Trivia: Emmy-winning comic actor Mike Myers seemed destined by fate to link up with Saturday Night Live; when he made his television debut as a commercial actor at age eight, his co-star (playing his mother) was pre-SNL Gilda Radner. Working steadily in his native Canada, Myers was a member of Toronto's Second City troupe, the star of his own TV series Mullarkey and Myers at age 20, and the vee-jay of an all-night Canadian music video show in 1987. In all of these career stepping stones, Myers continued testing out the comic characterizations which would win him fame in his SNL days. His most popular character (which he'd been doing at parties since high school) was spacey teenage couch potato Wayne Campbell, who, with equally airheaded best friend Garth Algar (Dana Carvey), hosted the Aurora, IL, cable-access series Wayne's World. This SNL skit begat a popular like-titled film in 1992, and a less popular 1993 sequel. Despite the tepid response to Wayne's World 2, Mike Myers as Wayne seemed to be more readily acceptable to film fans than Mike Myers as anyone else, as shown by the disappointing 1993 comedy So I Married an Axe Murderer.

Trivia: Comic actor Dana Carvey led a near-monastic existence while growing up in Montana, not out of choice but because the truly popular kids were bigger and better-looking. "I was a fetus in shoes" commented Carvey on his high-school years. While attending San Francisco State University, Carvey launched his career as a stand-up comic. The going was rugged for a while, but by 1981 Carvey had built up enough of a reputation to earn second billing on the Mickey Rooney TV sitcom One of the Boys. Though the show was cancelled by mid-1982, Carvey was now on a roll. In 1984, he showed up as a regular on the TV police adventure series Blue Thunder, and was spotlighted in the parody rockumentary film This is Spinal Tap; two years later he was signed as a regular on NBC's Saturday Night Live. Carvey's gallery of comic characterizations is too vast to fully recount here, but his greatest popularity rested on two recurring characters. As "The Church Lady" (an amalgam of all the well-meaning pious neighbors Carvey had known while growing up), Carvey entered the Catchphrase Lexicon with his oft-repeated "Isn't that special?" and "Could it be....SATAN?" And as mop-topped teenage couch potato Garth (again drawn from life--this time based on Dana's brother Brad), Carvey was teamed with Mike Myers in a flawless on-going parody of cheap cable-access television. After a misfire movie vehicle, 1990's Opportunity Knocks, Carvey became a major box-office commodity by co-starring with Mike Myers in the megahit Wayne's World (1992). While the 1993 sequel Wayne's World 2 didn't quite match the take of the original, Carvey was artistically satisfied that same year with an Emmy award for his performance as H. Ross Perot (among others) on TV's Saturday Night Live Presidential Bash. Undaunted by the lack of response to Opportunity Knocks, Carvey once again took a stab at solo success with the similarly panned Clean Slate in 1994. After appearing in a pair of supporting roles (Trapped in Paradise and The Road to Wellville (both 1994)) and a cameo (1996's The Shot) shortly thereafter, Carvey disappeared almost entriely from the public eye until resurfacing in the 1999 Saturday Night Live; Presidential Bash and once again taking a small role in Adam Sandler's Little Nicky (2000). Eager to resume his once lucrative career and make a feature that his children could enjoy, Carvey returned to the silver screen as an Italian waiter who takes the art of mimicry to new and uncharted heights in The Master of Disguise (2002). In 1997 he underwent a heart operation that was bungled to such a degree that he was awarded millions in a lawsuit, and had to undergo multiple procedures to correct the problems caused by the initial incident. He finally reappeared on big-screens in 2011 in the Adam Sandler comedy Jack and Jill.

Trivia: A versatile character actor whose intense demeanor and slightly off-kilter delivery served him well in both comedies and dramas, Christopher Walken was at once one of the busiest and most respected actors of his generation, appearing in as many as five films in a year while still finding time for stage and occasional television work.Walken was born Ronald Walken in Queens, NY, on March 31, 1943, the youngest of three sons of Paul and Rosalie Walken; Paul ran a bakery, while Rosalie was convinced her sons had talent and was determined they take advantage of it. Ronald landed his first job in front of a camera at the age of 14 months when he posed for a calendar photo with a pair of kittens. Like his siblings, he received dance lessons as a youngster, and, by the age of ten, was making frequent appearances on television and radio shows, and was a regular on a short-lived sitcom, The Wonderful John Acton. Ronald and his brothers also enrolled at New York's Professional Children's School, and he spent a summer as a junior lion tamer with a circus, later recalling that the lion was quite old and docile.In 1961, Walken enrolled at Hofstra University. But, little more than a year later, he landed a role in the Broadway-bound musical Best Foot Forward (which starred one of his former classmates, Liza Minelli), and decided to leave college. Spending the next several years working in a variety of musicals -- both in New York and on the road -- the young actor appeared in a 1964 touring production of West Side Story, and there met actress and dancer Georgianne Thon. The two began dating, and eventually married in 1969. While appearing in a revue starring model-turned-singer Monique Van Vooren in 1965, Walken was told by the headliner he looked more like a Christopher than a Ronald; he decided to take her advice, and adopted Christopher Walken as his stage name. In 1966, he made his first appearance in a non-singing role as Phillip, the King of France, in a Broadway production of The Lion in Winter. By the end of the decade, Walken was devoting his energies to stage dramas, although he continued to keep up with his dance training.Walken made his movie debut with 1968's Me and My Brother -- a film directed by acclaimed photographer and experimental filmmaker Robert Frank -- and, in 1972, scored his first starring role in the low-budget sci-fi thriller The Mind Snatchers. Walken first caught the attention of critics with his performance as a bohemian ladies' man in Paul Mazursky's Next Stop, Greenwich Village, and landed a small but memorable role in Woody Allen's Annie Hall as suicidal preppie Duane. But Walken's real breakthrough came in 1978, with his role as Nick in The Deer Hunter. Playing a small-town boy who is irreversibly scarred by his experiences in Vietnam, the role won Walken an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and made him a bankable and recognizable name. He soon committed to director Michael Cimino's follow-up, which proved to be the infamous box-office and critically-panned flop Heaven's Gate, and later showed off both his acting and dancing skills as a villainous pimp in the musical drama Pennies From Heaven. While Walken remained a critical favorite, he fell short of becoming a major box-office draw due to the disappointing returns of many of his post-Deer Hunter films. But, by his own admission, Walken was always an actor who liked to work, and he maintained a busy schedule of both stage and screen roles. His willingness to take on edgy film characters with questionable commercial appeal (such as At Close Range, King of New York, and Communion) helped earn the actor a loyal cult following, and small but showy roles in True Romance and Pulp Fiction gave Walken's screen career a serious boost in the early '90s. By the time Walken turned 60, he had written, directed, and starred in an off-Broadway comedy called Him; received another Oscar nomination for his performance in Catch Me if You Can; appeared in films as varied as Sleepy Hollow, The Affair of the Necklace, and The Country Bears; and got to prove he was still a great dancer with his much-talked-about appearance in the music video "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim.Walken became one of the most popular recurring guest-hosts on Saturday Night Live creating recurring characters such as The Continental, and appeared in a host of classic skits including getting to deliver the catch phrase, "I need more cowbell!"As the 2000s progressed, Walken continued to take work in a variety of films from The Rundown, and Man on Fire, to Gigli, The Wedding Crashers, and the Adam Sandler comedy Click, all the while maintaining his status as one of the quirkiest and most gifted supporting actors of his time. In 2006 he took on a supporting role opposite Robin Williams in the Barry Levinson directed satire Man of the Year as a political consultant. He was in the musical remake of Hairspray, playing the husband of the character played by John Travolta in drag, and the comedy Balls of Fury in 2007. In 2010 he earned rave reviews for his work in the Martin McDonagh's play A Behanding in Spokane on Broadway, and the next year he worked with Todd Solondz, playing the father in Dark Horse.

