-school graduation, made an undeniably distinct impression on critics and audiences alike. Riding high on his success, he soon entered into a two-picture deal with Miramax and a development project with 20th Century Fox Television, ensuring that his career had certainly gotten off to an auspicious and memorable start.In the two years following Pie, Biggs' recently-won popularity was evidenced by his starring roles in a number of films. Included amongst them were Robert Iscove's Boys and Girls, which cast the actor as a college student, and Amy Heckerling's Loser, in which Biggs again set foot on a college campus to play a social misfit in love with an unattainable girl (Pie co-star Mena Suvari). Pairing the young star with two comic actors 10 years his senior (Jack Black and Steve Zahn), Saving Silverman followed in early 2001; with it, Biggs completed a triumverate of critical and commercial failures.Finding himself in need of a comeback at the ripe old age of 23, Biggs seemed poised to do just that later in the year, beginning with his reprisal of the bumbling post-adolescent Jim in American Pie 2. Taking a step back from leading roles, the actor then poked fun at the movie industry with a cameo in director Kevin Smith's satire Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back before playing a supporting part opposite Christina Ricci in the big-screen adaptation of Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir, Prozac Nation. After rounding out the American Pie trilogy with 2003's American Wedding, Biggs would once again appear opposite Ricci in the Woody Allen comedy Anything Else (also 2003). Though the film may have performed fairly well with teens at the box office given the names of the young stars involved, an 'R' rating from the MPAA was likely the culprit in relegating the movie to little more than a brief "blip" on the box-office radar. In 2004, Biggs returned to the screen with a supporting-role in Jersey Girl, which reteamed him with Smith but was plagued by scathing reviews and the stigma of the "Bennifer" fiasco of 2003. Biggs would keep a low profile for the next few years, appearing in movies like Eight Below and Wedding Daze before turning to the small screen with the sitcom Mad Love in 2011, alongside Judy Greer and Sarah Chalke. Around that same time, Biggs signed on for another installment in the franchsie that launched his career, reprising the role of Jim in 2012's American Reunion. In 2013, he took on a supporting role in the surprise hit Orange is the New Black, playing Larry Bloom.

Trivia: Equally at home playing leads and character roles, actor Alec Baldwin is known for his work in just about every genre, from action thrillers to comedies to dramas. Born April 3, 1958, in Massapequa, Long Island, he was the second of six children (brothers William, Daniel, and Stephen would also become actors). Baldwin was a political science major at George Washington University before he decided to become an actor; following his change in vocation, he studied drama at NYU and the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. Early in his career, Baldwin was a busy man, simultaneously playing a role on the TV daytime drama The Doctors and performing in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream on-stage in the evenings. A few years after making his 1980 Broadway debut, the actor moved to Los Angeles, where he landed a part in the television series Knots Landing. He made his film debut in 1987 with a starring role in Forever, Lulu, which led to work in a number of major films. From 1988 to 1989 alone, Baldwin appeared in no less than seven films, including Tim Burton's black comedy Beetlejuice, Mike Nichols' Working Girl, Jonathan Demme's Married to the Mob, and Oliver Stone's Talk Radio. In 1990, Baldwin achieved big-budget success playing ace CIA agent Jack Ryan in the undersea thriller The Hunt for Red October. The film's popularity won him acclaim, so Baldwin surprised many by foregoing the opportunity to reprise his role in the sequel Patriot Games (he was replaced by Harrison Ford) in favor of returning to Broadway to star as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. Although his decision paid off -- he received a Tony nomination for his performance -- it also marked the point at which Baldwin's star wattage began to flicker. His 1991 film, The Marrying Man proved to be an all-out flop (although it did provide him an introduction to co-star Kim Basinger, whom he would marry in 1993), and the critical success of his next two films, Prelude to a Kiss and Glengarry Glen Ross was overshadowed by a subsequent string of flops, including Malice (1993), The Getaway (1994), and The Juror (1996). The actor rebounded a bit with his role in Al Pacino's acclaimed documentary Looking for Richard (1996) but then had the unfortunate luck of starring in the 1998 Bruce Willis disaster Mercury Rising. However, the following year proved more fortuitous for Baldwin, as he starred in the coming-of-age comedy Outside Providence, as well as in the crime drama Thick As Thieves and the ethical drama The Confession, appearing alongside Amy Irving and Ben Kingsley. In addition, the actor made an uncredited appearance in Notting Hill, sending up his macho Hollywood persona as Julia Roberts' piggish actor boyfriend.Baldwin started off the 2000s by re-teaming with David Mamet on the Hollywood satire State and Main as a lecherous leading man with a weakness for underage girls. He provided narration for Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, and was one of the few people to escape unscathed from Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor. Although he continued to make headlines because of his politics, as well as his ongoing legal scuffles with now ex-wife Kim Basinger, Baldwin continued to do strong work in the comedies Along Came Polly (2004) and Fun with Dick and Jane (2005), and scored his first-ever Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor playing a menacing casino manager in 2003's The Cooler. He became a part of Martin Scorsese's stock company playing Juan Trippe in 2004's The Aviator, following it up as a federal agent in love with the Patriot Act in 2006's The Departed.Baldwin's longstanding association with the venerable sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (he has hosted over ten times) paid great dividends when he was hired to play the part of the boss on former SNL head writer Tina Fey's fall 2006 sitcom 30 Rock. He earned universal raves for his work on the show, and would earn a Golden Globe nomination every single year of the show's run, winning the award three times. He'd also pick up no less than five Emmy nods, winning that award twice as well. Baldwin was positively beloved on the series, but he would also continue to work in film as well, most notably in the 2009 romcom It's Complicated, which he starred in with Meryl Streep, and the 2012 Woody Allen ensemble film To Rome with Love.

