Trivia: British-born Asa Butterfield began his acting career when he was eight years old, playing the role of Andrew in the 2006 TV movie After Thomas. He would make a bigger splash the next year, with a role in the indie comedy Son of Rambow, and again the next year, in the Holocaust drama The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Butterfield then took on the role of Mordred in the TV series Merlin, before joining the cast of the 2010 family film Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. While his role in the latter did offer the charismatic youngster a respectable amount of exposure to the tween set, it was Butterfield's next big role -- as the eponomous orphan in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning film Hugo -- that truly cemented his reputation as a rising star. On the heels of that resounding success, Butterfield made Hollywood headlines when it was announced that he would next take the lead in Enders Game, a big-budget adaptation of Orson Scott Card's celebrated sci-fi novel.

Trivia: Even those who fail to recognize her name would instantly know the lithe, slightly diminutive, and ethereally beautiful Ukranian-American actress Vera Farmiga by her distinctive look. Born August 6, 1973, in Passaic County, NJ, to Ukranian immigrant parents Michael and Luba Farmiga, Vera grew up with six brothers and sisters, in an isolated Ukranian enclave -- so isolated that the young girl purportedly did not learn spoken English until the age of six. As a teenager, she attended a Ukranian Catholic secondary school, and spent much of her free time touring with a Ukranian folk dancing troupe. Though she originally planned to build a career as an optometrist, Farmiga instead ventured off in the opposite direction by enrolling as an undergraduate at Syracuse University's School of Visual and Performing Arts. She began to tour as a theatrical performer shortly after graduation, in the American Conservatory Theater's 1996 production of Shakespeare's Tempest, then took her Broadway bow later that same year, as an understudy in David Jones' mounting of Ronald Harwood's Taking Sides. Television work ensued, with spots in such series as Law & Order, Trinity, UC: Undercover, and Touching Evil. At about the same time (around 1998), Farmiga made her rather modest cinematic debut in Sleeping With the Enemy director Joseph Ruben's little-seen Return to Paradise, starring Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche. Many additional roles followed throughout the first years of the new millennium, including that of Lisa, Richard Gere's estranged daughter, in the soapy melodrama Autumn in New York; Lorena, Adrien Brody's unemployment counselor in the Greg Pritikin-helmed 2002 comedy Dummy; and Allison in Eric Schaeffer's fine (albeit overlooked) ensemble film Mind the Gap (2004), where she appears alongside such notables as John Heard and the late Alan King. Farmiga joined the cast of Jonathan Demme's 2004 Manchurian Candidate remake, alongside Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and Liev Schreiber; though not among the top-billed performers, the appearance served her career favorably. She fared much better (on all fronts) with a starring role in that same year's visceral indie addiction drama Down to the Bone, winner of the Special Jury Prize at Sundance and a critical darling. As Irene, a coke-addled supermarket checker and mother of two, Farmiga drew raves from such sources as The New York Times and The Village Voice for, in one reviewer's words, "a pitch-perfect performance." (She also reeled in a Los Angeles Film Critics' Association award for that role -- no small accomplishment, indeed.) 2006 brought with it a role as Teresa in Wayne Kramer's thriller Running Scared, and appearances in such features as Anthony Minghella's Breaking & Entering and Martin Scorsese's The Departed (both 2006). The Minghella drama concerns a group of ethnic locals whose lives intersect -- and catalyze violent hostilities -- in the scuzzy King's Cross section of London; as Oana, Farmiga draws heavily on her Eastern European background. In the Scorsese picture, a Beantown cops-and-mobsters crime drama, Farmiga plays Madeleine, the female lead opposite heavyweights Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jack Nicholson. Meanwhile, Farmiga signed for the role of Fiona, a woman who enters an affair with paraplegic radio personality Isaac (portrayed by In the Bedroom's Nick Stahl) in Carlos Brooks' Quid Pro Quo (2007).In 2009 Farmiga appeared as a mother whose life is threatened by an evil foster child in Orphan, but it was her supporting turn opposite George Clooney in Up in the Air that earned her excellent reviews as well as acting nominations from the Hollywood Foreign Press, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Academy. In the coming years, Farmiga would appear in a host of other acclaimed films, like Source Code and Safe House. Farmiga would also earn massive critical praise for her directorial debut, helming and starring in the 2012 drama Higher Ground.

