Trivia: One of the top leading men of the '80s, William Hurt, born March 20th, 1950, is notable for his intensity and effective portrayals of complex characters. Although born in Washington, D.C., Hurt had already seen much of the world by the time he was grown, as his father worked for the State Department. His early years spent in the South Pacific near Guam, Hurt moved to Manhattan with his mother after his parents divorced when he was six years old. He spent the summers with his father, vacationing in a variety of international locales, including Sudan. At the age of ten, Hurt's life again changed dramatically when he became a stepson to Henry Luce III, the heir to the Time-Life empire. His mother's second marriage indirectly led to Hurt's initial involvement with the theater: sent away to a boarding school in Massachusetts, he found comfort in acting.After going on to Tufts University to study theology for three years at his stepfather's urging, Hurt married aspiring actress Mary Beth Supinger and followed her to London to study drama. Upon their return to the U.S., Hurt studied drama at Juilliard. By this time, under the realization that his marriage was failing, Hurt divorced his wife, got a motorcycle, and headed cross country for the Shakespeare festival in Ashland, OR, where he made his professional debut in a production of Hamlet. He later joined New York's Circle Repertory Company, and went on to receive critical acclaim for his work on the New York stage.Hurt made his feature film debut in Ken Russell's Altered States in 1980, but it was not until he appeared opposite Kathleen Turner in Body Heat (1981) that he became a star and sex symbol. Four years later, he won Best Actor Oscar and British Academy awards as well as a similar honor at Cannes for his sensitive portrayal of a gay prisoner in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985). He was again nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his two subsequent films, Children of a Lesser God (1986) and Broadcast News (1987). Further success followed in 1988 when he starred in The Accidental Tourist.As bright as his star shone on stage and screen, by the end of the '80s, a darker side of Hurt was exposed when he was sued by his former live-in love and mother of his daughter Alex, ballet dancer Sandra Jennings, who claimed to be his common-law wife. Despite his personal problems, Hurt continued to stay relatively busy, beginning the new decade with a fine turn in Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World (1991). He subsequently appeared in such acclaimed films as Smoke (1995), Jane Eyre (1996), One True Thing (1998), and Dark City (1998). In 1998, Hurt appeared as the patriarch of one of televisions most beloved sci-fi families in the big-budgeted remake of Lost in Space, and as a gubernatorial candidate with a shadowy past in George Hickenlooper's political drama The Big Brass Ring (1999).Still alternating between stage and screen into the new millennium, Hurt stuck mainly to the small screen in the next few years. After lending his voice to the animated portrayal of the life of Jesus Christ in The Miracle Maker, appearing in the mini-series Dune, and taking the title role of The Contaminated Man in 2000, Hurt returned to features with his role in director Steven Spielberg's long anticipated (post-mortem) collaboration with the late Stanley Kubrick, A.I. As the well-intending scientist who sets the story of an artificial boy capable of learning and love into motion, Hurt's character seemed to provide the antithesis of the regressive experiments his previous character had flirted with in Altered States.Hurt played a supporting role in Changing Lanes (2002), an thought-provoking thriller following two very different New York City residents whose lives fatefully intersect following a car accident, and again in the political thriller Syriana, which would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2005. The actor was praised the same year for his work as a supporting character in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. In 2007, Hurt starred as the murderous alter ego of a businessman in Mr. Brooks, and co-starred with Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker, and Dennis Quaid for the political thriller Vantage Point (2008). Hurt stars as an ex-con looking to start over for The Yellow Handkerchief (2008), and Gen. Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, Bruce Banner's nemesis, in The Incredible Hulk (2008).In 2009, Hurt reunited with Vantage Point director Pete Travis for the historical thriller Endgame, for which he played the leading role of philosophy Professor Willie Esterhuyse, an essential member of a team dedicated to securing the release of Nelson Mandela. Director Julie Gavras' 2011 romantic comedy found Hurt starring alongside the legendary Isabella Rossallini. Hurt is slated to work in the The Host, a dystopian thriller adapted from a novel from author Stephanie Meyers, in 2013.

