Trivia: A uniquely gifted and versatile actor possessing the distinct ability to immerse himself in a role so convincingly that he becomes almost unrecognizable -- from a quality obsessed restaurateur (Big Night, 1996) to a master criminal bent on world domination (Spy Kids, 2001) -- one can always count on Tony Shalhoub to deliver a memorable performance no matter how small his role may be.Well-known to television audiences for his extended stint as a self-deprecating cabbie on the long-running series Wings, Shalhoub made the often-painful transition from television to film with a grace seldom seen. Born on October 9th, 1953 in Green Bay, WI, Shalhoub developed his passion for theater at the youthful age of six when he volunteered via his sister to play an extra in a high-school production of The King and I. Shalhoub was hooked. After earning his master's degree from the Yale Drama School and spending four seasons at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA, Shalhoub packed his bags for New York where he began a luminous career on Broadway. Broadway brought Shalhoub success not only in his career, but in his personal life as well: he was nominated for a Tony for his role in Conversations With My Father and he met his future wife, actress Brooke Adams, while acting in The Heidi Chronicles. It was not long after his Broadway success that Shalhoub made his feature debut, as a doctor in the 1990 AIDS drama Longtime Companion.Shalhoub's film career has been a testament to his range and a compliment to his abilities. Though prone to comedy, his dramatic roles have gained him just as much, if not more, recognition than his comedic roles. Winning the Best Supporting Actor award from the National Society of Film Critics for his well-researched role in Big Night (1996), Shalhoub expanded his dramatic film repertoire with roles in A Civil Action and The Siege (both 1998), while always maintaining his knack for humor (1997's Men in Black). Shalhoub's role as the ultra-mellow "anti-Scottie" in the Star Trek send-up Galaxy Quest (1999) proved that his comic persona was indeed still as sharp as ever. Sticking in the sci-fi/fantasy mold for his roles in Imposter and Spy Kids (both 2001), Shalhoub once again proved that he could do 180-degree character turnarounds with ease.Though Shalhoub would stay in sci-fi mode for his role in Men in Black 2, he would return to solid ground with his role as an obsessive-compulsive detective in the well-received television pilot Monk (2002). Directed by Galaxy Quest helmer Dean Parisot, the pilot for Monk successfully paved the way for the curiously innovative USA series to follow and found the actor warmly re-embracing the medium that had propelled him to stardom. As Monk's popularity continued to grow, Shaloub found success on the big screen in the role of a gifted psychologist for The Great New Wonderful (2005), and voiced the lovable Luigi in Cars (2006) and Cars 2 (2011). In 2007, he worked alongside John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson for the supernatural horror film 1408.

Trivia: Appeared in TV commercials while still in high school. Traylor is her mother's maiden name. Worked at a greeting-card company after graduating from college. Made her sitcom debut in 1996 on Boston Common. Replaced Bitty Schram on Monk in 2005, playing the detective's peppy sidekick, Natalie.

Trivia: Striking terror deep in the hearts and subconsciousness of filmgoers worldwide with his chilling portrayal of aspiring transsexual serial killer James "Buffalo Bill" Gumb in director Jonathan Demme's acclaimed thriller The Silence of the Lambs, Steppenwolf Theater alumnus Ted Levine may not have received the star status some may have expected would follow the role, but he can consistently be counted on to turn in a lively performance, no matter how small his part may be.Born in Cleveland, OH, Levine received his M.F.A. in acting from the University of Chicago before making frequent appearances in such 1980s made-for-television efforts as Michael Mann's Crime Story (1986) and his feature debut in 1987's Ironweed. Taking small roles in such features as Betrayed (1988) and Next of Kin (1989) before his big break in Silence, Levine, curiously, stuck mostly to television following his portrayal of Buffalo Bill, not taking another featured role until his turn as a cop on the trail of a carnivorous industrial speed iron in The Mangler (1995). Appearing in Georgia and Michael Mann's acclaimed Heat the same year, Levine began to gain more prominent roles in the following years before taking to the seas with Patrick Stewart in Moby Dick (1998). Though he received critical acclaim for his role in the controversial television series Wonderland (2000), the show aired a meager two episodes (though four were produced) before being pulled due to outcry over its portrayal of the mental health system and its inhabitants. Bouncing back to the big screen, fans found that Levine could still be counted on to turn in absorbing performances in such features as Evolution and The Fast and the Furious (both 2001). Over the next several years, Levine would remain extremely active, appearing in films like The Manchuriuan Candidate, Memoirs of a Geisha, The Hills Have Eyes, and Shutter Island, as well as on TV series like Monk and Luck.

