Trivia: One way (though perhaps not the ideal way) to describe the familiar TV persona of American Actor Rob Morrow is as a more neurotic, less loveable Woody Allen. Supporting himself as a waiter and balloon messenger in his earliest acting days, Morrow made his prime time network TV debut in 1988 as Marco on the weekly dramatic series Tattinger's. A year later, he was up for the lead in a planned series called The Antagonists, but he opted instead for a tailor-made role in the shortlived stage play The Substance of Fire. Though warned by his agent that this move would cost him any future TV work, Morrow went on to achieve fame in 1990 as Dr. Joel Fleischman, the misplaced general practictioner of Cicely, Alaska, on CBS' Northern Exposure. Two years into the series, Morrow threatened to quit if he wasn't given a substantial pay hike; but when September rolled around, Morrow was back as Dr. Fleischman. Morrow left Northern Exposure for good in 1994 (the series was obviously on its last legs anyway), but not before appearing as cigar-chomping, Boston-accented, fiercely moralistic federal attorney Richard Goodwin in Quiz Show, the 1994 film re-enactment of the 1958 TV game-show cheating scandal.

Trivia: One of the more accomplished young actors to be immortalized on celluloid in the late 1990s, David Krumholtz has distinguished himself with both talent and the sort of unconventional looks that allow him to be both dashing and nebbish at the same time.A native of New York City, where he was born May 15, 1978, Krumholtz began his professional career at the age of 13, when he starred opposite Judd Hirsch in the Broadway production of Conversations with My Father. He went on to make his film debut in 1993, appearing as an obnoxious child actor in the Michael J. Fox comedy Life with Mikey. That same year, he had a small role as Wednesday Addams' (Christina Ricci) socially stunted love interest in Addams Family Values. Krumholtz's first truly memorable film role was that of Francis Davenport, the Upper East Side brat who gets Katie Holmes drunk in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (1997). He'd go on to play Natasha Lyonne's older brother in The Slums of Beverly Hills, and a high schooler in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). As the years wore on, Krumholtz would prove himself to be a viable force on screen, appearing in movies like Ray, Serenity, Walk Hard, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and This is the End,, and on the popular crime proceedural Numb3rs.

Trivia: Born March 15th, 1935, Bronx-native Judd Hirsch attended CCNY, where he majored in engineering and physics. A blossoming fascination in the theatre convinced Hirsch that his future lay in acting. He studied at the AADA and worked with a Colorado stock company before his 1966 Broadway debut in Barefoot in the Park. He spent many years at New York's Circle Repertory, where he appeared in the first-ever production of Lanford Wilson's The Hot L Baltimore. After an auspicious TV-movie bow in the well-received The Law (1974), Hirsch landed his first weekly-series assignment, playing the title character in the cop drama Delvecchio (1976-77). From 1978 to 1982, he was seen as Alex Reiger in the popular ensemble comedy Taxi, earning two Emmies in the process. While occupied with Taxi, Hirsch found time to act off-Broadway, winning an Obie award for the 1979 production Talley's Folly. In the following decade, he was honored with two Tony Awards for the Broadway efforts I'm Not Rappoport and Conversations with My Father. His post-Taxi TV series roles include Press Wyman in Detective in the House (1985) and his Golden Globe-winning turn as John Lacey in Dear John (1988-92). Judd Hirsch could also be seen playing Jeff Goldblum's father in the movie blockbuster Independence Day (1996). In 2001, Hirsch co-starred with Paul Bettany and Christopher Plummer in the multi-Award winning biopic A Beautiful Mind. The actor once again found success on the television screen in CBS' drama Numb3rs, in which he took on the role of Alan Eppes, father of FBI agent Don Eppes (Rob Morrow) and Professor Charlie Eppes (David Krumholtz). After appearing on all four seaons of Numb3rs, Hirsch took a small role in director Brett Ratner's crime comedy Tower Heist (2011).