Trivia: One of the more compelling French actresses of her generation, Charlotte Gainsbourg initially made her screen name parlaying wayward adolescence into an understated art form. Tall, long-necked, and elegantly gawky, Gainsbourg first impressed critics and audiences with her portrayal of the naive but rebellious protagonist of L'Effrontée (1985), earning a César for Most Promising Young Actress.The daughter of French singer/songwriter/occasional actor and director Serge Gainsbourg and English actress Jane Birkin, Gainsbourg was born into substantial celebrity in London on July 22, 1971. Initially keen on being either an artist or a surgeon, she made her film debut playing Catherine Deneuve's daughter in the 1984 Paroles et Musique. That same year, she courted notoriety when she starred alongside her ever-irascible father in his controversial "Lemon Incest" music video, which featured the two cuddling on a bed surrounded by feathers. More salubrious attention came the young actress' way the following year, when she earned a César for her performance in Claude Miller's L'Effrontée.After another stint acting alongside her father in his poorly received Charlotte Forever (1986), Gainsbourg again collaborated with director Miller for La Petite Voleuse (1988), portraying a sullen teenager experimenting with sex and various illegal pursuits. She reprised her rebellious teen role for Merci La Vie (1991), a black comedy that cast her and Anouk Grinberg as two young women on a rampage against men and just about whomever else crosses their path. Gainsbourg got an opportunity to broaden her range with Jacques Doillon's Amoureuse (1992), an ensemble piece about a group of young women who come together to discuss life and love, and her uncle Andrew Birkin's The Cement Garden (1994), a drama about extreme familial dysfunction that was the actress' first English language outing.Gainsbourg made her second English film in 1996, starring as the eponymous heroine of Franco Zeffirelli's adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Although the film, which also starred William Hurt, received very mixed reviews, it did succeed in introducing Gainsbourg to a wider international audience. She further enhanced her good reputation when she won her second César -- this time for Best Supporting Actress -- in 2000 for her work in La Bûche (1999), a comedy that cast her as an ambitious businesswoman who takes up with a mysterious man lodging at her father's house.Gainsbourg remained busy throughout the mid-2000s and enjoyed success as a supporting actress in several highly acclaimed films (21 Grams, The Science of Sleep, Happily Ever After, and Lemming, to name a few). In 2006 she acted and directed the historical drama Golden Door, and co-starred in the award-winning drama The City of Your Final Destination in 2008. The actress portrayed a stay-at-home mother in The Tree (2010), a poignant psychological drama from director Julie Bertucelli, and took on yet another supporting role in 2011's Melancholia.

Trivia: New Zealander Anna Paquin made her stage bow in the coveted role of a skunk in a grade school play. After attracting attention for her work in a TV commercial, Paquin was selected from some 5,000 applicants to portray Holly Hunter's precocious daughter in director Jane Campion's dour period piece The Piano. The film was completed in 1992 when Paquin was nine. She kept busy for the next year or so in a series of American TV ads for a computer company, portraying an androgynous "young DaVinci" type. In 1994, an amazed 11-year-old Paquin rushed on the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion to accept the best supporting actress award for her performance in The Piano. Paquin played her first adult role in Hurly Burly (1998).

Trivia: Bearing more than a passing physical resemblance to her famous father Sir Charles Chaplin, graceful, versatile Geraldine Chaplin is an internationally respected leading and character actress. The eldest daughter from Charles Chaplin's marriage to Oona O'Neill, the daughter of famed playwright Eugene O'Neill, she spent her first eight years in Hollywood, but then moved with her family to Switzerland when her father was persecuted by the U.S. government for his political beliefs. In her new home, Ms. Chaplin attended private schools and was trained in classical ballet at the Royal Ballet School in London with the English Royal Ballet. She made her film debut in the elder Chaplin's Limelight (1952) as a dancer. She also played a small role in her father's last film, Countess From Hong Kong (1964). She had her first major adult role in 1965 playing Omar Shariff's wife, Tonya, in Doctor Zhivago. Much of the film was shot in Spain and it was there that Chaplin began a long romance with director Carlos Saura, who featured her in several films. She has subsequently worked with some of Europe's finest directors. She has also worked with American directors, most notably Robert Altman, who first utilized her in Nashville (1975) as the chatty, shallow BBC reporter Opal. In addition to her busy film career, Chaplin also appeared on-stage and in television miniseries such as Gulliver's Travels (1996) and The Odyssey (1997). Though she has often played leads, the diminutive, willowy, and offbeat beauty with the haunting blue eyes claims she is more comfortable in character roles.