Trivia: Though her role as the unlikely girlfriend of the eponymous dunderheaded character in Wayne's World (1992) would propel actress/model/singer Tia Carrere into what was seemingly an overnight success, the multi-talented entertainer had been appearing onscreen and making a name for herself as a vocalist since the mid-'80s. A native of Oahu (born Althea Rae Duhinio Janairo) who received her primary education at the Sacred Hearts Academy, Carrere first gained recognition at the well-known local talent contest Brown Bags to Stardom. Despite her reputation as having as much brains as beauty, it was her stunning looks that first caught the attention of a film producer's parents while shopping at a Waikiki grocery store -- a chance encounter that ultimately led to her casting in the 1988 feature Aloha Summer. Subsequently moving to Los Angles, it was no time before Carrere had landed frequent model work, and though an opportunity to take a leading role in Baywatch proved unbearably tempting, the aspiring actress ultimately held out in favor of an impressionable role in the 1992 runaway hit Wayne's World. In addition to her memorable comic performance, Carrare's ability to provide all of her own vocal work assured that the film would also be a vehicle for her vocal talents. The remainder of Carrere's work in the 1990s leaned more toward the comic, though her roles in the True Lies (1994) and Kull the Conqueror (1997) soon led to more action-oriented roles and increasing voice work in such efforts as Hercules (1998). In 1999 Carrere took the lead for her own television adventure series Relic Hunter (inspired by the success of the Tomb Raider video games), and during the series' three-year run she would also appear in the television miniseries Merlin (1999) and provide voice work for the Disney feature Lilo & Stitch as well as its sequel and television spin-off.Carrere would continue to remain a constant force on screen over the coming years, memorably appearing on Dancing with the Stars, as well as on series like In Plain Sight. She's also maintained a successful career as a voice actress, providing the voices for characters on animated shows like Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated and Lilo & Stirch: The Series.

Trivia: Kim Basinger was hardly the first successful model to head to Hollywood in hopes of a career on the big screen, but few have managed to achieve the same degree of public acclaim and professional recognition that she has earned. Born in Athens, GA, on December 8, 1953, Kim Basinger was raised in a family of entertainers; her father had been a jazz musician and her mother a dancer who was part of the "water ballet" chorus in a handful of Esther Williams musicals. Basinger's parents enrolled her in dance classes at an early age to help her overcome a strong case of shyness; in time, she discovered she enjoyed both dancing and singing, and began contemplating a career in show business. She began competing in beauty contests as a teenager, and won the Junior Miss Georgia pageant, which took her to the national competition in New York City. By this time a striking and statuesque blonde beauty, Basinger was spotted by a representative of the prestigious Ford Modeling Agency and offered a contract; while she had hoped to make her mark as a cabaret singer, she wisely decided moving to the Big Apple was a step in the right direction. Before long, Basinger was earning 1,000 dollars per day through modeling jobs, and had signed on as the Breck Shampoo girl; in her spare time, she studied acting and picked up occasional singing gigs.In 1976, Basinger decided to take a more serious stab at acting, and moved to Los Angeles. Within a year, she made her television debut as a female police detective in the pilot for a short-lived crime drama entitled Dog and Cat; in 1978, she landed the starring role in the made-for-TV movie Katie: Portrait of a Centerfold, appropriately playing a beautiful Southern girl who comes to Los Angeles in search of stardom. After being cast as Lorene Rogers in a TV remake of From Here to Eternity (a role she reprised in a subsequent series based upon the film), Basinger finally made her way to the big screen in the low-budget drama Hard Country. But while it (and Basinger) received good reviews, her screen career didn't take off in a big way until 1983, when she was cast opposite Sean Connery in the James Bond adventure Never Say Never Again. She also posed for a well-publicized layout in Playboy which, coinciding with the film's release, certainly didn't hurt her growing popularity.While Basinger's career took off after Never Say Never Again, and she appeared in several major hits (including The Natural, 9 1/2 Weeks, and Batman, the latter of which led to a brief romance with pop star Prince), quality roles tended to elude her. But she generally fared well with the material given to her, and shined in several smaller films, including Fool for Love and Nadine. In 1991, Basinger was cast opposite Alec Baldwin in the comedy The Marrying Man, and the two hit it off -- so much so that some accused their romance of interfering with the production. The couple rode out the negative publicity, however, and married in 1993. (It was Basinger's second marriage after divorcing Ron Britton in 1989.)The next several years were difficult for Basinger. Her decision to not appear in the film Boxing Helena after verbally committing to the project led to her being sued by the film's producers, who won an eight-million-dollar judgment against her. Although the ruling was eventually overturned on appeal, legal bills forced Basinger to declare bankruptcy. And after several undistinguished projects, the actress went three years without working, during which she and Baldwin had a child. However, Basinger's 1997 comeback in L.A. Confidential suggested her time away had been well spent; playing a high-priced call girl with a close resemblance to Veronica Lake, Basinger's assured performance won her an Oscar as best supporting actress. This triumph was followed by another three-year sabbatical, which was followed by her divorce from Baldwin and a pair of box-office flops, I Dreamed of Africa and Bless the Child. In 2002, Basinger re-teamed with L.A. Confidential director Curtis Hanson, and won rave reviews for her gritty performance as a troubled single mother in the acclaimed urban drama 8 Mile. A committed vegetarian, Basinger also became an outspoken animal-rights activist In her offscreen life during the '90s.In 2001 she had a very public and ugly divorce from Alec Baldwin, but her career continued with appearances in the well-reviewed drama The Door in the Floor the thriller Cellular in 2004, and the horror film While She Was Out as well as the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation The Informers in 2008.

