Trivia: Personifying the type of teen spirit most commonly found in Noxzema ads and pep squad meets, actress Jennifer Love Hewitt has brought new meaning to the word "effervescent." The 1990s saw Hewitt go from relative obscurity to a bona fide teen queen, to say nothing of one of the most frequently enshrined actresses on the Internet.Hewitt was born on February 21, 1979 in Waco, TX. She made her first appearance on television in 1984 in the show Kids Incorporated (which, coincidentally, once guest-starred Scott Wolf, her Party of Five co-star). She also did a multitude of commercials, even doing a stint as a LA Gear spokesgirl at the age of ten. After spending the majority of the 80s working in television, Hewitt got her first film role in the 1993 film Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, but it wasn't until she got her big break as Sarah Reeves on Party of Five (1994) that she began to gain recognition. More recognition came, first in the form of Trojan War (1997), and then from I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). The film, which capitalized on the growing trend in teen horror flicks catalyzed by Wes Craven's Scream (1996), proved to be immensely popular among audiences, if not critics. It was predictably followed by a sequel, the aptly titled I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998). In addition to her film work, which also included 1998's Can't Hardly Wait, Hewitt maintained her role in Party of Five and continued to star in commercials, most notably as the Neutrogena spokesgirl.

Trivia: American actor David Conrad represents a rarity in contemporary Hollywood: a classically trained thespian who continues to stride theater and popular filmed entertainment with great aplomb -- and considerable success in each arena. Trained dramatically at the Ivy League Brown University and at Juilliard -- the mecca of American actors -- Conrad delivered a series of Broadway and off-Broadway performances, in such productions as Richard II, Indian Ink, Troilus and Cressida and The Deep Blue Sea. Though Conrad's film roles stretch back to his college years -- with a turn in Mike Jittlov's little-seen sci-fi comedy The Wizard of Speed and Time (1988) -- he generally remained off-camera until his early thirties. Small roles in the 2000 military drama Men of Honor (starring Cuba Gooding Jr. as the first black diver in the U.S.N.) and Woody Allen's 2003 romantic comedy Anything Else (starring Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci as romantic partners) represented Conrad's first major big-screen turns. Conrad also landed a couple of key recurring roles on series in the early 2000s. In the short-lived comedy drama Miss Match, he played Michael Mendelsohn, a handsome but as yet unrealized suitor to attorney Kate Fox (Alicia Silverstone). Conrad fared much better -- and received higher billing -- as Jim Clancy, the husband of medium Melinda Gordon (Jennifer Love Hewitt) in the series The Ghost Whisperer, a supernatural drama that quickly became a blockbuster. Conrad continued his work on The Ghost Whisperer until 2009, and remains active in film and television.

Trivia: After toiling in minor film roles for years, Camryn Manheim finally attained the fame and respect denied to many overweight women who attempt to make it as actresses in Hollywood. In 1998, Manheim came to the attention of television audiences when she won a Best Supporting Actress Emmy for her role as lawyer Ellenor Frutt on David E. Kelley's acclaimed law drama The Practice. Hoisting her award in the air and exuberantly declaring, "This is for all the fat girls!", the actress won over millions of viewers, many of whom may not have been aware of her existence before the awards ceremony.Born in Caldwell, New Jersey on March 8, 1961, Manheim was raised in Peoria, Illinois and Long Beach California, the daughter of a math professor father and school teacher mother. She developed an interest in acting after attending a Renaissance fair at the age of sixteen, and she went on to get a Masters in Fine Arts from New York University in 1987. After graduating, Manheim made her (credited) screen debut with a miniscule role in Bonfire of the Vanities in 1990. A long series of similarly minor roles in films ranging from Jeffrey (1995) to Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997) followed before she was cast in The Practice in 1997. After winning fame and an Emmy for her work on the show, Manheim gained additional exposure and respect with her role as a denizen of Todd Solondz's dysfunctional New Jersey suburbia in the acclaimed Happiness (1998). The following year, in addition to winning a Golden Globe and another Emmy nomination for her portrayal of Ellenor Frutt, Manheim continued to act in films, appearing in Fools Gold and Joe the King, both of which were shown at the 1999 Sundance Festival.In the decades to come, Manheim would appear in several films, like An Unfinished Life and Slipstream, as well as on several successful TVseries, like The L Word, Ghost Whisperer, and Harry's Law.In addition to acting, Manheim also authored Wake Up, I'm Fat, a memoir that began life as a one-woman show at New York's Public Theatre. By turns funny and excruciating, it details the actress's transformation from wholesome middle American to tattooed, dozen-earringed California biker, her struggles with those who told her she'd have to lose weight to fit in, and the trials and tribulations of making it in the entertainment industry.