Trivia: Initially aspired to become a basketball player but opted to pursue acting instead. Did a great deal of voice work at the start of his career, including playing Donatello for the animated series Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation. Auditioned for a guest spot in the Monk pilot but was cast in the regular role of Lieutenant Randy Disher instead. Sang backup vocals on Russell Crowe's album Gaslight after costarring with him in 1999's Mystery, Alaska and 2001's A Beautiful Mind.

Trivia: Spent her early childhood in Houston and England (where she attended the American School in England). Won a 2004 Young Artist Award (Supporting Actress) for her first professional role, a girl orphaned by a terrorist attack in Italy, in the HBO film My House in Umbria. Has studied ballet and enjoys sailing on Long Island Sound.

Trivia: An actor of seemingly boundless range, New York-born Hector Elizondo began his career as a dancer. His initial training was at the Ballet Arts school of Carnegie Hall, from which he moved on to the Actors Studio. After several years' stage work, Elizondo made an inauspicious movie debut as "The Inspector" in the low-budget sex film The Vixens (1969). He was shown to better advantage in his next film, Hal Ashby's The Landlord (1970), which he followed up with strong character parts in such Manhattan-based productions as The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) and Thieves (1977). With Young Doctors in Love (1982), Elizondo began his long association with director Garry Marshall, who has since cast the actor in all of his films, in roles both sizable (Matt Dillon's dad in The Flamingo Kid [1984], the cafe owner in Frankie and Johnny [1991]), and microscopic (Overboard [1987]). Elizondo's screen roles have run the gamut from scrungy garbage scow captains to elegant concierges (Pretty Woman). In addition, he has been a regular on several mediocre television series: Popi, Freebie and the Bean, Casablanca (in the old Claude Rains role of Inspector Renault), a.k.a. Pablo, Foley Square, and Down and Out in Beverly Hills, In 1994, Elizondo took on a co-starring role as a demanding chief of surgery on the popular TV medical drama Chicago Hope. Other non-Marshall highlights in his filmography include Tortilla Soup, Overboard, Necessary Roughness, and Music Within.

Trivia: Although she garnered some attention at the outset of her Hollywood career, Virginia Madsen found her star eclipsed in the 1990s by her older brother Michael's jolting, thuggish performances for director Quentin Tarantino. After landing a plum role in the acclaimed 2004 indie Sideways, however, Madsen was showered with the kind of praise she'd been denied for nearly two decades in the business.A native of the Chicago suburbs and the daughter of a PBS documentarian, Madsen learned her trade in city theater productions and summer performance camps. She made her way to Hollywood in the early '80s with her then-fiancé/fellow performer Billy Campbell. Making an inauspicious debut at the age of 19 as Andrew McCarthy's would-be first-time conquest in the teen sex comedy Class, she would go on to more noteworthy roles in director David Lynch's sci-fi epic Dune and the slick but heartfelt romantic comedy Electric Dreams (both 1984). The rest of the decade wouldn't be quite as kind, as Madsen shuffled from part to part, appearing in a supporting capacity in both ambitious arthouse fare (1987's Slamdance) and forgettable Hollywood comedies (1988's Hot to Trot and Mr. North, the latter of which sparked a relationship with -- and three-year marriage to -- director Danny Huston). The beginning of the next decade fared somewhat better for Madsen. After a memorably brassy turn opposite Don Johnson in Dennis Hopper's steamy, seamy The Hot Spot (1990), she raked in some box-office cash in the minor horror hit Candyman (1992). Small performances in the high-profile, prestige pics Ghosts of Mississippi and The Rainmaker notwithstanding, Madsen all but disappeared from the late-'90s feature marketplace, as most of her films were either made for television or delivered directly to video-store rental shelves. Finding a more receptive outlet on weekly TV, Madsen snagged prominent recurring roles on NBC's Frasier and American Dreams around the turn of the century.But it was writer/director Alexander Payne's low-budget character study Sideways that had Madsen clamoring for the ever-elusive "role of a lifetime." Payne was mostly unfamiliar with the actress' work, but her audition for the part of Maya -- a weary, contemplative divorcée with a fine-tuned taste for wine -- convinced him that she was the perfect complement to lead performer Paul Giamatti's high-strung sad sack Miles. Toning down her Hollywood glamour for the film, Madsen turned the small part into something of a revelation, and as reviewers showered praise upon the film in late 2004, the actress hauled in a truckload of awards from critics' groups as well as Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actress.Although Madsen lost the Oscar bid to Cate Blanchett, high-profile offers rolled in after her Sideways coup. Early in 2006, she played Beth Stanfield, the wife of Harrison Ford's technology executive Jack Stanfield, in Richard Loncraine's disappointing hostage thriller Firewall; that summer, she also claimed an enigmatic part as a beguiling angel of death in Robert Altman's swan song, A Prairie Home Companion. Madsen began 2007 with two supporting turns in the same February weekend: in Michael Polish's The Astronaut Farmer, a quirky drama about a retired NASA astronaut turned farmer (Billy Bob Thornton) who builds a spacecraft in his barn; and in the higher-profile supernatural thriller The Number 23, playing wife to an unraveling Jim Carrey.