Trivia: Rotund, blonde, and amazingly agile comic actor Chris Farley boasted an energetic, bumbling presence that made him among the few alumni from the long-running Saturday Night Live television series to find a comfortable niche in feature films. He started out working with the Ark Improv theater group after graduating from Marquette University with a degree in theater and communications. After leaving the Ark, he worked at the Improv Olympic Theater where he studied under director Del Close. From there Farley found work at the Second City Theater where he was discovered by SNL producer Lorne Michaels. The portly actor debuted on the series in 1990, and, with such goofy characters as loud motivational speaker Matt Foley (who lived in a van down by the river), quickly became one of the show's favorite players. He remained with the show through the 1994-1995 season and then left to pursue a movie career. Farley made his feature film debut as a security guard in Wayne's World (1992); he had a much larger role in the sequel, Wayne's World 2 (1990). Farley had his first screen hit when he teamed up with fellow SNL actor David Spade and appeared in the sophomoric Tommy Boy, in which Farley played the naïve and socially incompetent son of a recently deceased auto parts manufacturer. Farley then returned to supporting roles before reteaming with Spade again for Black Sheep in 1996. In 1997, he starred in the comedy Beverly Hills Ninja. Farley's manic comedy style has frequently been compared to that of the late John Belushi, whom Farley idolized. Like Belushi, Farley's offscreen life was punctuated by frequent bouts of alcohol and drug abuse; friends and colleagues were concerned as was Farley, but he apparently was unable to stop. On December 18, 1997, Farley was found dead of an apparent heart attack in his luxurious Chicago apartment. He was only 33 years old, the same age as Belushi when he died.

Trivia: Actor James Hong was working as a nightclub comic in San Francisco and Hawaii when he was tapped for his first regular TV role: "Number One Son" Barry Chan in the Anglo-American co-production The New Adventures of Charlie Chan (1957). Hong would later appear as Frank Chen in Jigsaw John (1976) and Wang in Switch (1977-78). In theatrical features, he played characters bearing such flavorful monikers as Chew, Lo Pan and Bing Wong. He was seen as Faye Dunaway's butler in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974), repeating the role (minus Faye) in the 1990 sequel The Two Jakes. One of his most sizeable screen roles was Lamont Cranston's brainy assistant Li Peng in The Shadow (1994). James Hong has also directed a brace of feature films, including 1979's The Girls Next Door and 1989's The Vineyard.

Trivia: It sounds apocryphal, but it's true: 13-year-old Kevin Pollak did begin his Bar Mitzvah speech with "A funny thing happened on the way to the temple..." In fact, Pollak's rabbi had encouraged him to do so: even at this early stage, the boy evinced a gift for comic timing. By 17, he was doing stand-up in his native San Francisco. He went on to play the West Coast comedy-club and improv circuit, and was briefly teamed with Dana Carvey, a professional collaboration that ended amicably when Carvey was hired by Saturday Night Live. Though Pollak himself didn't make it to SNL, he flourished as an impressionist, writer and film and TV supporting actor. He was given several opportunities to shine in such films as Barry Levenson's Avalon (1990), Mick Jackson's LA Story (1991) and Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men (1992). Reiner went on to team Pollak with Bob Amaral in the weekly TVer Morton and Hayes (1991) a hit-and-miss homage to the 2-reel comedies of the 1930s and 1940s (Pollak had previously played a featured role in the short-lived 1988 sitcom Coming of Age). Kevin Pollak's film career went into warp-drive in the 1990s, with such choice roles as Jacob in the two Grumpy Old Men flicks, Todd Hockney in The Usual Suspects (1995), Phillip Green in Casino (1995), and Boss Vic Koss in That Thing You Do (1996).His film and television career still going strong into the 2000s, Pollak found a way to work his passion for poker into his schedule as host of Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown in 2003, and in 2009 he launched a weekly internet series entitled Kevin Pollak's Chat Show.

Trivia: The daughter of British musician Michael d'Abo (of Manfred Mann), London-born actress Olivia D'Abo is most widely known as Kevin Arnold's hippie sister, Karen, on The Wonder Years.The beloved nostalgic show ran from 1988 to 1992 on ABC and continues to live on in syndication. However, D'Abo had already made her film debut back in 1984 with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Destroyer as a damsel in distress. Other than the monumentally bad Bolero, her other films have mostly been forgettable until 1994 when she cemented her position in Generation X by starring in Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming. She played Jane, the girl who chose to study abroad rather than date Josh Hamilton's character. Around the same time, she wore very little clothes around the aging Kirk Douglas in Jonathan Lynn's Greedy and she played opposite aging Armin Mueller-Stahl in Bob Balaban's The Last Good Time. In the late '90s, she found a place for herself as a voice actor on animated TV shows. Starting with Mortal Kombat: The Animated Series, her voice credits have grown to include Justice League, Batman Beyond, and the Titanic video game. In 2001, she provided the voice of Jane in Disney's The Legend of Tarzan and its subsequent feature-length film. In 2003, she did the voice of Rox in The Animatrix: Matriculated.