Trivia: Thin-lipped and statuesque Irish actress Fiona Shaw frequently takes the lead on the theatrical stage but steers her talents toward supporting roles in feature films. Born in County Cork, she studied philosophy before moving on to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. During the '80s she worked mainly on-stage as part of the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Some of her stage credits include As You Like It, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and a one-woman reading of T.S. Eliot's epic poem The Waste Land, just to name a few. She made her film debut in 1984 as one of the nuns in the WWII drama Sacred Hearts, but her breakthrough role came in 1989 as the doctor whom Christy Brown grows infatuated with in My Left Foot. The next year, she played the wife of an explorer in the British Empire film Mountains of the Moon. She also excelled at comedy with memorable roles in Three Men and a Little Lady, London Kills Me, Super Mario Bros., and Undercover Blues. In 1995, she turned to literary adaptations and costume dramas with Persuasion, Jane Eyre, and Anna Karenina. She then played Francie's sharp-tongued mother in Neil Jordan's childhood drama The Butcher Boy. Around this time, her longtime colleague Deborah Warner directed the controversial television adaptation of Richard II, with Shaw in the lead role of the young king. Also on television, she played Hedda Hopper in the HBO movie RKO 281 and Irma Prunesquallor in the BBC miniseries Gormenghast. She collaborated with director Warner again for The Last September, based on the novel by Irish author Elizabeth Bowen. In 2001, she received the honorary Companion of the British Empire award and portrayed the spinster scientist Leontine in Clare Peploe's The Triumph of Love. Returning to the stage to play Medea on Broadway, she found herself well-costumed once again as the wretched Aunt Petunia Dursely in the series of Harry Potter feature films. Though she returned as required for the many Potter films, she also appeared in The Triumph of Love, Catch and Release, and Terrence Malick's well-reviewed Tree of Life.

Trivia: Gorgeous Elle MacPherson successfully negotiated her supermodel status into a film career. A millionaire's daughter and a native of Sydney, Australia, MacPherson (born Eleanor Gow) was raised by her mother after her parents divorced. Standing six feet tall, the willowy but curvaceous blonde first gained fame after she was selected to appear in one of Sports Illustrated's famous swimsuit editions. One of the periodical's most popular models, she appeared on its cover four times and, in 1986, she graced the cover of Time magazine. That year, she became the unofficial ambassador for the Australian tourist commission. Her status as a supermodel secured, MacPherson branched out into films, appearing opposite Tara Fitzgerald, Hugh Grant, and Sam Neill in Sirens, an erotic portrait of a preacher's wife who comes to accept her sensuous nature during a visit to the home of notorious Aussie artist Norman Lindsey. The role required MacPherson to gain 30 pounds to soften her model's angularity, giving her a soft, but still pleasing appearance. She lost the pounds and then appeared opposite William Hurt in Jane Eyre, following that up with a role in Barbra Streisand's The Mirror Has Two Faces (both 1996). She appeared in the indie romantic comedy If Lucy Fell, had a bit part in the infamous flop Batman & Robin, and enjoyed a recurring role on the hit sitcom Friends. After years away from screens, she appeared in 2009 as part of the cast of the soap opera The Beautiful Life. In addition to her film and modelling careers, MacPherson has also proven herself a shrewd businesswoman. She owns a lucrative lingerie company in Australia. She is a single mother and has homes in the U.S., London, and Australia.

