Trivia: Colm Meaney is no stranger to the run down Barrytown district of Dublin depicted in The Commitments, The Snapper, and The Van, having grown up near the much mythologized neighborhood. The Dublin native began his acting career at the age of 14, eventually receiving formal training at Dublin's prestigious Abbey Theatre School of Acting and going on to join the Irish National Theatre Company. Meaney eventually graduated to the English stage, working in various London theaters, and then began to audition for television work, mainly landing bit parts in such TV shows as the cop drama Z Cars.Meaney moved to the U.S. in 1982, continuing to work mainly on the stage, but gradually made the transition into television and film playing small parts and guest roles on a variety of series. He was part of the cast of One Life to Live from 1986 to 1987, playing Patrick London, and then was hired for a bit part on Encounter at Farpoint, the pilot for the Star Trek: The Next Generation series. He was hired again for another part and then given the role of Chief Miles Edward O'Brien, and quickly went from being a bit player to an important member of the ensemble cast. The character was transferred to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the pilot for that series, and Meaney became a staple member of the show's cast.During his tenure on both Star Trek series, Meaney's motion picture career began to take off, as the bit parts he was given gradually became more substantial. Meaney made his greatest impact in smaller films like the so-called Barrytown Trilogy -- The Commitments (1991), in which he played the father of one of the band members; The Snapper (1993), in which he portrayed Dessie, who finds himself out of a job and suddenly a grandfather; and The Van (1996), which cast him as Larry, a layabout who manages to have a grand idea one day that results in his and a friend Bimbo starting a business out of a derelict vending van. Meaney was also notable in 1996's The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain: his Morgan the Goat, a randy Welsh pub owner with a flair for smart remarks, was an appropriate foil for the naive Englishman played by Hugh Grant. Meaney has continued to divide his time between the U.K. and the U.S., making particularly notable appearances in Paul Quinn's This Is My Father (1998), which cast him as the swishy son of an old gypsy woman; Lodge Kerrigan's Claire Dolan, in which he played a high-class pimp; Ted Demme's Monument Avenue (1998), which featured him as the bullying leader of a Boston gang; and Chapter Zero (2000), an independent comedy that cast Meaney as the cross-dressing father of a struggling writer.He continued to work steadily well into the 21st century in a variety of projects including Bitter Harvest, Intermission, Layer Cake, and Turning Green. He played soccer coach Don Revie in the sports drama The Damned United before playing the father of a strung-out rockstar in the comedy Get Him to the Greek. He appeared in Robert Redford's historical drama The Conspirator, as well as the period drama Bel Ami.

Trivia: Worked with the Fortune Society, doing volunteer work in prison reform, in college. Considered being a Catholic priest or a social worker before pursuing acting. Studied acting under William Esper and Phil Gushee for seven years. Ran his own acting company, the Michael Harney Acting Studio, for eight years.

Trivia: Pasty-faced American actor John Davis Chandler played his first unregenerate punk in 1961's The Young Savages. Chandler's subsequent unsavory screen characters included the implicitly incestuous Jimmy Hammond in Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1961) and the title role in Mad Dog Coll (1961). From time to time he has attempted sympathetic characterizations, billing himself as John Chandler. Though he periodically left show business for other lines of work, John Davis Chandler was still showing up in films and on TV into the late '70s.