Trivia: The granddaughter of John Barrymore and grandniece of Ethel Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore, Drew Barrymore was born in Culver City, California on February 22, 1975. From there, she didn't waste much time getting in front of the cameras, making her first commercial at nine months and her first television movie, Suddenly Love, at the age of two. Two years later, she made her film debut, appearing as William Hurt's daughter in Altered States (1980). At the advanced age of seven, Barrymore became a true celebrity, thanks to her role as the cherubic Gertie in Steven Spielberg's E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. The huge success of that 1982 film endeared Barrymore to millions of audience members, but following leads in two more films, Irreconcilable Differences and Firestarter (both 1984), the young actress began to succumb to a destructive lifestyle defined by drugs, alcohol, and too much partying. A child expected to behave like an adult, Barrymore began drinking at the age of nine and started taking drugs a short while later.Unsurprisingly, observers began writing Barrymore off as just another failed child star when she was barely into her teens. She made a string of (largely forgettable) movies, many of which only reinforced her image as a has-been. However, in the middle of her teen years, Barrymore entered rehab, cleaned herself up, and wrote an autobiography, Little Girl Lost, which detailed her travails with drugs and alcohol. In the early 1990s, she entered another phase in her career, gaining notoriety for playing a series of vampy, trampy trailer-park Lolitas. In this capacity, she turned in memorable performances in Poison Ivy (1992), the 1993 made-for-TV The Amy Fisher Story, and Batman Forever (1995), all of which featured her pouting seductively and showing more thigh than all the Rockettes combined. Barrymore's on-screen antics were ably complemented by the off-screen reputation she was forming at the time: first she could be seen posing nude with then-boyfriend Jamie Walters on the cover of Interview magazine, then modeling for a series of racy Guess ads, flashing David Letterman during an appearance on The Late Show as a "birthday present" to the host, and finally posing nude for Playboy in 1995.In 1996, Barrymore's image underwent an abrupt and effective transformation from slut to sweetheart. With a brief but memorable role in Wes Craven's Scream and a lead in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You that featured her as a Kelly Girl for the '90s, Barrymore's career received an adrenaline shot to the heart. She began working steadily again, and she reshaped her offscreen persona into that of a delightful and sweet-natured girl trying to mend her ways. This new image was supported by her screen work, much of which featured her as a chaste heroine. Her starring role as the "real" Cinderella in Ever After (1998) was a good example, and it had the added advantage of turning out to be a fairly solid hit. Barrymore's other major 1998 film, The Wedding Singer, was another hit, further enhancing her reputation as America's new sweetheart. The following year, the actress all but put the final nail in the coffin of her wild-child reputation of years past, starring as the nerdy, lovelorn twenty-something reporter who bears the titular condition of Never Been Kissed. That movie not only marked a notable transition in Barrymore's reputation, but an advancement in her cinematic career as well. Expanding her role from actress to producer, Barrymore would continue starring in and producing such efforts as Charlie's Angels (2000), Donnie Darko (2001).Though some may have suspected that her millennial transition from sweetheart to skull-cracker in Charlie's Angels may have signaled a shift towards more action oriented roles -- and despite her return to the role in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003) -- Barrymore once again charmed audiences with another emotional comedy, Riding in Cars With Boys in 2001, while Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) found Drew in the role of long-suffering girlfriend alongside Sam Rockwell's unlikely CIA operative. Though the film did not fare particularly well critically or otherwise, Barrymore took a nonetheless interesting turn as an apple-pie wife turned sinister in 2003's Duplex, and held her own against scene-chomper Ben Stiller. Barrymore teamed up with fellow Stiller-flick alumni Owen Wilson for 2004's Date School, and once again played Adam Sandler's sugar sweet girlfriend in director Peter Segal's romantic comedy Fifty-First Dates.2005 brought yet another openly fluffy romantic comedy with Fever Pitch, in which she played the straight-girl against Red Sox super-fan Jimmy Fallon, but she soon changed gears, signing on to appear in Lucky You, a gambling drama by Curtis Hanson. She was soon back to romcom terretory, with Music and Lyrics and He's Just Not That Into You, but also took on an extremly meaty character role in the 2009 HBO film Grey Gardens, in which she mimiced the particular speech and mannerisms of infamous shut-in "Little Edie" and met with major critical acclaim. Around this same time, Barrymore took on her first directorial effort, helming the modest, young-adult movie Whip It, which critics deemed a solid debut. Barrymore then took on a starring role alongside sometime boyfriend Justin Long in the 2010 comedy Going the Distance, before signing on to play an environmental activist in the feel-good period movie Big Miracle. She then took a career break in order to focus on her growing family before re-teaming with Adam Sandler in 2014 for the romcom Blended.

Trivia: California native Harry Shearer was one of the busier child actors of the 1950s. He appeared in such films as The Robe (1953) (as the boy David) and Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953); he could be heard on such radio programs as Suspense, Lux Radio Theatre, and the Jack Benny Show; and among his many TV guest roles was the character who would evolve into Eddie Haskell in the 1955 Leave It to Beaver pilot. After attending U.C.L.A., Shearer flourished as a standup comedian and comedy writer. He was frequently employed on the writing staff for such TV laughspinners as Laverne and Shirley and America 2Night; he also worked both sides of the camera in the 1984 rockumentary parody This Is Spinal Tap, co-starring as rock idol Derek Smalls and co-writing the script with director Rob Reiner and fellow cast members Christopher Guest and Michael McKean. In league with another top satirist, Albert Brooks, Shearer concocted the screenplay for another faux documentary, 1979's Real Lampoon. During the 1984-1985 TV season, Shearer joined the Not Ready for Prime Time Players on NBC's Saturday Night Live. The soft-spoken, saturnine Harry Shearer is most famous however for lending his voice to the Fox Network cartoon series The Simpsons.