Trivia: Once played six characters in the same play, a production of A Christmas Carol at the Flat Rock Playhouse in North Carolina. Decided to pursue an acting career at age 16 and appeared in commercials before landing a role in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006). Considered becoming an engineer and studied drafting at Blue Ridge Community College in North Carolina. Hobbies include surfing and riding motorcycles. Is an Eagle Scout.

Trivia: An actor whose name became synonymous with "comic relief" during the late 1990s, Jamie Kennedy made his reputation playing a series of wise-asses in such films as the Scream trilogy and the independent comedy Clockwatchers. Born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, on May 25, 1970, Kennedy showed comedic inclinations from an early age, and first became inspired to pursue an acting career when he was cast as an extra in Dead Poets Society (1989). After high school, Kennedy moved to L.A., where he wanted to have a career as an extra. Unfortunately, Hollywood casting agents had other ideas, and the aspiring actor found himself working odd jobs ranging from a restaurant busboy to a gum-scraper at K-Mart. During this time, he also studied at the American/British Drama Academy and began finding stand-up work at various improv clubs. It was in one of these clubs that he caught the attention of an independent filmmaker and was subsequently cast in the little-seen The Legend of Flin Flon. The actor's bona fide entry into the film industry came with a supporting role in Baz Luhrmann's 1996 William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, in which he played a fuchsia-haired thug. That same year he had a huge breakthrough in Wes Craven's Scream, which cast him as a video store clerk with an unnerving lust for horror movies. The great success of the film opened a number of doors for Kennedy, one of which led to a memorable role as an office boy in Jill Sprecher's well-received independent comedy Clockwatchers (1997), which also starred Lisa Kudrow, Parker Posey, and Toni Collette. The actor also reprised his role for the inevitable Scream 2 (1997) and Scream 3 (2000) and appeared in such slacker extravaganzas as Bongwater and Starf*cker (both 1998).Kennedy got a shot at more grown-up fare with a supporting role in David O. Russell's acclaimed Gulf War drama Three Kings (1999), and a turn as a movie studio gofer in the satirical Bowfinger (1999). His growing popularity was reflected in the number of projects he was involved with in 2000; included amongst them were Ben Younger's The Boiler Room, in which Kennedy played an ambitious young stock broker, and The Specials, an ensemble comedy that cast him as a member of a motley group of superheroes.He appeared in the movies Max Keeble's Big Move and Bug before moving to the small screen to host the series The Jamie Kennedy Experiment. He was the star of the ill-fated sequel Son of the Mask and he was one of the voiceover artists in the comedy Farce of the Penguins. His other projects include Malibu's Most Wanted, Finding Bliss, and Tyler Perry's Good Deeds.

Trivia: Discovered his passion for acting at Kilcoo Camp in Minden, Ontario. Played for his college soccer team as a striker. Attended an acting class in Toronto with actors such as Rachel McAdams, Scott Speedman and David Sutcliffe. Portrayed a hockey player who just misses the cut for the U.S. Olympic hockey team in Miracle.

Trivia: Got the acting bug while doing musical theater in school. Is the cover model for pop group Reeve Oliver's second album, Touchstone Inferno. Had her first recurring TV role on the short-lived series The Mountain. She would later work with a fellow cast member, Penn Badgely, on the CW teen drama Gossip Girl. Has a prayer by Mother Theresa tattooed on her torso. Appeared in an episode of the CBS comedy How I Met Your Mother, in which she shared an on-screen kiss with actress Rachel Bilson.