Trivia: One of England's most esteemed actresses, Joan Plowright was trained at the Old Vic. She made her regional stage debut in 1951 and her London stage bow in 1954. Two years later, she joined the English Stage Company, where she essayed her most popular role up to that time, Margery Pincher in Wycherly's The Country Wife. That same year, she appeared in her first film, Moby Dick. In the original 1958 stage production of John Osborne's The Entertainer, Plowright co-starred with Sir Laurence Olivier, whom she would marry in 1961, a union that lasted until Olivier's death in 1989. She appeared on screen with her husband in the film versions of The Entertainer (1960) and The Three Sisters (1970), the latter of which was also directed by Olivier. During the same period, Plowright and Olivier were mainstays of London's National Theatre. In 1961, Plowright won a Tony award for her Broadway appearance in A Taste of Honey. Her stage work was briefly curtailed in the mid-to-late '60s, allowing her time to raise her family. From 1982 on, Plowright began appearing in films with increasing regularity, demonstrating at least two traits she'd evidently picked up from Olivier: a propensity for elaborate foreign accents (the hero's Jewish mother in Avalon (1990) and the heroine's Yugoslavian mom in I Love You to Death (1990)) and a willingness to take assignments possibly only for the money (Mrs. Wilson in Dennis the Menace (1993)). While an Oscar win is long overdue (although she was awarded a CBE from the Queen in 1970), Plowright was nominated for her work in 1992's Enchanted April. Perhaps one of her most endearing portrayals in recent years was as the high school teacher in The Last Action Hero who runs a clip from Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948) for her class, introducing Olivier as "the fellow who did all those Polaroid commercials." In 1999, Plowright additionally endeared herself to moviegoers with her role as one of a group of high society women living in fascist Italy in Franco Zeffirelli's Tea with Mussolini.She continued to work steadily at the beginning of the 21st century appearing in a variety of projects including Rock My World, Callas Forever, and the Steve Martin/Queen Latifah comedy Bringing Down the House. In 2006 she voiced a part in the big-screen adaptation of Curious George, and two years later could be seen in the family fantasy film The Spiderwick Chronicles.

Trivia: Launching her career on radio at age 11, British actress Billie Whitelaw spent several seasons as an assistant stage manager before making her theatrical acting debut in 1950. The blonde, hypertense Whitelaw started out in films as a standard leading lady, but quickly distinguished herself in neurotic, single-purposed roles. She won a BFA award for her portrayal of Albert Finney's disgruntled ex-wife in Charlie Bubbles (1968). Billie Whitelaw's next screen assignment of note was as the smothering "monster mommy" of two of Britain's most vicious mob leaders in The Krays (1990). She played nurse Grace Poole in the 1996 version of Jane Eyre and appeared in the 1998 TV miniseries Merlin, playing Ambrosia. Whitelaw's final film appearance was Hot Fuzz (2007). She is also noted for having a close professional relationship with playwright Samuel Beckett, often being called his muse, and appeared in a number of his stage productions. Whitelaw died in 2014, at age 82.

Trivia: One of Britain's more underrated actors, Samuel West first became known to international audiences in 1992 as the perpetually unfortunate Leonard Bast in the acclaimed Ismail Merchant/James Ivory adaptation of E.M. Forster's Howards End.The son of actors Timothy West and Prunella Scales, West was born in London on June 19, 1966. Taking to science rather than to acting when he was growing up, he attended Oxford University, where he planned to study physics. However, an interest in acting finally took hold, and West switched his studies to English and became involved with the University Experimental Theatre Club and Dramatic Society, touring Africa with it in 1986.Upon his graduation in 1988, West secured his first film role as a German aristocrat in Reunion. Although the film was critically well-received, it was largely unseen, and West subsequently did most of his work on television. His acclaimed performance in Howards End, for which he earned a British Academy Award nomination, gave him both greater respect and recognition. He went on to appear in a number of films of varying quality, doing particularly notable work in Persuasion (1995), Carrington (1995), and Jane Eyre (1996). He parodied the sort of period dramas in which he had made his name with his role as an upper-crust prig in Stiff Upper Lips in 1998, and that same year he finally broke through to modern dress in the Canadian film Rupert's Land, earning a Genie nomination for his portrayal of a clean-cut lawyer reluctantly dragged on an odyssey across the wilds of British Columbia. The following year, he was back in breeches and a frock coat for his bit part in Notting Hill, and that same year he could be seen taking to the sea in the popular British miniseries, Horatio Hornblower. In addition to his screen roles, West is known in his native country for his work on the stage, television, and radio, endearing many a listener to his deep, mellifluous voice.