Trivia: Dividing his time more or less equally between big- and small-screen work, actor Ted McGinley enjoyed a considerably successful tenure as a character player, almost always appearing as beefcake heartthrob types. He began his career in the early '80s, with small roles in Garry Marshall's satirical farce Young Doctors in Love (1982) and the lurid Joan Collins telemovie Making of a Male Model (1983), but achieved his first significant break in the sitcom venue, as English teacher-cum-basketball coach Roger Phillips on the final four seasons of Happy Days (1980-1984). Fortuitously, at about the same time that Days folded, the producers of The Love Boat (on the same network, ABC) tapped McGinley to play photographer Ace Evans -- a last-ditch attempt to save the program from sagging ratings. The strategy ultimately failed when Boat ended its lengthy run in 1986, but in the meantime, McGinley landed what became a recurring role as jock Stan in the first three installments of Revenge of the Nerds. Eventually, McGinley also joined the cast of the long-running Married...With Children from 1991 through 1997, playing chauvinistic layabout Jefferson D'Arcy (second husband of the Bundys' neighbor Marcy Rhoades), and essayed roles in theatrical films including Physical Evidence (1989), Wayne's World 2 (1993), and Dick (1999). The late '90s and 2000s found McGinley evincing a heightened presence in television once again, first on Aaron Sorkin's critically worshipped yet short-lived seriocomedy Sports Night (1998-1999), then as Charley Shanowski on the sitcom Hope & Faith (2003-2006). In 2008 he competed in the reality program Dancing With the Stars, and in 2010 he appeared in the lighthearted, family-friendly Christmas with a Capital C. He would reach pop-culture immortality when the website Jumping the Shark named him as one of the signs that a TV show has run out of ideas.

Trivia: Steely jawed, hard bodied, terse in speech, Charlton Heston was an American man's man, an epic unto himself. While he played modern men, he was at his best when portraying larger-than-life figures from world history, preferably with his shirt off. He was born John Charles Carter on October 4, 1924 and originally trained in the classics in Northwestern University's drama program, gaining early experience playing the lead in a 1941 filmed school production of Peer Gynt. He also performed on the radio, and then went on to serve in the Air Force for three years during WWII. Afterwards, he went to work as a model in New York, where he met his wife, fellow model Lydia Clarke, to whom he remained married until his death. Later the two operated a theater in Asheville, North Carolina where Heston honed his acting skills. He made his Broadway debut in Katharine Cornell's 1947 production of Anthony and Cleopatra and subsequently went on to be a staple of the highly-regarded New York-based Studio One live television anthology where he played such classic characters as Heathcliff, Julius Caesar and Petruchio. The show made Heston a star. He made his Hollywood film debut in William Dieterle's film noir Dark City playing opposite Lizabeth Scott. Even though she was more established in Hollywood, it was Heston who received top billing. He went on to appear as a white man raised in Indian culture in The Savage (1952) and then as a snob who snubs a country girl in King Vidor's Ruby Gentry (1952). His big break came when Cecil B. DeMille cast him as the bitter circus manager Brad Braden in The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). In subsequent films, Heston began developing his persona of an unflinching hero with a piercing blue-eyed stare and unbending, self-righteous Middle American ethics. Heston's heroes could be violent and cruel, but only when absolutely necessary. He began a long stint of playing historical characters with his portrayal of Buffalo Bill in Pony Express and then Andrew Jackson in The President's Lady (both 1953). Heston's star burned at its brightest when DeMille cast him as the stern Moses in the lavish The Ten Commandments (1956). From there, Heston went on to headline numerous spectaculars which provided him the opportunity to play every one from John the Baptist to Michelangelo to El Cid to General "Chinese" Gordon. In 1959, Heston won an Academy Award for the title role in William Wyler's Ben Hur. By the mid-1960s, the reign of the epic film passed and Heston began appearing in westerns (Will Penny) and epic war dramas (Midway). He also did sci-fi films, the most famous of which were the campy satire Planet of the Apes (1968), The Omega Man (1970) and the cult favorite Soylent Green (1973). The '70s brought Heston into a new kind of epic, the disaster film, and he appeared in three, notably Airport 1975. From the late '80s though the '90s, Heston has returned to television, appearing in series, miniseries and made-for TV movies. He also appeared in such films as Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996) and 1998's Armageddon (as the narrator).Outside of his film work, Heston served six terms as the president of the Screen Actors Guild and also chaired the American Film Institute. Active in such charities as The Will Rogers Institute, he was awarded the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the 1977 Oscar ceremony. Known as a conservative Republican and proud member of the National Rifle Association, Heston worked closely with his long-time colleague and friend President Ronald Reagan as the leader of the president's task force on arts and the humanities. He made two of his final film appearances in the disastrous Warren Beatty-Diane Keaton sex farce Town and Country (2001) (in a parodistic role, as a shotgun wielding arsonist who burns Beatty's cabin to the ground) and as himself in Michael Moore's documentary Bowling For Columbine (2002) (in which he stormed out of an interview after Moore pummeled him with gun-related questions). Heston died in the spring of 2008 at age 84; although the cause of death was officially undisclosed, he had revealed several years prior that he was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease.

Trivia: Blonde and buoyant actress Heather Locklear had the distinction of co-starring simultaneously in two weekly series within a year of her 1981 TV debut. Locklear played Steven Carrington's long-suffering wife Sammy Jo on Dynasty, then went down the block to essay the role of ever-imperiled lady cop Stacy Sheridan on T.J. Hooker. Since that time, Locklear has made several efforts to establish herself as a comedienne, ranging from a forgettable sitcom to her wiselipped heroine in Return of the Swamp Thing (1991). Far better at inducing feminine envy than laughs, Locklear was later seen as elegant villainess Amanda Woodward, on the Fox Network series Melrose Place, a show she is credited as saving from cancellation with her sexy but catty performance. Numerous television roles followed -- including appearances in Two and a Half Men, Boston Legal, and Hannah Montana -- and in 2009 Locklear returned to the character of Amanda Woodward in the shortlived Melrose Place revival series. When not participating in series television, Locklear has functioned as spokesperson for the Health and Tennis Corporation of America. Locklear was for several years married to rock star Tommy Lee; after their breakup she wed yet another rocker, Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora. Lee in turn married another blonde TV icon, Baywatch star Pamela Anderson.

Trivia: Lead actor Scott Coffey was first seen in film in the late '80s.