Trivia: Fans of American actress Melora Hardin who associate her exclusively with her characterization of Jan Levinson-Gould -- Michael Scott's stone-faced manager and sometimes lover, on the smash NBC series The Office -- may be surprised and delighted to discover several exciting facts about the history of her career. First, her work stretches back many decades, into her primary school years, encompassing everything from Disney movies to prime-time series dramas of the '80s, '90s, and 2000s to commercials to acclaimed feature films; she directs and edits films as well. Second, Hardin moonlights as an accomplished and gifted singer/songwriter -- a nightclub chanteuse known for sultry cabaret-style numbers, who has issued a number of acclaimed albums of her own material, including Meloradrama and Purr. And finally, this comedian's wit extends far beyond her crack-comic onscreen timing. A parodist who loves to play with her own image, Hardin runs her own website, with a series of funny-sexy (yet inexplicit) cheesecake photos that serve as throwbacks to the peek-a-boo erotica days of the mid-'50s while subtly parodying and calling attention to those setups.Given both of her parents' long tenures in film and television (her father is character actor Jerry Hardin and her mother is acting coach Diane Hill Hardin), drama came preternaturally for Hardin, and she commenced work as a child star at age six. One of her earliest assignments involved plugging Peak Toothpaste on a television commercial; she later joined the ensemble cast of a live-action children's program on NBC (circa 1977, at age ten) called Cliffwood Avenue Kids, which (as late-Gen X television babies may recall) typically aired during early weekday evenings after The Flintstones. A series of failed pilots ensued for Hardin, beginning with the late-'70s drama Thunder and encompassing over a dozen others over the next two decades.Hardin debuted cinematically at age 11, with a high-profile role in the goofball Disney comedy The North Avenue Irregulars, opposite Susan Clark and Cloris Leachman and directed by Hogan's Heroes vet Bruce Bilson. She followed this up with many additional roles in A- and B-list features throughout the '80s and '90s, but while her work shone, the films themselves often failed to catch fire; her resumé includes such forgettable fare as Iron Eagle (1985) and Soul Man (1986). A number of pictures, however, marked happy exceptions: Hardin contributed a small onscreen singing role to the fine Disney period adventure The Rocketeer (1991), and several of her songs highlighted the film's soundtrack. She also appeared in Clint Eastwood's enormously underrated, oft-humorous 1997 crime thriller Absolute Power (as Christy Sullivan, the homicide victim of Gene Hackman's lecherous president), and made a solid contribution to the satire Thank You for Smoking, opposite Aaron Eckhart.Hardin fared particularly well on television, with single- and dual-episode appearances over the years in such dramas as Little House on the Prairie, Quincy, M.E., and Murder, She Wrote. The Office, of course, represented a watershed moment for Hardin. Adapted skillfully by Greg Daniels from the British series of the same name by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the NBC sitcom follows the colorful employees of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company's Scranton branch -- led by one Michael Scott (Steve Carell), a sweet-natured but desperately lonely and outrageously uncouth manager. Low-key, iconoclastic, and unconventional, the program eschewed a laugh track and underplayed (to the nth degree) every one of its gags, relying on a bevy of character eccentricities to procure laughs. The episodes had Hardin (as Michael's manager) typically playing straight man to Carell's goofball, and saw the unlikeliest of employer-employee romances blossoming between them over the course of the first two seasons. Thanks to an extraordinary cast and crew, The Office instantly shot up to qualify as one of NBC's highest rated new series after its March 2005 debut; many proclaimed it as the funniest American sitcom since Seinfeld.Meanwhile, Hardin continued to hone her craft in other arenas. She first helmed the regional theatrical production of friend Adria Tennor's one-woman show Strip Search. Tagged as "Love and a 12-Foot Pole," and authored by and starring Tennor, this colorful yet surprisingly touching seriocomedy recounts the tale of a woman who undertakes a journey of self-discovery and ultimately finds her dying passion in strip dancing classes. Hardin then directed and edited an independent film entitled You that husband Gildart Jackson scripted. The motion picture stars Jackson and both of Hardin's parents, as well as Joely Fisher and The Office's Kate Flannery.In 2006, Hardin returned to big-screen work, signing with Fox Atomic and Tapestry Films to co-star in the Tom Brady-directed sports comedy The Comebacks. The film relays the story of a football coach (David Koechner) commissioned to whip a down-and-out football team into shape. In 2007, she joined the cast of The Dukes, which follows a group of down-and-out musicians attempting an ill-fated heist.

