Trivia: Before he started acting, Mark Wahlberg was best known as Marky Mark, the pants-dropping rapper who attained fame and notoriety with his group the Funky Bunch. In the tradition of Will Smith and Ice Cube, Wahlberg has made a successful transition from music to film, garnering particular early praise for his role in Boogie Nights.Born June 5, 1971, in Dorchester, MA, Wahlberg had a troubled early life. One of nine children, he dropped out of school at 16 (he would later earn his GED) and committed a number of minor felonies. After working various odd jobs, Wahlberg briefly joined brother Donnie and his group New Kids on the Block before forming his own, Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch. The group had widespread popularity for a time, most notably with its 1992 hit single "Good Vibrations." However, it was Wahlberg himself who received the lion's share of attention, whether it was for the homophobia controversy that surrounded him for a time, or for the 1992 Calvin Klein ad campaign featuring him wearing nothing more than his underwear, Kate Moss, and an attitude. In 1993, Wahlberg turned his attentions to acting with a role in The Substitute. The film, co-starring a then-unknown Natasha Gregson Wagner, was a critical and commercial failure, but Wahlberg's next project, 1994's Renaissance Man, with Danny De Vito, gave him the positive notices that would increase with the release of his next film, The Basketball Diaries (1995). Although the film received mixed reviews, many critics praised Wahlberg's performance as Mickey, Leonardo Di Caprio's friend and fellow junkie. Following Diaries, Wahlberg appeared in Fear (1996) in the role of Reese Witherspoon's psychotic boyfriend.It was with the release of Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights in 1997 that Wahlberg finally received across-the-board respect for his commanding yet unassuming performance as busboy-turned-porn-star Eddie Adams/Dirk Diggler. The film was nominated for three Oscars and a slew of other awards by associations ranging from the British Academy to the New York Film Critics Circle to MTV. The positive attention landed Wahlberg on a wide range of magazine covers and gave him greater Hollywood pulling power. He had, as they say, arrived. Wahlberg's follow-up to Boogie Nights was 1998's The Big Hit, an action comedy that, particularly in the wake of Boogie Night's acclaim, proved to be a disappointment. This disappointment was hardly lessened by the relative critical and commercial shortcomings of Wahlberg's next film, The Corruptor (1999). An action flick that co-starred Chow Yun-Fat, The Corruptor showcased Wahlberg's familiar macho side and indicated that success in Hollywood is a strange and unpredictable thing. Though he gained positive notice for his role in David O. Russell' s unconventional war film Three Kings the same year, the film was only a moderate success, paving the way for an even more dramatic turn in the downbeat true story of the ill-fated Andrea Gail, The Perfect Storm, in 2000.The following year found Wahlberg filling some big shoes -- and receiving some hefty criticism as a result -- with his lead role in Tim Burton's much-anticipated remake of Planet of the Apes. Taking over the role that Charlton Heston made famous, Wahlberg found himself pursued onscreen by sinister simians, as well as offscreen by critics who decried the lack of depth that the actor brought to the role. Late that summer, Wahlberg came back down to Earth -- specifically to the everyday-Joe-rises-to-fame territory of Boogie Nights -- with Rock Star, the story of a tribute-band singer who gets a chance to sing for the band he idolizes. Though his noble attempt to fill the considerable shoes of Hollywood legend Cary Grant in the 2002 Charade remake The Truth About Charlie would be only slightly exceeded by his assumption of the role originally played by Michael Caine in the following year's remake of The Italian Job, Wahlberg would subsequently prove that there's nothing like the fresh breeze of an original script in director David O. Russell's existential 2004 comedy I Heart Huckabees. Of course, Wahlberg was never one to let a crowd down, and after riling audiences alongside Tyrese Gibson and André Benjamin in the Detroit-based revenge flick Four Brothers, the athletic actor would take to the gridiron to tell the inspirational story of one football fan whose dreams of playing in the NFL actually came true in the 2006 sports drama Invincible. Also released in the fall of 2006, The Departed allowed Wahlberg to act opposite such heavy hitters as Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, and his old Basketball Diaries co-star Leonardo Di Caprio under the direction of Martin Scorsese. Not only did Wahlberg hold his own against the cast of critics' darlings, he landed the film's only acting Academy Award nod. In 2007, Wahlberg starred in the suspense actioner The Shooter, as well as in director Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lovely Bones. Wahlberg starred as the leader of a ragtag group trying to survive amidst murderous plant life in M. Night Shyamalan's so-bad-it's-good The Happening (2008), and played the titular role of Max Payne, which was adapted from a video game of the same name. In 2010 the actor starred in the inspirational docudrama chronicling the life of brothers Micky and Dicky Ecklund as they take on the world of boxing. Wahlberg earned an Academy Award nomination for producing the film; that same year, he began producing a new show for HBO, Boardwalk Empire. Wahlberg had a huge hit in 2012 with Seth MacFarlane's Ted, and joined the Transformer franchise in Transformers: Age of Extinction in 2014. Wahlberg continued his steady work, starring and producing both Deepwater Horizon (which was nominated for two Oscars) and Patriots Day (about the Boston Marathon bombing) in 2016.