Trivia: A popular comedian during the 1970s, Jay Leno is best known as the man who replaced Johnny Carson at the helm of The Tonight Show in 1992. Leno was born James Douglas Muir Leno to parents of Italian and Scottish heritage (Leno is particularly fond of discussing the Italian part) in New Rochelle, NY, but was raised in Andover, MA. During the year in which he was establishing his standup career, Leno was performing 300 nights throughout North America. He made his television debut on the Merv Griffin Show and his acting debut in Silver Bears (1977). That year he appeared in the cast of the short-lived Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. Show, a musical variety summer replacement series. By the early '80s, Leno had left behind any notion of becoming an actor because his comedy career was in high gear. His subsequent film appearances have been as himself or as a parody of himself (The Flintstones, 1994). Leno made his first appearance on The Tonight Show on March 2, 1977. Though he can be sharp and is an astute political commentator, there is something nice and comforting about the soft-eyed, lantern-jawed funnyman that appeals to vast middle-American audiences, the same sort who regularly tuned in to Carson. It is small wonder that Leno became Carson's sole guest host by 1987. Leno hosted his first show as Carson's successor on May 25, 1992, with comedian Billy Crystal as his first guest. There was much furor surrounding the selection of Leno as many believed fellow late night gab-meister David Letterman would inherit the throne. Since taking the Tonight Show's reigns, Leno has attempted to inject the show with a slightly hipper edge by featuring more radical musical acts and affecting a more casual look. It's a tough balancing act, for he must do so without alienating his older, more conservative fan base. Leno would conitnue to host The Tonight Show until a brief stint in 2009, when the network had contracted earlier to hand hosting duties over to Conan O'Brien. Leno moved into an earlier time slot with a comedy show called The Jay Leno Show, but after some controversy, he resumed hosting duties on the Tonight Show, and O'Brien took his act over to TBS.

Trivia: Rising to fame as American family man Al Bundy on the lowbrow sitcom Married...With Children, actor Ed O' Neill was the physical embodiment of almost every stereotype leveled at lower-middle-class husbands and fathers. Although many sneered at the bathroom humor and questionable taste of the series (O'Neill himself admitted that he thought the show would be canceled after a mere six episodes), his perfection in the role was undeniably effective -- so much so that it was difficult for him to avoid typecasting despite the versatility he displayed in such features as Prefontaine and The Spanish Prisoner (both 1997). Following graduation from Ursuline High School, the Youngstown, OH, native worked a series of odd jobs before studying theater and history at Ohio University College and, eventually, Youngstown State University. A talented football player, O'Neill was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1969, though was cut from the team shortly thereafter. His early stage auditions weren't much more encouraging, and between minor theater roles, the acting hopeful returned to his former high school to teach social studies. He continued to dream of becoming an actor, however, so moved to New York in 1977 and studied at the famed Circle in the Square. An early break came when O'Neill, an understudy for the lead role in the Broadway play Knockout, was asked to take the stage when the original actor abandoned the production. Although O'Neill had appeared in a brief (one-line), uncredited role in 1972's Deliverance, he had his first real part as a police detective in the Al Pacino thriller Cruising in 1980. As the decade progressed, O'Neill found steady work in made-for-TV features and occasional television guest appearances. In 1986, his performance in the title role in Popeye Doyle (a real-life character memorably portrayed by Gene Hackman in The French Connection) showed him to be a confident and effective lead. During a stage performance as Lenny in Of Mice and Men in Hartford, CT, an executive from FOX happened to be in the audience. After showing the script of Married...With Children to his wife, O'Neill knew that it was not an opportunity to let pass. He landed the role with ease, and his portrayal of the bumbling Al Bundy not only formed the backbone of the series, but created a caricature of American family life which would only be matched by the likes of Homer Simpson. O'Neill appeared in several feature films during the show's ten-year run, including Dutch (1991), Wayne's World (1992), Blue Chips, and Little Giants (both 1994). As the series drew to a close in 1997, the actor began to venture outside the confines of the Bundy family living room in such unexpectedly dramatic turns as The Spanish Prisoner and The Bone Collector. O'Neill later returned to the small screen in Big Apple (2001) and a 2003 remake of Dragnet, playing policemen in both series.He appeared in the David Mamet thriller Spartan in 2004, and worked with the director again on 2008's Redbelt. He was on the short-lived HBO series John From Cincinnati in 2007. However, in 2009 he scored a major career boost as the patriarch in the ABC sitcom Modern Family. His work on the show earned him an Emmy nomination, something that never happened during his days as Al Bundy.

Trivia: Began his career as a drummer but turned to singing before forming Aerosmith in 1970; also plays harmonica, keyboards and guitar. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Aerosmith in 2001. Appeared as Santa Claus in a 2002 episode of Lizzie McGuire on the Disney Channel. Awarded an honorary degree from Boston's Berklee College of Music in 2003. In 2006, told Access Hollywood that he had been diagnosed with Hepatitis C in 2003. In 2007, motorcycle enthusiast Tyler co-founded Red Wing Motorcycles, a company featuring custom-made vehicles that changed its name to Dirico Custom Motorcycles in 2011. On January 19, 2011, made his debut as an American Idol judge. In 2011, joined other celebrities, including Al Roker and Katherine Heigl, whose likenesses have become Cabbage Patch Kid dolls to raise money for the Children's Action Network, which increases awareness of foster care and adoption.

Trivia: An actor whose well-scrubbed Midwestern good looks have served him well in a wide variety of roles, Bradley Whitford was born in Madison, WI, on October 10, 1959. Whitford developed an interest in acting while in high school, and after graduating in 1977, he attended Wesleyan University, where he majored in English and Theater. After completing his studies at Wesleyan, he went on to receive a master's degree in Theater from the Juilliard Theater Center, and began pursuing an acting career in New York. Whitford made his screen debut in 1985 in a low-budget thriller called Dead As a Doorman, but received a good bit more attention for a supporting role in a 1986 TV movie, C.A.T. Squad, directed by William Friedkin. In 1987, Whitford appeared in both the New York and Los Angeles productions of Sam Shepard's drama Curse of the Starving Class; while in L.A. with the play, Whitford was cast as Jack Ford in the TV movie The Betty Ford Story. After returning to New York, Whitford continued to alternate stage roles with film assignments, and by the early '90s was appearing in a steady stream of supporting roles in such films as Presumed Innocent, A Perfect World, and Philadelphia. However, Whitford soon began scoring more substantial roles on television, including a recurring role as Norman Gardner on the series NYPD Blue and a memorable turn as a distraught father-to-be on the Emmy-award winning "Love's Labor's Lost" episode of E.R. In 1999, Whitford's finally scored the role that made him famous when he was cast as Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman on the TV series The West Wing (created by Aaron Sorkin, whose play A Few Good Men had featured Whitford in its Broadway cast). Whitford's work on the series eventually earned him an Emmy Award in 2001; the same year, he was also recognized as part of the show's ensemble cast by the Screen Actor's Guild Awards (also honored with Whitford was John Spencer, who had appeared with him in the movie Presumed Innocent).Whitford appeared in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in 2005, as well as the critically acclaimed comedy drama Bottleshock in 2008. The actor enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in 2012 for his turn as a ruthless, yet oddly likable businessman in director Joss Whedon's popular horror comedy Cabin in the Woods.