Trivia: An action specialist whose impossibly chiseled jaw makes him the ideal candidate to portray heroes who favor plenty of action over useless small talk, Casper Van Dien first made an impression on viewers with a recurring role on the teen soap Beverly Hills 90210 before taking a turn as James Dean (James Dean: Race with Destiny) and battling giant killer bugs on faraway planets (Starship Troopers). Raised in Ridgewood, NJ, on a street that was named after his great-great-grandfather, Van Dien enrolled in Admiral Farragut Academy when his family relocated to Florida, eventually graduating third in command. After finishing his education at Florida State University, it was off to Los Angeles to purse success on screens both big and small. While success doesn't always come fast in L.A., Van Dien's photogenic visage gave him something of an edge at auditions, and it wasn't long before the occasional television role blossomed into a full-on feature career. After taking the lead as the heroic Johnny Rico in Starship Troopers and as the Lord of the Jungle himself in Tarzan and the Lost City, Van Dien expanded his resumé to include the role of producer with the release of Richard Elfman's Modern Vampires in 1998. While subsequent years found Van Dien largely relegated to made-for-television features and straight-to-video B-movie fare, occasional roles in such wide releases as Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow showed that there was indeed a sense of humor behind the stone-faced veneer. Following Van Dien's wedding to second wife Catherine Oxenberg in 1999, the pair worked together on numerous projects in addition to co-founding a production company dedicated entirely to socially responsible, family-friendly entertainment. In 2005, Van Dien and Oxenberg made the production of the PC shooter Starship Troopers something of a family affair by enlisting aid of three of their five children in recording voice-overs for the video game. Subsequent roles in Slayer, The Curse of King Tut's Tomb, and Starship Troopers: Marauder proved without question that Van Dien wasn't looking to hang up his guns anytime in the near future.

Trivia: Solidly built American actor Craig T. Nelson started out as a comedy writer and performer, doing radio and nightspot gigs in the Los Angeles area. Success was not immediately forthcoming, and Nelson took a four-year sabbatical from show business, moving with his family to a remote cabin in Northern California. In 1979, he made his first film, ...And Justice For All, written by his onetime partner Barry Levinson. While subsequent roles in Poltergeist and Silkwood followed, Nelson would find true stardom on television. For eight seasons beginning in 1989, he starred as college athletics instuctor Hayden Fox on the top-ranked ABC sitcom Coach. Appearing alongside supporting players Jerry Van Dyke and Shelly Fabares, Nelson received an Emmy for his work on the show in 1992.After Coach, Nelson showed up in a few small roles in feature films and television mini-series before returning to series work in 2000, leading the cast of CBS's D.C.-based cop-drama The District. While enjoying the success of that show, Nelson found time for his first high-profile feature film role in over a decade, providing the voice of the head of a family of superheroes in the 2004 Disney/Pixar animated film The Incredibles. In 2005 he played the patriarch of the dysfunctional clan in The Family Stone, and followed that up two years later as skating coach in the comedy Blades of Glory. He was Ryan Reynolds disapproving dad in the hit comedy The Proposal in 2009. He was cast as the head of the Braverman clan in NBC's relaunch of Parenthood in 2010, and appeared in the inspirational Soul Surfer in 2011.