Trivia: Was raised by his grandparents in China while his parents attended graduate school in Canada.Grew up in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, after moving there with his parents at the age of 5.Worked as an accountant at a top accounting firm for almost a year before pursuing acting as a career.Bought out a cinema in Toronto, Canada, for a screening of The Farewell (2019), starring his friend and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) co-star Awkwafina.At Comic-Con 2019, it was revealed that he would play the first Asian superhero, Shang-Chi, in a Marvel film, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021).

Trivia: Took her step-father's surname after people thought she was Dutch on auditions while using her birth name, van Kampen. Got married in New York City Hall. Nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Othello in 2009. Won an Obie Award for Best Actress for her role in Rosalind in 2010. Started her own production company, Theater of Memory, in 2010 with actor David Sturzaker and director Tamara Harvey. In 2013, appeared in and produced the film Days and Nights, written and directed by her husband and based on the Anton Chekov play The Seagull. Starred in the medical drama The Knick from 2014 to 2015.

Trivia: Started acting as a child, and her breakthrough role came as Young Nala in the original London production of The Lion King in 1999. Got noticed on British TV playing Sasha Valentine on the soap opera Hollyoaks (2006-10). Made film debut in 2012 thriller Twenty8k, which also featured her future Game of Thrones costar Stephen Dillane. First appearance as Missandei on HBO's Game of Thrones came in the third-season premiere, "Valar Dohaeris," in 2013. Credits Game of Thrones role for opening doors to more work in feature films, including Furious 7 (2015) and Fast 8 (2017), the seventh and eighth installments, respectively, of The Fast and the Furious franchise, and Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) and Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018), the second and third titles, respectively, in The Maze Runner movie series.

Trivia: Like many other actors of the mid- to late 2000s who hailed from the same geographic region, Ali Suliman signed for a number of roles that played off of an ethnic typecast, capitalizing on the public interest surge in Middle Eastern events and issues. Suliman was by no means limited to bit parts, however; in fact, as one of his first major credits, he signed for a lead -- in the controversial terrorist-themed drama Paradise Now. In that critical and public favorite, the actor offered a harrowing portrayal of Khaled, a young Palestinian man who drifts casually into a suicide-bombing mission. Suliman also landed a small role in Peter Berg's gripping counter-terrorism thriller The Kingdom (2007).

Trivia: British-born adventurer Bear Grylls gained international stardom in 2006 when he began starring in the Discovery Channel survivalist series Man vs. Wild.

Trivia: The son of an actor of the same name, Paul Guilfoyle has appeared in several major film productions, portraying a wide variety of supporting characters. He is a member of the prestigious Actor's Studio, as well as being a longtime resident of New York. He also has numerous stage credits to his name. However, the actor is best known for his role in the crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He joined the show in its first season in 2000 as L.V.P.D Captain James "Jim" Brass, and continued to work on the show throughout the 2000s and early 2010s.

Trivia: Is of Tiwi Island descent. Worked with the National Indigenous Music Awards before turning to acting. Auditioned for an Australian stage production of The Lion King as part of an assignment during his final year at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, and wound up being cast as Musafa. Played Lysander in the Sydney Theatre Company's 2016 production of A Midsummer's Night Dream.

Trivia: Born in the Bronx, NY, in 1972, actor Michael Landes began his acting career on the opposite coast, with a recurring role on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. After getting his feet wet with more television work, Landes landed an even bigger break when he was cast as Jimmy Olsen on the series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman in 1993. After the first season, however, producers decided that the young actor's chiseled good looks were a little too manly for the boyish role, and Landes was cut loose. He continued to work in films like Hart's War and on series like The Drew Carey Show, and in 1998, he both produced and starred in the film Getting Personal. In 2000, he married actress Wendy Benson, and he continued to build up his resumé, even snagging a staring role in the British series Love Soup. Then, in 2008, he was cast in the independent film Possession, boosting his profile and gearing him up for his next role in the thriller Homecoming, in which he starred alongside Mischa Barton.