Trivia: After toiling for a decade in low-grade films and a host of TV shows, Teri Polo finally earned a helping of recognition, topped off with a dollop of critical appreciation, for her portrayal of Ben Stiller's would-be fiancée in Jay Roach's 2000 autumn blockbuster Meet the Parents. The casting of Polo as the daughter of über-WASP suburban gentry (Robert De Niro and Blythe Danner) capitalized on her Pepsident-blond, all-American looks, and the film's success effectively provided the actress with the exposure that would allow her to move beyond the confines of weeknight television spots.The daughter of a stereo systems designer and a homemaker, Polo was born in Dover, DE, and raised there in the company of two older brothers. A ballet student from the age of five, she spent most of her childhood and adolescence in a dance studio, but after being rejected by a performing arts school at 17, Polo re-evaluated what she wanted to do with her life; her subsequent win in a Seventeen magazine modeling contest led to her decision to drop out of school and pursue an acting career in New York.Roles on TV shows ranging from the ABC soap opera Loving to Northern Exposure followed, as did starring work as the object of Ethan Hawke's affections in the thankless, straight-to-video comedy Mystery Date (1991). After moving to Los Angeles in 1995 to better pursue her career, Polo found more work on television, guest-starring on such shows as Felicity and Sports Night. With Meet the Parents in 2000, the actress' years of hard work seemed finally to have paid off, as she enjoyed mention in the national media and a crop of studio offers. She followed up that big success with Domestic Disturbance and Beyond Borders, but was back on board for the sequel Meet the Fockers in 2004. She was away from screens for three years after that, returning in Full of It, and the short-lived TV series The Wedding Bells. She appeared in The Hole, and in 2010 returned to her career defining role in Little Fockers.

Trivia: Supporting actress Bitty Schram had the small but memorable role of Evelyn, the baseball-playing single mother who makes the mistake of crying in front of manager Tom Hanks during a baseball game in Penny Marshall's A League of Their Own (1992). A native of New Jersey and a graduate of the University of Maryland, Schram would appear in numerous feature films over the years, but is perhaps best known for the role of handler Sharona Fleming on the TV series Monk.