Trivia: Tall African-American actor D.B. Woodside is best known for two recurring series roles: that of Principal Robin Wood on Buffy the Vampire Slayer during the program's seventh and final season, and that of Wayne Palmer on the blockbuster Fox action thriller 24. Born in New York City, David Bryan Woodside stepped into drama during his teens, almost completely by accident. As a varsity football hero, he suffered from an unexpected injury on the field and happened to be looking for an alternative pursuit. While walking down a school corridor, Woodside overheard a rehearsal for the musical Brigadoon and decided, spontaneously, to check it out. The pieces fell into place, and after graduation, Woodside devoted more of his attention to dramatics -- this time, on a curricular level, first as an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Albany (where he received his B.A.) and later via his studies at the Yale University School of Drama, where he earned his Master of Fine Arts. Woodside signed with a manager and subsequently landed the role of Melvin Franklin, bassist singer for the Temptations, in the 1998 telemovie biopic of that Motown supergroup; that of Forrest in the low-budget 1998 cop thriller Scarred City; and that of Anthony Hilliard in the BET original telemovie After All. He also portrayed Colin in Andrzej Bartkowiak's big-screen martial arts update of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo Must Die. The Buffy role purportedly came to Woodside some time before he agreed to accept it; he later recalled his manager phoning him on several occasions and insisting that he audition for the part. In the first two instances, Woodside declined, but with the third offer, he begrudgingly accepted and soon "fell in love with the part." Unfortunately, the series ended with that season (in 2003), but Woodside made a memorable impression. When reflecting on the series' closure in a BBC interview, he later observed, "It was sad to see these guys who had been together for seven years of their lives, who had grown up together. They were a family, and like many families they work hard and love hard. They were fantastic and welcomed me into that family for the final season. So there were quite a few tears, quite a few hugs, but they felt the need to move on." Woodside continued on to other roles, including playing "stoner" Martin, the best friend of Marguerite Moreau's Jamie Harris, in the quirky, low-budget romantic comedy Easy (2003). However, Woodside's most notable and high-profile role was that of Wayne Palmer -- the brother and Chief of Staff of President David Palmer -- on the aforementioned 24, starting with the hit show's third season (2003-2004). He then returned in season five (2005) for a handful of appearances before his character ascended to the presidency for the show's turbulent sixth season the next year.

Trivia: Born in Herzlia, Israel, on October 20, 1983, actress Alona Tal appeared on a pair of shows in her homeland before attempting to make a splash in the United States. After roles on CSI, Cold Case, and 7th Heaven, Tal was cast as Meg Manning in the cult hit Veronica Mars. She appeared in another recurring CW-series role on Supernatural, as Jo Harvelle, during the cult show's second season. In 2007, she landed a part opposite Daniella Monet in the teen comedy Taking 5, about two high-school friends who attempt to trick a popular boy band into playing a free concert in their hometown. Tal maintained her presence on the small screen by landing a regular part on the drama Cane that same year, opposite Jimmy Smits, but the show was canceled after just half a season.

Trivia: Left his home in the Midwest to perform with The Young Americans when he was 17. His post-college jobs included performing as a Kid of the Kingdom at Disneyland; a page at Paramount Studios; butler at the Playboy Mansion; and assistant for Cathy Rigby. His one-man show, Happy Hour, a comedy about his family life, won the Jury Award at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in 1999. Was a writer and performer with The Groundlings comedy group. Volunteers with Stars for Stripes, an organization that entertains U.S. troops in the Middle East.