Trivia: Driven out of show business with sticks of butter following the premiere of Bernardo Bertolucci's taboo-shattering Last Tango in Paris in 1972, Maria Schneider seemed destined for the kind of whatever-happened-to obscurity normally associated with failed child television stars and mid-career burnouts. Heroin-addicted and disheartened, she disappeared for a short while, but came back soon thereafter, and has appeared in more than 30 films since. Born March 27, 1952, in Paris, Schneider made her film debut in Jean-Pierre Blanc's La Vieille Fille in 1971, though true notoriety came the next year with her role as Marlon Brando's young lover in Last Tango in Paris. Daughter of actor Daniel Gélin (Is Paris Burning? [1966]), Schneider was originally cast in the role of Conchita in Luis Buñuel's final film, That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), but was fired shortly into filming and replaced with two actresses (Ángela Molina and Carole Bouquet). Schneider has also appeared in Franco Zeffirelli's Jane Eyre (1996) and as herself in Les Acteurs (2000).

Trivia: British supporting actor Richard Warwick made his film debut in Romeo and Juliet (1968). He subsequently played a wide variety of roles in films.

Trivia: An actor turned screenwriter whose sharp wit propelled him to an Oscar for his keen screenplay for Robert Altman's Gosford Park, Julian Fellowes had plenty of time to soak up the English upper crust's disdain for anything pop culture-related while growing up, and was sure to filter those observations in a script that crackled with bitter insight into England's upper-class master/servant relationships. Born to a diplomat father in England in 1954, Fellowes lived his early life in luxury. After receiving his primary schooling in Britain's prestigious Ampleforth, Fellowes studied English literature at Cambridge before enrolling in drama school at 21. As an aspiring actor, Fellowes found himself straddling the complicated class system as he resided in squalor during the week, only to return home and have the servants do his laundry on the weekend. Settling into a comfortable stint as a character actor, Fellowes alternated between film and television with roles in such films as Baby: The Secret of the Lost Legend (1985) and as Noel Coward in Goldeneye: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming (1989). Appearing in numerous miniseries and made-for-television films throughout the 1990s, Fellowes took his first stab at screenwriting in the 1994 miniseries Little Lord Fauntleroy. After hearing that famed director Robert Altman was seeking a screenwriter with a working knowledge of England's class system, Fellowes quickly shot to the top of a short list of potential writers for the film. With numerous personal stories from which to work, the now established screenwriter turned years of passive observation and quiet dissent into a stinging screenplay that would serve as a springboard for the talents of the film's noteworthy cast.

Trivia: Began his career in stand-up comedy. For a while he acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company before taking on his first movie role in the early 60's. His most notable guest appearance was in the sitcom Only Fools and Horses in 1989; the episode had over 16 million viewers. Guest starred on Emmerdale as two different characters. His last on-screen appearance was in the series Doctors in 2000.

Trivia: British actor John Wood attended Oxford, where he served as president of the university's Dramatic Society. After serving as a lieutenant in the Royal Horse Academy, Wood joined the Old Vic in 1954, then spent several seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1967, he made his Broadway bow as the glib Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. He went to star in such Atlantic-crossing stage productions as Sherlock Holmes (in the title role), Travesties (for which he won a Tony Award), Tartuffe, Deathtrap, and Amadeus. His infrequent film roles include the reclusive computer whiz Stephen Falken in WarGames (1983) and the Bishop in Ladyhawke (1985). John Wood was seen as the heroine's chauffeur father in Sabrina (1995) and the forbidding Lord Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre (1996).. He died of natural causes at age 81 in 2011.