Trivia: An actress who commenced onscreen roles in late adolescence, Lizzy Caplan initially specialized in playing teenagers and young adults in tough-natured and slightly edgy material. Caplan landed many of her earliest assignments on the small screen, in telemovies such as the 2000 From Where I Sit and the 2002 Everybody's Doing It, and made repeat appearances on such series programs as Smallville, Freaks and Geeks, and Tru Calling. Not long after, the young performer joined the cast of Mark Waters and Tina Fey's satirical big-screen comedy Mean Girls (2004), as misfit high-school student Janis Ian. Also in 2006, Caplan scored a regular role on the sitcom The Class. In 2008, Caplan made a memorable apperance in the Matt Reeves' sci-fi thriller Cloverfield as Marlena, one of the victims of a city-wide rampaging monster, followed by a memorable run as a hippie hooked on vamprie blood on True Blood. TV would prove a good fit for the actress, who also proved an impressive comedian with starring roles on shows like Party Down, Childrens Hospital, and New Girl, In 2012, Caplan headlined a couple of girly, indie-ish films, Save the Date and Bachelorette, before taking on her highest-profile role to date- sex researcher Virginia Johnson on Showtime's Masters of Sex. Caplan was nominated for an Emmy for her work in the show. In her downtime from the series, Caplan found time to squeeze in some film work, including 2015's Christmas comedy The Night Before and 2016's Now You See Me 2.

Trivia: Actress Jenny Mollen officially debuted on-camera around 2001, but achieved greater prominence several years later with a string of roles in Hollywood programmers, specializing for the first several years in teen-oriented sex farces and slasher movies. Projects include the gorefests Return of the Living Dead 5 (2005) and Ring Around the Rosie (2006), the raunchy farce National Lampoon's Cattle Call (2006), and the Howard Deutch-directed romantic comedy My Best Friend's Girl (2008), co-starring American Pie veteran Jason Biggs.

Trivia: British actress Amanda Brooks premiered onscreen as an ingenue in her early twenties, in films of extremely diverse content. These included the Jodie Foster thriller Flightplan (2005), actor-turned-director William Katt's gentle family-oriented drama River's End (2005), and Korean director Shim Hyung-rae's effects-heavy monster saga Dragon Wars (2007).

Trivia: A native of Portville, NY, actress Riki Lindhome attended Syracuse University and moved into professional assignments following graduation, initially with a spate of television roles (usually single or multi-episode guest turns) on series including Gilmore Girls and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Following a small supporting role as Hilary Swank's sister in Clint Eastwood's 2004 Best Picture sleeper Million Dollar Baby (Eastwood and Lindhome reteamed four years later for the period drama Changeling), the up-and-coming actress moved more squarely into teen-oriented work; assignments included the Dane Cook/Kate Hudson romantic comedy My Best Friend's Girl (2008) and the Wes Craven/Sean S. Cunningham slasher remake Last House on the Left (2009).

Trivia: Appeared in movie Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult when he was 12 years old. TV credits include The Amanda Show and Scrubs. In 2001, became the youngest cast member of MADtv at age 19. Became a member of the main company of Los Angeles improvisational group the Groundlings in April 2010. Started on Saturday Night Live in September 2010.

Trivia: Has performed under the name "Verbal" with the hip-hop band Verbal Militia. Contributed material to and performed in The Violence Project, a 2002 theatre piece spotlighting violence and how it affects young people in the U.S. Toured with Judith Light in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit, about a poetry professor battling cancer. A supporting role on the short-lived TV show Luis had the up-and-comer relocate to Los Angeles in 2003, which expanded his visibility and opportunities. Played a genius-scientist in the TV comedy Better Off Ted.

Trivia: A native of Berlin, OH, Nate Torrence kick-started his show-business career via a successful audition for Chicago's famed Second City comedy troupe, where he performed in sketches and blackouts alongside future SNL giant Tina Fey and others. Torrence then checked in as a veritable mainstay on American commercials, plugging such brands as Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Capital One, and Volkswagen for years. His amiable presence in those spots, in turn, caught the eye of funnyman Adam Sandler and opened the door to a long and successful acting career on television and (later) in film; throughout, Torrence specialized in playing generally average and affable everymen. He commenced with guest parts on situation comedies and dramas including House, Malcolm in the Middle, and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, then scored the role of Dylan Killington on the critically lauded but short-lived Aaron Sorkin comedy drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-2007). Torrence moved into features with a small role in Sandler's comic fantasy Click (2006) and played Lloyd opposite Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway in the Peter Segal-directed spy comedy Get Smart. In the years to come, Smith would remain active on screen, appearing in movies like My Best Friend's Girl and on shows like Mr. Sunshine.

Trivia: Was a member of the Manhattan Ballet Company. Graduated cum laude from Yale University. Performed in a variety of plays at Yale, including The Merchant of Venice and Freedomland. Met husband, David Clayton Rogers, while taking acting classes at Lesly Kahn & Company in Los Angeles. First major TV role was on Army Wives. Her maternal grandfather, William Pressman, was an executive vice president of Hasbro in the 1960s and is credited for creating the first G.I. Joe action figure.

Trivia: Actor Andrew Caldwell entered films and television as a young man and specialized in portrayals of geeky, overweight, socially awkward types. Caldwell made a series of guest appearances on small screen programs including The Bernie Mac Show, My Name Is Earl, and Hannah Montana before moving into films and specializing in glossy formulaic Hollywood outings. These included the big-budget action yarn Transformers (2007), the teen-oriented comedies College (2008) and My Best Friend's Girl (2008), and the Owen Wilson vehicle Drillbit Taylor (2008).