Trivia: Forever associated with his ongoing voice work as Homer J. Simpson on Matt Groening and James L. Brooks' long, long-running Fox animated sitcom The Simpsons, Dan Castellaneta is well-reputed for his modest, unassuming presence in real life and his paradoxical ability to spin characters -- seemingly from out of nowhere -- that instantly take on lives of their own. Groening once famously remarked that "Dan can do everything, and he practically does....You might never notice him, but then he opens his mouth and he completely creates one character after another.'' Born in 1957, Castellaneta grew up in the small town of Oak Grove, IL, in the northwestern corner of the state, near the Iowa border. As a self-described introvert who developed and honed a facility for slipping into the guise of characters to entertain and make social situations easier (read: class clown), Castellaneta nevertheless diverged from this path in college and worked toward a career as a high-school art teacher via his studies at Northern Illinois University. Then, one of Castellaneta's professors (perhaps sensing some dissatisfaction) wisely admonished him to only work at a field, and in a job, that he loved. Castellaneta reasoned that acting fit the bill, and auditioned for the infamous sketch comedy troupe Second City shortly after graduation. The troupe hired him, and in time, the skills that the actor projected led to his involvement on the then-fledgling Fox network's sketch comedy series The Tracey Ullman Show, which premiered on Sunday, April 5, 1987. Castellaneta joined Ullman, Julie Kavner, Joe Malone, Sam McMurray, and for a time Anna Levine in live-action skits that parodied all aspects of Western culture.As a most unusual aspect of her program, Ullman opted to feature crudely animated, offbeat segments as Monty Python-style transitions between the individual sketches. The episodes in question were drawn by Gabor Csupo and Groening (at that time, comic-strip artist of growing infamy known for his Life Is Hell series starring a buck-toothed, bug-eyed rabbit named Bucky). Although the subjects of the shorts initially varied, within a few months they began to focus exclusively on a hyper-dysfunctional blue-collar family called the Simpsons; Kavner and Castellaneta voiced parents Homer and Marge Simpson, respectively. Those segments gained such massive popularity that they eventually outshone that of the Ullman show itself (which wrapped in September 1990), and executive producer James L. Brooks, following this cue, decided to spin off the Simpsons into their own weekly animated series. Kavner and Castellaneta, of course, followed Brooks to the new program, joined in time by longtime Brooks acquaintance Harry Shearer, as well as Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and numerous others.The Simpsons premiered on Fox on December 17, 1989, and became not simply a hit but a phenomenon. It shot up to instantly become one of the highest-rated series on television, and attained iconic status. The program scored as a cause célèbre not simply with children (as expected) but with adult viewers as well, who appreciated the show's ability to skewer all aspects of society and culture. (It generated a billion-dollar marketing boom as well -- an onslaught of Bart Simpson-themed T-shirts, watches, dolls, beach towels, and everything else under the sun.) The program also drew an onslaught of celebrity guests -- everyone from Larry King to Tony Bennett to Beverly D'Angelo and Linda Ronstadt. Castellaneta himself will forever be tied to Homer Simpson -- the lunkheaded, potbellied, beer-swilling, donut-loving nuclear-plant worker with not a whole lot upstairs, and a thoroughly crass lifestyle, but also a big, soft heart (a quality which Castellaneta's co-workers insist that he alone brought to the character). But hardcore Simpsons cultists and even its less attentive devotees will realize that Castellaneta voices not only Homer (as mentioned), but also the gravelly voiced, booze-swilling, womanizing clown Krusty; local drunk Barney Gumble; Scottish elementary-school groundskeeper Willie; the octogenarian family patriarch Grampa Simpson; and innumerable others. Certainly, it would be difficult to imagine a program that took fuller advantage of Castellaneta's versatility with characterizations.Alongside The Simpsons, Castellaneta has also pursued a career as a live-action film and television performer, and spent most of the late '80s, '90s, and 2000s vacillating between the two mediums. His career on the big screen began at least a year prior to his involvement with Ullman and co., when he debuted with a bit part as Brian in the now-forgotten Garry Marshall dramedy Nothing in Common (1986), starring Jackie Gleason, Tom Hanks, Eva Marie Saint, and Sela Ward. In 1989, Castellaneta landed bit parts in two wildly different films: one as a maître d' in the Jim Belushi cop comedy K-9, and another (as one of Danny DeVito's clients) in the James L. Brooks-produced jet-black marital farce The War of the Roses. Castellaneta temporarily withdrew from live-action cinematic work in the early '90s, before returning to audiences as the narrator in Super Mario Bros. (1993) and Phil in Warren Beatty's Love Affair (1994). As the Castellaneta's career continued, he then segued into cinematic animated voice-over work (doubtless encouraged by the ongoing success of The Simpsons), doing voices in such features as 2000's Rugrats in Paris (under the aegis of old colleague Gabor Csupo) and Hey Arnold! The Movie (2002). In 2007, Castellaneta extended his Homer characterization to the big screen with his work on The Simpsons Movie -- the first cinematic appearance of Groening's famous animated family.As for television, Castellaneta appeared as a supporting actor in numerous sitcoms during the 1990s. These included ALF (as Steve Michaels in the 1990 episode "Stayin' Alive"), Married...with Children (as Pete in the 1990 episode "The Dance Show"), Wings (as George Wexler in the 1994 episode "Moonlighting"), and Murphy Brown (as Tony Lucchesi in the 1995 episode "Specific Overtures.") He also voiced Genie (inheriting the role from Robin Williams) on the animated Aladdin TV series. Of the Simpsons cast, Castellaneta is one of the only actors to regularly do on-stage comedic improvisation alongside his series work. He is married to Simpsons writer Deb Lacusta, whom he wed in 1987.He continued to work steadily in animated films such as Rugrats in Paris: The Movie and Hey Arnold! The Movie, and landed traditional acting parts every once in a while in movies as diverse as the indie comedy I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With and the Will Smith drama The Pursuit of Happyness. In 2007 he voiced nearly 20 different parts in The Simpsons Movie. He also landed a part in JJ Abrams 2011 Spielberg-influenced family sci-fi film Super 8.