Trivia: The second of three children, David Thewlis grew up in an apartment above his family's combination toy store and wallpaper shop. He received his training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. A veteran of the London stage and English television (Prime Suspect 3), Thewlis found his particular cinematic niche as the antihero of director Mike Leigh's Naked (1993). From the moment that Thewlis, playing an indigent from Manchester, showed up unannounced at the doorstep of his old girlfriend and immediately proceeded to verbally trash everyone in sight, the audience knew it wasn't in for a Noël Coward revival. The result of Thewlis's antisocial screen behavior was the unqualified praise of discriminating moviegoers, not to mention awards from the Cannes jury, the New York Film Critics, and the National Society of Film Critics. He went on to demonstrate his versatility in a number of diverse roles, including Paul Verlaine in 1995's Total Eclipse, an animated earthworm in James and the Giant Peach (1996), a mountaineer in Seven Years in Tibet (1997, a role for which the actor was subsequently banned from entering China), and an expatriate British composer living in Rome in Bernardo Bertolucci's Besieged in 1998. Also that year, Thewlis could be seen doing a brief but hilarious turn as a giggling conceptual artist in The Big Lebowski. As rare as it is for an actor to possess the versatility needed to alternate between such adult-oriented fare as director Mike Leigh's Naked and such innocent fun as James and the Giant Peach, Thewlis could be as effective in the former as he was endearing in the latter. Following a chilling performance as the leader of a London gang in the 2002 crime drama Gangster No. 1, Thewlis switched gears somewhat to portray the villain in the made-for-television family adventure Dinotopia shortly thereafter. In 2003, Thewlis expanded his resumé by making his feature directorial debut with Cheeky, a comedy drama concerning a mournful widower (Thewlis) whose life takes a change for the better after appearing in a popular game show of questionable taste. His profile steadily increasing thanks to roles in such high-profile releases as Timeline and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (as Professor Remus Lupin), the actor began to make as big a name for himself in large-scale Hollywood blockbusters as he previously had in intimate independent dramas. Of course, that's not to say that Thewlis had lost his taste for smaller-scale films, just that his skills were now in increased demand stateside as a direct result of his powerful early-career performances. After a busy year in 2005 with roles in the historical dramas Kingdom of Heaven and The New World, Thewlis drifted back into modern times to play a small but pivotal role in an American-shot segment of the international short anthology All the Invisible Children -- a powerful meditation on the modern mistreatment of youth by the increasingly jaded adult population. A brief turn as the Scotland Yard homicide detective trailing Sharon Stone in the belated and ill-fated sequel Basic Instinct 2 may have gone unseen by many fans after the film received considerably negative word of mouth, though a fun turn as the paranoid, bubblegum-chomping reporter hot on the trail of the young Antichrist in the 2006 remake of The Omen gave audiences much more to chew on and offered Thewlis the opportunity to have a bit of fun, to the delight of fans everywhere. The following year, Thewlis reprised his role of Prof. Lupin in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and appeared in the title role in The Inner Life of Martin Frost. He could next be seen in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, a film adaptation of the John Boyne Holocaust novel, which focuses on the friendship that develops between the child of a Nazi commander at a concentration camp and a young Jewish prisoner. Thewlis enjoyed a high-profile 2011 when the last of the Harry Potter films hit screens, as did other films he was cast in including the Shakespearean drama Anonymous, and Steven Spielberg's Oscar nominated War Horse.

Trivia: After studying at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts, Rupert Friend made his big-screen debut with the supporting role of Downs in the 2004 historical drama The Libertine. Art house films would prove to be a good niche for the actor, and he subsequently made waves with roles in The Moon and the Stars and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Friend then scored an even bigger break when he was cast as the title role in the 2009 Stephen Frears film Chéri. He followed that up as the male lead in the period piece The Young Victoria. He directed the short film Steve in 2010, and starred in the war drama 5 Days of War. Friend joined the Showtime hit Homeland in season 2, playing Peter Quinn, a CIA operative.

Trivia: British supporting actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: British comedy actress Sheila Hancock appeared most frequently in films during the 1960s, and only sporadically after that. She is best known for her work in musical revues and on television.

Trivia: Took drama and elocution lessons as a child. Got his start in show business as a 10-year-old soprano on an Irish radio show. His father opened one of the first delicatessens in Dublin. Early in his career he was afraid that he would be typecast in Irish parts and for a long time refused to take them. Starred on Broadway as Finian in a 2009 revival of Finian's Rainbow. Has done the readings for audio books of James Joyce's Ulysses, The Dubliners, Finnegan's Wake and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Has been in several productions of playwright Conor McPherson works, including The Weir, a role the author specifically wrote for Norton, and The Seafarer, for which he won a Tony in 2008 for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play. Sister started the Betty Ann Norton Theatre School in Dublin.

Trivia: Producer David Heyman is perhaps best known for obtaining the rights to the lucrative Harry Potter book series in 1999, producing all the subsequent film adaptations. The U.K. native was educated at Harvard University and began his career as a production assistant, eventually moving up the ladder to produce movies himself. Before spearheading the Harry Potter franchise, Heyman produced a handful of films like The Daytrippers and Stoned Age. He's also produced a number of other films, like 2007's I Am Legend and 2008's Yes Man.