Trivia: Dan Hedaya has played a wide variety of characters on the stage, screen, and television. Fans of the long-running sitcom Cheers will remember Hedaya for his portrayal of barmaid Carla's grease bag husband Nick Tortelli. Following studies in literature at Tufts University, Hedaya launched his acting career. He then went on to act in the New York Shakespeare Festival for many years. Hedaya made his feature film debut in The Passover Plot (1975). Since 1980, Hedaya has appeared in over 20 feature films, and is frequently cast as cops, criminals, or rough-edged regular joes. In Blood Simple (1984), he got the opportunity to play a leading role as Marty, the jealous husband who hires a creepy detective to kill his faithless wife. It is on television, that Hedaya has found most of his work. He has guest-starred on numerous shows ranging from police and courtroom dramas like Hill Street Blues and Law and Order, to sitcoms such as Family Ties.

Trivia: An offbeat character actor whose stark features lent him to effective portrayals of villains and seedy figures, Stanley Kamel grew up in New Jersey and attended Boston University, where he received formalized dramatic training under the aegis of noted instructor Sanford Meisner. Kamel began his acting career with roles in off-Broadway productions during the early '70s, and quickly landed his first major on-camera role, as Eric Peters, on the daytime soap Days of Our Lives. His subsequent work over the following three decades consisted largely of recurring roles and guest parts in prime-time series including Cagney & Lacey, Hunter, Melrose Place, and -- most visibly -- the Tony Shalhoub sitcom Monk, as the lead character's shrink, Dr. Charles Kroger.

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: One of the top character actors of his era, John Turturro is a fixture of the contemporary American independent filmmaking landscape. Born February 28, 1957, in Brooklyn, NY, Turturro became fascinated by movies during childhood, and after graduating from college he won a scholarship to study at the prestigious Yale School of Drama. He first gained notice in regional theater and off-Broadway, earning an Obie Award for his starring role in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea. He made his film debut in Martin Scorsese's 1980 masterpiece Raging Bull but did not reappear onscreen prior to 1984's The Exterminator 2. That same year, he debuted on Broadway in Death of a Salesman.Small roles in diverse fare including Susan Seidelman's 1985 comedy Desperately Seeking Susan, Scorsese's 1986 drama The Color of Money, and Woody Allen's masterful Hannah and Her Sisters kept Turturro busy throughout much of the decade, but his breakthrough performance did not arrive until Spike Lee cast him as a bigoted pizzeria worker in 1989's Do the Right Thing. A scene-stealing turn in the Coen brothers' 1990 gangland drama Miller's Crossing followed, and in 1991 the Coens cast him as the titular Barton Fink, a performance which garnered Best Actor honors at the Cannes Film Festival. Subsequent lead roles were infrequent, although in 1992 he wrote, directed, and starred in Mac, a little-seen indie feature that won him a Golden Camera award for Best First Feature at the 1992 Cannes Festival. Supporting turns in acclaimed offerings including Quiz Show, Clockers, and Grace of My Heart (in which he expertly portrayed a Phil Spector-like music producer) followed before Turturro's next starring role, in Tom DiCillo's whimsical 1996 comedy Box of Moonlight. In 1998, the actor again collaborated with both Lee and the Coen brothers, working with the former on He Got Game and the latter on The Big Lebowski. Also in 1998, Turturro wrote, directed, produced, and starred in Illuminata, a comedy set against the backdrop of a struggling, turn-of-the-century New York theater company. The following year, he again took on the New York theater, appearing in Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock, an exploration of the relationship between art and politics set in 1930s New York.He remained an in-demand character actor, as well as an occasional director into the next century, starting the 2000s with a leading role in the chess drama The Luzhin Defence, reteaming with the Coen brothers for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and working with Adam Sandler on Mr. Deeds. In 2004 he worked for Spike Lee yet again in She Hate Me. In 2005 he wrote, directed, and acted in the blue-collar musical Romance & Cigarettes. He appeared in The Good Shepherd in 2006, and the next year he appeared in the sci-fi blockbuster Transformers. In 2008 he joined up with Lee yet again to play a soldier in his World War II film Miracle At. St. Anna, and teamed with Sandler again for You Don't Mess With the Zohan. The next year he appeared in the remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, and the Transformers sequel. He would return to that franchise for the third film in 2011, and that same year he would join the Pixar family voicing Lightnin' McQueen's rival in Cars 2.