Trivia: Handsome and elegant African-American actor Alimi Ballard recalls such contemporaries as the St. Elsewhere-era Denzel Washington and Blair Underwood, but has only gradually begun to draw like stature and acclaim. After cutting his acting chops as a frequent guest star on various U.S. television series for decades, including Loving, NYPD Blue, and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Ballard worked his way up to recurring roles in several U.S. television programs around the turn of the millennium. Ballard is perhaps best known for his portrayal of urban philosopher Herbal Thought, who offered wise counsel to bioengineered superhero Max Guevara (Jessica Alba), on the James Cameron-produced apocalyptic actioner Dark Angel (2000), starring Jessica Alba. Ballard procured another regular TV role a few years later, playing Special Agent David Sinclair opposite Rob Morrow and Judd Hirsch in the weekly procedural Numb3rs (2005), a detective program about a brilliant mathematician (David Krumholtz) who helps the feds solve baffling crimes. Ballard also appeared in bit roles in the big-screen films Deep Impact (1998) and Men of Honor (2000).

Trivia: Upon graduating from the University of Minnesota, Peter MacNicol traveled the length and breadth of the U.S. as a regional repertory actor. In his first film, Dragonslayer (1981), MacNicol essayed one of his few leading-man roles as Galen, a hapless assistant sorcerer who makes good. His most celebrated film assignment was as Stingo, the innocent-bystander narrator of Sophie's Choice. Most of the time, MacNicol has been seen in comical, sycophantic roles, such as the easily demonized Janocz in Ghostbusters II (1989) and the unctuous camp counselor in Addams Family Values (1993). On television, Peter MacNicol starred in the brief Norman Lear political lampoon The Powers That Be (1992) and co-starred as Alan Birch on the CBS medical drama Chicago Hope (1994).MacNicol continued to play small but indelible roles in a variety of small but indelible films throughout the mid-'90s. There was 1992's underrated Housesitter with Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin; acclaimed director Mel Brooks' Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995); and a starring role opposite cult comedian Rowan Atkinson in 1997's Bean. Despite his respectable feature-film success, however, MacNicol wouldn't get solid mainstream recognition until the 1997 debut of Ally McBeal. The show featured MacNicol as John Cage, an immensely insecure but highly gifted lawyer whose lovable, if over-sensitive, nature tugged at the heartstrings of Ally (Calista Flockhart) and television audiences alike. MacNicol remained a lead character on the show from 1997 to 2002, and was able to participate not just as an actor, but also as a director, screenwriter, and amateur karaoke singer. No longer the affable John Cage, MacNicol could be seen assigning Jamie Foxx the unpleasant task of letting his employees know of a rapidly approaching downsizing in 2004's Breakin' All the Rules. Recurring roles on Numbers and 24 as well as voice work in such animated shows as Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, The Batman, The Spectacular Spider-Man helped MacNicol maintain a high profile in the following years, and in 2012 he could be seen as the Secretary of Defense in the big-budget game board adaptaion Battleship.

Trivia: The daughter of a German mother and Indian father, actress Navi Rawat grew up in California before moving to New York to attend New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Her first big break came in 2003, when she won the recurring role of Theresa Diaz on the hit series The O.C. Later that same year, she appeared in the critically acclaimed film House of Sand and Fog, but she would become even more well known to audiences in 2005, when she was cast as Amita Ramanujan on the procedural show Numb3rs.

Trivia: Forget "ingenue" -- by the time the glamorous Diane Farr arrived on set for her first major filmed assignment, with her sun-drenched brunette hair and photogenic Mediterranean complexion, she already qualified as an old pro in the talent realm, as a veteran model from her preteen years. Though her official acting resumé dates back to 1992, Manhattan-born Farr first culled national recognition six years later, as a hostess of the television series Loveline, a somewhat frank spin-off of a popular radio program in which viewers could phone in and ask the hosts questions about health and/or relationships. After a series of occasional turns in low-profiled TV series and telemovies, Farr landed a string of semi-permanent roles on popular small-screen series. She began with the blockbuster sitcom The Drew Carey Show (in 1999). As Tracy -- the object of multiple affections from Drew, Lewis (Ryan Stiles), and Oswald (Diedrich Bader) -- Farr unwittingly instigated a series of cutthroat competitive games among the boys, including her own sporting event, christened "The Tracy Bowl" and announced by broadcaster Bob Costas. The Tracy characterization lasted a short time, but it marked only the beginning of a seemingly unending line-up of roles for Farr. Between 2001 and 2002, she starred as gutsy female police detective Jan Fendrich in the critically praised but all-too-short-lived Denis Leary cop dramedy The Job. Two years after that, Farr worked for director Barnet Kellman in Like Family (2003), a short-lived sitcom about a black family and a white family attempting with great strain to live under the same roof together harmoniously. In 2005, Farr scored critically and commercially as FBI agent Megan Reeves on the detective program Numb3rs, starring David Krumholtz, Rob Morrow, and Judd Hirsch. Carr joined the cast of HBO's Californication in the show's first season, and appeared in Buried (2010), a well-received psychological thriller following a truck driver who becomes trapped underground.In addition to her acting work, Farr is also a published author. Her first novel, The Girl Code, found a considerable audience, and she has penned articles for numerous women's magazines. In addition to her acting and writing work, Farr co-founded and operates a greeting card firm.

