Trivia: One of Hollywood's sexiest and most magnetic leading men, Denzel Washington's poise and radiantly sane intelligence permeate whatever film he is in, be it a socially conscious drama, biopic, or suspense thriller. More importantly, Washington's efforts, alongside those of director Spike Lee, have done much to dramatically expand the range of dramatic roles given to African-American actors and actresses.The son of a Pentecostal minister and a hairdresser, Washington was born in Mount Vernon, NY, on December 28, 1954. His parents' professions shaped Washington's early ambition to launch himself into show business: from his minister father he learned the power of performance, while hours in his mother's salon (listening to stories) gave him a love of storytelling. Unfortunately, when Washington was 14, his folks' marriage took a turn for the worse, and he and his older sister were sent away to boarding school so that they would not be exposed to their parents' eventual divorce. Washington later attended Fordham University, where he attained a B.A. in Journalism in 1977. He still found time to pursue his interest in acting, however, and after graduation he moved to San Francisco, where he won a scholarship to the American Conservatory Theatre. Washington stayed with the ACT for a year, and, after his time there, he began acting in various television movies and made his film debut in the 1981 Carbon Copy. Although he had a starring role (as the illegitimate son of a rich white man), Washington didn't find real recognition until he joined the cast of John Falsey and Joshua Brand's long-running TV series St. Elsewhere in 1982. He won critical raves and audience adoration for his portrayal of Dr. Phillip Chandler, and he began to attract Hollywood notice. In 1987, he starred as anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko in Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom alongside Kevin Kline, and though the film itself alienated some critics (Pauline Kael called it "dumbfounding"), Washington's powerful performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.Two years later, Washington netted another Best Supporting Actor nod -- and won the award -- for his turn as an embittered yet courageous runaway slave in the Civil War drama Glory. The honor effectively put him on the Hollywood A-List. Some of his more notable work came from his collaboration with director Spike Lee; over the course of the 1990s, Washington starred in three of his films, playing a jazz trumpeter in Mo' Better Blues (1990), the title role in Lee's epic 1992 biopic Malcolm X (for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination), and the convict father of a high-school basketball star in He Got Game (1998).Washington also turned in powerful performances in a number of other films, such as Mississippi Masala (1991), as a man in love with an Indian woman; Philadelphia (1993), as a slightly homophobic lawyer who takes on the cause of an AIDS-stricken litigator (Tom Hanks); and Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), as a 1940s private detective, Easy Rawlins. Washington also reeled in large audiences in action roles, with the top box-office draw of such thrillers as The Pelican Brief (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), and The Siege (1998) attesting to his capabilities. In 1999, Washington starred in another thriller, The Bone Collector, playing a paralyzed forensics expert who joins forces with a young policewoman (Angelina Jolie) to track down a serial killer. That same year, he starred in the title role of Norman Jewison's The Hurricane. Based on the true story of a boxer wrongly accused of murdering three people in 1966, the film featured stellar work by Washington as the wronged man, further demonstrating his remarkable capacity for telling a good story. His performance earned him a number of honors, including a Best Actor Golden Globe and a Best Actor Oscar nomination.After another strong performance as a high-school football coach in Boaz Yakin's Remember the Titans, Washington cut dramatically against his "nice guy" typecast to play a corrupt policeman in Training Day, a gritty cop drama helmed by Antoine Fuqua. Washington surprised audiences and critics with his change of direction, but in the eyes of many, this change of direction made him a more compelling screen presence than ever before. (It also netted him an Oscar for Best Actor.) 2002 marked an uneven year for Washington. He joined the cast of Nick Cassavetes' absurd melodrama John Q., as a father so desperate to get medical attention for his ailing son that he holds an entire hospital hostage and contemplates killing himself to donate his own heart to the boy. Critics didn't buy the film; it struck all but the least-discriminating as a desperate attempt by Washington to bring credulity and respectability to a series of ludicrous, manipulative Hollywood contrivances. John Q. nonetheless performed healthily at the box (it grossed over a million dollars worldwide from a 36-million-dollar budget). That same fall, Washington received hearty praise for his directorial and on-camera work in Antwone Fisher (2002), in which he played a concerned naval psychiatrist, and even more so for director Carl Franklin's 2003 crime thriller Out of Time. Somewhat reminiscent of his role in 1991's crime drama Ricochet, Out of Time casts Washington as an upstanding police officer framed for the murder of a prominent citizen. In 2004, Washington teamed up with Jonathan Demme for the first occasion since 1993's Philadelphia, to star in the controversial remake of 1962's The Manchurian Candidate. Washington stars in the picture as soldier Bennett Marco (the role originally performed by Frank Sinatra), who, along with his platoon, is kidnapped and brainwashed during the first Gulf War. Later that year, Washington worked alongside Christopher Walken and Dakota Fanning in another hellraiser, director Tony Scott's Man on Fire, as a bodyguard who carves a bloody swath of vengeance, attempting to rescue a little girl kidnapped under his watch. Washington made no major onscreen appearances in 2005 -- and indeed, kept his activity during 2006 and 2007 to an absolute minimum. In '06, he joined the cast of Spike Lee's thriller Inside Man as a detective assigned to thwart the machinations of a psychotically cunning burglar (Clive Owen). The film opened to spectacular reviews and box-office grosses in March 2006, keeping Washington on top of his game and bringing Lee (whose last major feature was the disappointing 2004 comedy She Hate Me) back to the pinnacle of success. That same year, Washington joined forces once again with Tony Scott in the sci-fi action hybrid Déjà Vu, as an ATF agent on the trail of a terrorist, who discovers a way to "bridge" the present to the past to view the details of a bomb plot that unfolded days earlier. The Scott film garnered a fair number of respectable reviews but ultimately divided critics. Déjà Vu bowed in the U.S. in late November 2006. Meanwhile, Washington signed on for another action thriller, entitled American Gangster -- this time under the aegis of Tony Scott's brother Ridley -- about a drug-dealing Mafioso who smuggles heroin into the U.S. in the corpses of deceased Vietnam veterans.Washington appeared as New York City subway security chief Walter Garber in the 2009 remake of the 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and begun filming the post-apocalyptic drama The Book of Eli in the same year. He earned a Best Actor nomination in 2012 for his work as an alcoholic pilot in Robert Zemeckis' drama Flight.