Trivia: Began his career in musical theater. Met a casting director in Los Angeles while helping a friend move, which led to a role in Point Break (1991). Grew his hair long to avoid being typecast as a wholesome character.

Trivia: One of the longest-running cast member in the history of Saturday Night Live, easygoing funnyman Tim Meadows crafted some of the series' most enduring characters in his nine-year stint on the popular late-night comedy staple. Whether sipping Courvoisier as self-proclaimed Ladies' Man Leon Phelps or posing clueless questions to irritable guests as early morning talk show host Lionel Osborne, Meadows and his memorable collection of characters endured even during the more critically panned years of SNL and proved an important component of keeping the show on its feet during those dark days. Born in Highland Park, MI, and raised in Detroit, Meadows studied radio and television broadcasting at Wayne State University before performing improvisational comedy at the Soup Kitchen Saloon in nearby Ferndale. Quickly finding his stride on-stage, Meadows relocated to Chicago where he would join the ImprovOlympia team and later become associated with the Second City troupe. Gaining a loyal following during his three-year stint with the legendary comedy troupe, Meadows was soon courted by SNL producer Lorne Michaels and in 1991, he achieved the dreams of comics nationwide when he joined the SNL cast as a featured player. Nominated for an Emmy the same month he made the transition to cast member status two years later, Meadows was fired from the show in 1994 only to be hired back at the insistence of Michaels. Although he did little film or television work during his SNL years, Meadows prepared for his own departure from the series by appearing in the features of such former cast members as Dan Aykroyd (Coneheads [1993]), Mike Myers and Dana Carvey (Wayne's World 2 [also 1993]), and Julia Sweeney (It's Pat [1994]). Predictably, Meadows' segue into his post-SNL career began with the quickly dismissed Ladies Man feature, though he continued to grace the small screen with roles in such sitcoms as The Michael Richards Show and Leap of Faith.As the 2000's continued, Meadows began to carve out a niche for himself with memorable and funny supporting roles in a variety of comedies like The Even Stevens Movie, The Benchwarmers, and, quite notably, as the Carpal Tunnel suffering high school principle in 2004's Mean Girls. In 2007, he appeared as fictional rock star Dewey Cox's drummer in the musical biopic parody Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. He appeared in the 2008 Will Ferrell vehicle Semi-Pro, the 2011 Adam Sandler project Jack and Jill, and took a leading part in the sequel Mean Girls 2.

Trivia: American brothers Rob and Chad Lowe became actors in childhood (Chad would ultimately win an Emmy for his TV work). Rob was acting from the age of eight in 1972; seven years later, he was a regular on the TV series A New Kind of Family, playing the teenaged son of star Eileen Brennan. That series was shot down quickly, but Lowe's film career picked up when newspaper and magazine articles began aligning the handsome, sensitive young actor with the burgeoning Hollywood "brat pack," which included such new talent as Molly Ringwald, Matt Dillon, Charlie Sheen, and Anthony Michael Hall. Along with several fellow "packers" (Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Emilio Estevez), Lowe starred in 1985's St. Elmo's Fire; this film and the earlier Hotel New Hampshire (1984) represent the most memorable projects in Lowe's otherwise negligible film output. In 1989, Lowe's already flagging film stardom received a severe setback when he was accused of videotaping his sexual activities with an underage girl (the evidence has since become a choice item on the sub-rosa video cassette circuit). Arrested for his misdeeds, Lowe performed several hours' worth of community service, then tried to reactivate his career. Since then, Lowe has matured into something of a brat-pack George Hamilton, successfully lampooning his previous screen image in such comedies as Wayne's World (1992) and Tommy Boy (1995).Though his comedic endeavors would continue throughout the 1990s in films such as Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) and its sequel, Lowe gained notice for such dramatic roles as that of the mute and strangely plague-immune Nick Andros in the long-anticipated TV miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand (1994). Lowe's roles throughout the '90s may have not been the prominently featured roles in A-list films that his early shooting-star may have suggested, though he did maintain steady work in an interesting variety of small-budget projects. Lowe's casting on the popular political drama The West Wing brought the actor back into the public eye in what many considered to be one of the most intelligently written dramatic series on television. His turn as quick-witted liberal speechwriter Sam Seaborn brought Lowe through the dark days of his scandalous past, back to an audience who may have forgotten his charm as an actor. He would stay with the series until 2005, all while continuing to pick new projects that involved creativity and an open mind. He tested his limits with roles in films like Salem's Lot and Thank You For Smoking, and in 2004, he began starring in his own TV series, playing Dr. Billy Grant on the crime drama Dr. Vegas. The show lasted until 2008, by which time he had already signed on for the prime time dramedy Brothers & Sisters, starring alongside Calista Flockhart. He had a major part in The Invention of Lying in 2009, and that same year he landed a regular gig on the well-reviewed NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. In 2011 he was the executive producer and one of the leads in the ensemble film I Melt With You.