Trivia: With his tough-guy image and stocky build, American actor Dylan Bruno carved out a niche for himself as a character player in steel-toed action and adventure movies, beginning in the late '90s. These ran the gamut from critically praised masterworks -- such as Steven Spielberg's much-ballyhooed war opus Saving Private Ryan (1998) -- to John Irvin's less successful WWII telemovie When Trumpets Fade, that same year. Perhaps afraid of limiting himself, Bruno made a conscious attempt to expand his range into alternate genres, but successive roles essentially constituted variations on this original typecast. For example, Bruno appeared in the gentle romantic drama Where the Heart Is (2000) -- about an expectant blue-collar mother (Natalie Portman) who moves into an Oklahoma Wal-Mart -- as the rough-hewn redneck boyfriend, Willy Jack Perkins, who deserts her. Similarly, Bruno appeared in the TV drama The Pennsylvania Miners' Story (2002) as one of the gritty working-class men of the title who find themselves trapped in a mine with a decidedly slim chance of survival. Bruno subsequently built up his television resumé during the mid-2000s. He was particularly memorable as Colby Granger, a military veteran-cum-federal agent, on the popular detective drama Numb3rs (2005).

Trivia: Actor Will Patton successfully divides his time between mainstream and independent features, television films, and a stage career on and off-Broadway. Born and raised in North Carolina, the son of a Lutheran minister, Patton learned his craft at the North Carolina School of the Arts and at New York's Actor's Studio where he studied under Lee Strasberg. In addition, Patton studied at the Open Theater under Joseph Chaikin before making it to the New York stage. Patton has won two Obie Awards for Tourists and Refugees No. 2 and for Sam Shepard's Fool for Love. Patton also has had experience working at London's Royal Court Theatre. Upon his return to New York, Patton joined the experimental Winter Project troupe. During the 1970s, Patton performed in two soap operas, Search for Tomorrow and Ryan's Hope. Patton first appeared on film in the short underground film Minus Zero(1979). During the early '80s, Patton appeared in such New York-based independent films as Michael Oblowitz's King Blank and Variety (both 1983). After playing a small but important villainous role in Susan Seidelman's Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Patton was cast in his first big-budget film, Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1985), where he played a brutish boyfriend with a thing for leather and chains. His best portrayal of a villain can be found in the Gene Hackman-starring thriller No Way Out (1987). In the '90s he could be seen in The Rapture, In the Soup, Romeo Is Bleeding, Copycat, the infamous Kevin Costner project The Postman, and the Michael Bay blockbuster Armageddon. At the beginning of the 21st century Patton continued to remain busy with major roles in Remember the Titans, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Mothman Prophecies, and The Punisher, as well as smaller roles in diverse films like Into the West, Wendy and Lucy, Meek's Cutoff, and Brooklyn's Finest.