Trivia: An Australian actor with a cult following in England and America, Nick Tate has enjoyed a successful career on three continents since the 1970s. Nicholas John Tate was born in Sydney, Australia, into a family of British and Russian extraction, with actors (and singers) on both sides going back two generations -- his father, John Tate (1914-1979), was a busy character actor whose movie appearances later included roles in On the Beach (1959) and The Day of the Triffids (1962). A performing career might have seemed a natural choice for Nick, but his parents initially tried to discourage this, hoping that he would choose a more conventional career. By age 14, however, Tate was playing the title role in the Sydney Opera Company's production of Gian Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors. That led to an entrée to Australian radio and, later, the fledgling television industry, for which he intended to work behind the camera, as a technician and director, learning the technical side of the visual medium over the next few years. By the mid-'60s, however, Tate was once again pursuing aspirations as an actor, encouraged by those around him who felt his talent and his rugged good looks would translate well in any medium. After a two-year interruption for the army, Tate returned to civilian life and immediately began getting stage and television work. In 1965, he emigrated to England, in part to restore some kind of contact with his father, who had moved to England in the wake of the breakup of his marriage to Tate's mother. What work the younger Tate got was mostly in action and crime series, such as Dixon of Dock Green and Z Cars -- which, ironically enough, were also the kinds of series in which John Tate appeared -- along with small roles in major movies, including A Man For All Seasons and Battle of Britain. Tate subsequently returned to Australia to work in a musical version of The Canterbury Tales and out of that got a leading role in an Australian television series called Dynasty (1970), in a role that teamed him onscreen with his father, who retired following the run of the series. Tate continued to do theatrical work, juggling it with television appearances, but by the mid-'70s he had returned to England. It was on that occasion that he was called in to read for the producers of a pilot for an intended new science fiction series called Space: 1999, which was to be distributed internationally. He was originally cast as a lunar pilot who is killed off in the first episode, but he was good enough that, in a casting shuffle, he won the co-starring role of Alan Carter, the chief pilot of Moonbase Alpha, a part that had to be rewritten for him to play it as an Australian. Tate's two seasons on Space: 1999 gave him a worldwide following, and his was easily the most popular character on the series, a resourceful, no-nonsense man of action, a sort of futuristic equivalent to the RAF pilots of World War II. His work on the series didn't distract him from more serious roles, however, and he was also cast in Fred Schepisi's The Devil's Playground in the part of Brother Victor, a role for which he won several acting awards. Tate's subsequent films have included Summerfield, The Gold and the Glory, and Cry Freedom, and he has also done a large amount of television work in England and Australia; he even managed to slip in work in the late '80s on the FOX network series Open House, which, for a change of pace, was a sitcom. Tate has since appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Murder, She Wrote, and JAG, and also portrayed Noodler in Steven Spielberg's Hook. In the 1990s, he also established himself as a voice artist, including work on the new run of episodes of Jonny Quest, among other animated series. After the dawn of the new century, Tate brought his family and career back to Australia, where, in addition to acting, he went on to write and direct.

Trivia: Born in a musically talented family.Grew up in Gary, Indiana.The first African American MFA graduate at Rutgers University.Recorded his lessons for his theater students at Rutgers University while working on the set of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, often in costume.Plays jazz piano.

Trivia: Though she has several features and TV movies to her credit, Terry Farrell has thrived primarily as an actress on series television. Born Theresa Lee Farrell Grussendorf in Cedar Rapids, IA, Farrell moved to New York City to become a model. During her several years as a cover girl, she also studied acting and landed her first major role as an actress by playing a model on the short-lived TV series Paper Dolls (1984). While she continued her acting studies, Farrell had a small role in the Rodney Dangerfield comedy Back to School (1986) and appeared in the TV movies Beverly Hills Madam (1986) and The Deliberate Stranger (1986), a well-received docudrama on serial killer Ted Bundy. After she starred in the horror sequel Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992), Farrell attracted a following as Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1998). During her five years on Deep Space Nine, Farrell also appeared in the TV adaptation of Danielle Steel's Star (1993), the B-action movie Red Sun Rising (1994), and the TV thriller Reasons of the Heart (1996). After Deep Space Nine ended, the actress stayed with TV, signing on to play Reggie, the beautiful diner worker and occasionally sharp-tongued foil to Ted Danson's grumpy doctor on the CBS sitcom Becker (1998).

Trivia: A versatile performer born into the lap of show business -- her parents were Gypsy stage choreographer Robert Tucker and ballet instructor Nenette Charisse, and her aunt (by marriage) acclaimed dancer Cyd Charisse -- Nana Visitor grew up on the west side of Manhattan, not far from Broadway. Visitor followed her parents' lead by formally training as a ballet dancer from the age of seven, then segued into tap dance, and in virtually no time seemed destined for the stages of the Great White Way, an accomplishment secured by late adolescence. Visitor's stage credits include My One and Only, Gypsy, 42nd Street, and The Ladies' Room; by the mid-'80s she began signing for on-camera appearances as well, often though not always in telemovies and series roles. Her best-known parts include a regular role as Major Kira Nerys on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine for the series' entire seven-season run and a recurring part during the first season of James Cameron's Dark Angel as the nefarious Dr. Elizabeth Renfro (aka Madame X). Visitor then went on to star as Roxie Hart in a revival of the stage musical Chicago before again taking a regular TV role. This time, Visitor played Jean Ritter on the horse-racing teen drama Wildfire.

Trivia: African-American actor Michael Dorn received much of his on-the-job training as a semi-regular on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives. In the prime-time hours, Dorn was seen as Officer Turner during the final two seasons (1980-1982) of the weekly cop series CHiPs. He went on to a flurry of supporting-cast activity in such theatrical features as The Jagged Edge (1985). Then, in 1987, Michael Dorn donned mounds of facial makeup for what was to be his signature role: the U.S.S. Enterprise's Klingon officer Lt. Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994).

Trivia: Born to an English mother and Sudanese father. Uncle Sadiq Al Mahdi was a two-time Prime Minister of Sudan (in the 1960s and '80s). Was bitten by the acting bug as a teenager, when he played Puck in a high-school production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Initially aspired to be a director, and has directed plays as well as two episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Interests include wine collecting, role-playing games, gardening and home projects.