Trivia: Peter Buck from the band R.E.M. once put it as well as anyone: "If you grew up in the '70s, you liked Aerosmith." Boasting a raw, rollicking sound that fully Americanized the blues-rock hybrid created by the Rolling Stones and a swaggering, witty charisma that was all their own, Aerosmith was one of the best and most popular hard rock bands of the 1970s. Few performers had as impressive a rise and as dramatic a fall -- and fewer still would rise again to such remarkable heights. The Aerosmith story began in 1969, when Steven Tyler (born Steven Tallarico on March 26, 1948) met Joe Perry (born September 10, 1950) at an ice cream parlor in New Hampshire, where Tyler was working a summer job. Tyler, from New York, had sung with a variety of bands before joining the group Chain Reaction, while Perry was a veteran guitarist with a number of Boston-area bands, most notably the Jam Band. Tyler and Perry had seen each other's bands and were mutual admirers; Tyler suggested to Perry that they should join forces, and they recruited Jam Band bassist Tom Hamilton (born Dec. 31, 1951) to play in their new group. Joey Kramer (born June 21, 1950), who like Tyler was from New York, was brought aboard as drummer, and guitarist Ray Tabano completed the first Aerosmith lineup. The band started gigging in 1970; that same year, Tabano quit the group (he later signed on as a member of Aerosmith's road crew and merchandising team), and was replaced by Brad Whitford (born February 23, 1952). Two years of hard work and hundreds of low-paying gigs later, Aerosmith caught the ear of then Columbia Records president Clive Davis, who signed the band to a recording contract. Their 1972 self-titled debut was a slow starter, but the single "Dream On" gained radio airplay in a few markets and would eventually become a hit single. The group's second album, Get Your Wings, sold a bit better, but it was 1975's Toys in the Attic that finally broke the band nationwide; the album took the band to the upper reaches of the Billboard charts for the first time (it would eventually sell six million copies) and "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion" became FM-radio staples (the latter was also used memorably in the film Dazed and Confused). 1976's Rocks sailed to number three on the charts and racked up four million sales. By now, Aerosmith were one of America's biggest touring attractions, but the group began easing the rigors of the road with a variety of recreational drugs, and the weariness was beginning to tell on 1977's Draw the Line, which failed to crack the Top Ten. In 1978, Hollywood (or at least Robert Stigwood) came calling, and the group made their screen debut in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, providing one of the film's few high points as the sneering Future Villain Band, who performed "Come Together." While the band wasn't much effected by the film's venomous reviews, spiraling drug use and internal conflicts began to take their toll, and in 1979, shortly before the release of Night in the Ruts, Joe Perry quit the band. (In 1989, fans would be offered a belated souvenir of one of Perry's last gigs before his departure with the home video Aerosmith Live: Texxas Jam '78.) Brad Whitford followed suit a year later, and while Aerosmith soldiered on with guitarists Jimmy Crespo and Rick Dufay, 1982's Rock and a Hard Place failed to match Night in the Ruts' unimpressive sales, and Steven Tyler's inconsistent on-stage performances led many to declare Aerosmith a spent force, especially after Columbia dropped the band. In 1985, Joe Perry and Brad Whitford returned to Aerosmith, and the band signed a new deal with Geffen Records. Done With Mirrors, billed as the band's comeback, sold modestly, and neither Tyler or Perry appeared to have entirely conquered their drug habits. But in 1986, Tyler and Perry joined rap pioneers Run D.M.C. for a hip-hop cover of "Walk This Way," which took the band back to the top of the charts and reminded fans that Aerosmith was still alive and kicking. By 1987, all five members of Aerosmith were at long last clean and sober, and they released Permanent Vacation, which re-established them as rock superstars, selling over five million copies and scoring three major hit singles ("Rag Doll," "Angel," and "Dude [Looks Like a Lady]"). 1989's Pump proved Permanent Vacation's success was no fluke, selling a staggering seven million copies and scoring another three Top 40 hits, "Janie's Got a Gun", "Love in an Elevator,"' and "What It Takes." The album also spawned two separate home videos -- Aerosmith: Things That Go Pump in the Night, a collection of video clips from the album, and Aerosmith: The Making of "Pump," a documentary on the tumultuous production of the disc. In 1990, Aerosmith confirmed their pop culture cool by appearing on Saturday Night Live and popping up in the recurring sketch "Wayne's World" to play the "Wayne's World" theme with Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth (Dana Carvey). (In 1993, Aerosmith would meet Wayne and Garth again as they made a brief cameo in the feature film Wayne's World 2, playing the song "Shut Up and Dance" from their album Get a Grip.)Get a Grip sold seven million copies and spawned another handful of hit singles, including "Crazy," which inspired a memorable music video starring Alicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler, Steven's daughter. Aerosmith's second career wave had seen its peak, and their next album (the first in a new multimillion deal with Columbia), 1997's Nine Lives, was something of a disappointment, selling a mere two million copies and receiving lukewarm reviews. But the band remained a popular live act, and in 1998 they were tapped to perform a song for the soundtrack to the film Armageddon. The movie was a blockbuster, and "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" earned an Oscar nomination for Best Song, which led to the unlikely sight of Aerosmith playing live on the Academy Awards. In 2001, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame shortly after the release of their 13th studio album, Just Push Play. They also had the distinction of appearing as part of the halftime show at the year's Super Bowl, alongside younger hit-makers N 'Sync, Mary J. Blige, and Nelly.

Trivia: Clean-cut and perpetually dressed in tailored suits, comedian Bob Odenkirk was born in Illinois. He worked as a standup comic in Chicago before moving to New York and writing some of the best television comedy of his generation. From 1987-1991, he worked as a writer on Saturday Night Live and earned his first Emmy nomination. Odenkirk then wrote for The Ben Stiller Show and won his first Emmy award. He also wrote for Get a Life, The Larry Sanders Show, Late Night With Conan O'Brien, and Tenacious D. In addition, he played Stevie Grant on several episodes of The Larry Sanders Show. During this period, he met up with comedian David Cross and they became the team behind Mr. Show, an exceptional sketch comedy program that aired 1995-1998 on HBO. Along with Cross, Odenkirk was a host, writer, producer, and cast member. Although nominated for numerous awards, Mr. Show never won any. As an actor, Odenkirk appeared in small roles in such comedy features as The Cable Guy, Waiting for Guffman, and Can't Stop Dancing. On television, he provided voices to a few cartoons and tried his hand at directing with the HBO series The Near Future. After starring as Terry Twillstein in the unfortunate Run Ronnie Run!, he directed and starred in Melvin Goes to Dinner in 2003. The talky comedy feature was based on a play by Michael Blieden and the poster features lovely drawings by Adrian Tomine; it won several awards at festivals. As a writer/director, Odenkirk went on to make some videos and TV shows. As an actor, he later starred in The Big Wide World of Carl Laemke and My Big Fat Independent Movie. Though he remained one of the leading players of the alternative comedy scene, he was cast on the dramatic series Breaking Bad and earned rave reviews for his work on that program. He had a prominent part in 2012's The Giant Mechanical Man.