Trivia: Author, filmmaker, and political activist Michael Moore has developed a trademark style of tackling major issues with a sharp sense of humor while maintaining a regular-guy attitude, an approach that has helped him secure a reputation as both a razor-sharp humorist and one of America's most fearless political commentators. Michael Moore was born in 1954 in Davison, MI, a suburb of Flint, then home to one of General Motors' biggest manufacturing plants, where Moore's father and grandfather both worked. Born to an Irish-Catholic family, Moore attended parochial school until he was 14, when he transferred to Davison High School. Moore soon developed an interest in student politics as well as larger issues; he won a merit badge as an Eagle Scout by creating a slide show exposing environmentally unfriendly businesses in Flint, and in 1972, when 18-year-olds were granted the right to vote, he ran for a seat on the Flint school board, soon becoming one of the youngest people in the United States to win an election for public office. While Moore was briefly a student at University of Michigan-Flint, he dropped out to focus on activism, and began a career as a journalist by working for the Flint Voice, an alternative weekly newspaper. In time, Moore became the editor, and under his leadership the paper expanded into the Michigan Voice, one of the most respected alternative political publications in the Midwest. Moore's success at the Michigan Voice eventually led to a job offer from Mother Jones magazine, where he became editor in 1986. Moore believed that Mother Jones, a leftist political journal based in San Francisco, had lost its bite, and it was his goal to give the magazine an edgy, populist voice. He often butted heads, however, with Mother Jones' publishers and management, and after less than a year he was fired, reportedly for refusing to run an article critical of the Sandanista rebels in Nicaragua that Moore believed was both inflammatory and inaccurate. After a brief spell working with a Ralph Nader organization, Moore got the idea to make a film about his old hometown of Flint and how the local economy had collapsed in the wake of the closure of General Motors' Flint plants despite their continued profitability. Moore used his settlement fee from Mother Jones as seed money for the film, but eventually sold his home and even held bingo games to raise the money to finish it. Finally, in 1989, the completed film Roger & Me -- in which, among other things, Moore and his crew repeatedly fail to get General Motors chairman Roger Smith to agree to an interview -- became a major critical success, was honored at a number of film festivals, and went on to become one of the most financially successful documentary features ever made. Following the success of Roger & Me, Moore participated as an interviewer in the production of Blood in the Face, and then directed a short follow-up to Roger & Me, Pets or Meat: The Return to Flint (1992). Next, Moore began work on his first fictional feature, Canadian Bacon, a satiric comedy in which an ineffectual United States president fabricates a "Cold War" against Canada. In 1994, Moore took his first stab at television with the satiric news and commentary program TV Nation, which aired on NBC. While TV Nation won rave reviews and a loyal following, the show's ratings were not what NBC was hoping for (it was also uncomfortable with some of the show's satire), and the network canceled the show after only one season. FOX stepped forward to air a second season of TV Nation, but the show fared no better on FOX and soon went off the air for good. In 1996, Moore returned to the written word, publishing a book of political commentary, Downsize This!: Random Threats From an Unarmed American. The book proved to be a surprise bestseller, and as Moore took to the road to promote it, he brought a camera crew along to make a documentary exploring the economic inequality in America as he dashed from city to city; the resultant film, The Big One, was released in 1998. In 1999, Moore returned to television with The Awful Truth, a blend of comedy and pointed political commentary similar to TV Nation. Rather than deal with U.S. network interference again, Moore got financial backing from the British network Channel Four, with the cable outlet Bravo airing the show in the United States; the show lasted two seasons. In the fall of 2001, Moore's next book, Stupid White Men, was scheduled for publication when its release was postponed by its publisher, Random House; Moore was openly critical of George W. Bush in the book, and after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Random House felt that the book's satiric tone would be considered inappropriate. According to Moore, Random House was considering canceling the book and destroying its initial print run (which was completed prior to 9/11) when he was asked about the book at a convention of library administrators. After telling the audience that the book was in all likelihood never coming out, an e-mail campaign was launched by librarians, and in the spring of 2002, Stupid White Men was finally released, quickly becoming a major bestseller. In the fall of 2002, Moore released his fourth feature film, Bowling for Columbine, an examination of America's obsession with guns and violence. It was the first documentary to be shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 46 years, and was honored with the festival's Jury Award. Subsequently becoming the most financially successful documentary in history, Bowling for Columbine received a Best Documentary nomination when the 2002 Academy Award nominees were announced in February of 2003. The film subsequently won the Oscar, and true to form, Moore used his acceptance speech as an opportunity to launch a broadside against President George W. Bush and his participation in the war against Iraq. Moore's statement drew strong reaction on both sides of the political fence, though Moore himself appeared to take the controversey in stride. In fact, the speech would prove to be only the tip of the iceberg as far as Moore's indictment of the Bush administration. A little over a year after taking home his Academy Award, Moore accomplished the seemingly impossible task of topping Bowling for Columbine with his fifth feature, Fahrenheit 9/11. A scathing indictment of the rush to war by the Bush administration in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., the film had its first success at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, where it became the first documentary to ever win the Palm d'Or. Despite the honor bestowed upon the film, it was nearly kept out of theaters when Disney chose not to allow subsidiary Miramax to distribute it. Then-Miramax heads Bob and Harvey Weinstein were allowed to purchase the film back from Disney and a distribution deal was made with IFC and Lionsgate. In June 2004, amid intense controversy, Fahrenheit 9/11 surpassed the total gross of Bowling for Columbine in its first weekend, as it went on to become the most successful documentary of all time. Moore spent the rest of the year on a soapbox in an attempt to derail Bush's eventual reelection, after which he lay low and began work on another ambitious project called Sicko. This time taking on the American healthcare industry, Moore found it harder than ever to infiltrate his chosen subject, as the major HMOs and drug companies organized Moore-avoidance seminars and kept their employees sworn to silence with any camera crews. He revisited his themes of working class struggles and the nefarious instincts of the powerful and wealthy with his 2009 documentary Capitalism: A Love Story.

Trivia: Received a two-year John Belushi Memorial Scholarship to attend the College of DuPage in Illinois, where the late comedian also studied. Before breaking into television, Armstrong appeared on the Chicago stage in a Shakespeare Repertory Theatre production of Hamlet and the Steppenwolf Theatre Company's 1998 revival of The Man Who Came to Dinner, which costarred Frasier's John Mahoney. Made his TV debut in 1999 on the short-lived CBS cop drama Turks, a role he secured in part by falsely claiming he was an extra in two Julia Roberts movies filmed in Chicago. Due to his hirsute look on Heroes, many fans mistakenly came to believe that he also played a caveman in the Geico commercials.

Trivia: Joshua Leonard melded his prior indie film experience on- and off-camera and achieved unexpected fame in the low-budget horror blockbuster The Blair Witch Project (1999). After doing theater as a child, Leonard worked in production, as well as acting, in independent and experimental films in New York. Cast as the steadfast cameraman Josh in The Blair Witch Project, Leonard balanced shooting the film's 16mm footage with improvising the increasingly-eerie turn of events, along with fellow cast members Heather Donahue and Michael Williams -- according to directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez's fleeting instructions. Savvily-marketed through an Internet site as a "documentary" about an actual, lethal legend after its buzz-generating midnight debut at the Sundance Film Festival, The Blair Witch Project became an enormous summer hit, frightening audiences with its all-too-real sense of impending -- if unseen -- danger. Fans expressed relief that Leonard and his cohorts had not in fact come to their ends in the Maryland woods. After his sudden exit from The Blair Witch Project, Leonard continued working on independent films and moved to L.A. He continued to work in smaller, independent films and appear on the festival circuits promoting his work. Leonard starred in Higher Ground (2011), the directorial debut of Vera Farmiga, and also made his own feature film directorial debut with The Lie. In 2014, he appeared in If I Stay and The Town That Dreaded Sunset and prominent guest roles on Togetherness and Bates Motel. In 2015, he joined the series Heartbreaker as a series regular.

Trivia: Character actor Michael Arden first entered the public eye with a choice supporting role on the prime-time seriocomedy The Return of Jezebel James, created by Gilmore Girls producer Amy Sherman-Palladino. The series, which premiered in winter 2008, told of a children's book editor named Sarah Thomkins (Parker Posey) who turns to her estranged sister, Coco (Lauren Ambrose), for surrogate motherhood when faced with the news that she herself cannot conceive. Arden co-starred as Buddy, Sarah's ambidextrous professional assistant. The show was quickly canceled after only three episodes, but it proved to be a good lauching pad into other screen roles for the Broadway vet. He played a supporting role in Bride Wars (2009), and then joined Charlie Sheen's FX sitcom Anger Management. Arden returned to his theatre roots, directing the Broadway reimagining of Spring Awakening with the Deaf West Theatre, earning him a Tony nomination for Best Direction of a Musical.