Trivia: Born June 21, 1979, native Minnesotan actor Chris Pratt scored his first big break on television as the troubled physician's son Bright Abbott on the WB series drama Everwood, opposite Treat Williams and others, and segued into film with a prominent role in the biting satire Strangers with Candy (2005) alongside Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert. Successive features included Deep in the Valley (2008), Wanted (2008), and Bride Wars (2009) (as the ineffectual fiancé of Anne Hathaway). In 2009, Pratt joined the NBC sitcom Parks & Recreation as a guest star, but his turn as the dim-witted Andy Dwyer was so well-received that he was promoted to series regular for season 2. While on the show, Pratt also juggled some major movie roles, co-starring with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill as baseball player Scott Hatteberg in the blockbuster Moneyball (2011) and appearing as a Navy SEAL in 2012's controversial Zero Dark Thirty.

Trivia: Bearing the kind of sensitive-man good looks that have led many to think he would be perfect for a career as a tortured, latte-chugging intellectual, Ethan Hawke instead emerged in the 1990s as both a talented actor and a thinking girls' poster boy. In addition to acting, Hawke penned two novels -- The Hottest State, which is rumored to be based on a former relationship he had with singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb, and the best-selling Ash Wednesday. Born November 6, 1970, in Austin, TX, to teenage parents who separated when he was a toddler, Hawke was raised by his mother. The two led an itinerant existence until she married again, and the family settled in Princeton Junction, NJ. There Hawke began to study acting at Princeton's McCarter Theatre, and at the age of 14, he made his film debut in Explorers (1985). A sci-fi fantasy flick that starred the actor alongside River Phoenix, it didn't make much of an impact upon its theatrical release, but thanks to the presence of both Hawke and Phoenix, it went on to a second life on cable.Following his debut, Hawke stopped acting professionally to attend Carnegie Mellon University. His college career didn't last long, however; while still a student, Hawke was chosen to play one of the young protagonists of Peter Weir's Dead Poets Society. The 1989 film, which marked the beginning of Robin Williams' turn toward more dramatic roles, was a success, and Hawke, in his role as the shy, cringing Todd Anderson, made prep school angst look so photogenic that he soon had something of a teenage following. After starring as Ted Danson's son in Dad the same year, Hawke went on to make a string of movies that allowed him to demonstrate his talent but never quite propelled him further into the realm of stardom. White Fang (1991) provided him with a go at adventure by casting him as a young gold miner who forms a bond with the titular canine, while Waterland (1992) had Hawke plumbing the depths of mild delinquency as the troublesome student of an emotionally estranged Jeremy Irons. Unfortunately, almost nobody saw Waterland, and the same could be said of Hawke's other film that year, the WWII drama A Midnight Clear. Lack of an audience obscured the actor's strong performances in both films, and it was not until 1994 that he began to gain recognition for something besides Dead Poets Society. In that year, Hawke created something of a reputation for himself, both on- and offscreen. Offscreen, he became tabloid fodder when he was caught dancing with a then-married Julia Roberts and thus gained a certain -- if fleeting -- kind of notoriety. On screen, the actor starred in Ben Stiller's Reality Bites, portraying the kind of goateed, ennui-mired, more-sensitive-than-thou slacker that helped get him labeled as such in real life. Matters weren't helped when, that same year, the actor published The Hottest State, a meditation on love from the point-of-view of an angst-ridden twentysomething that was scorned by many critics as pretentious posturing.After starring as another sensitive student of life in Richard Linklater's romantic talkathon Before Sunrise (1995), Hawke went back to his sci-fi roots with Gattaca (1997), a near-future parable about the dangers of genetic engineering. Although the film was a relative disappointment, it did present Hawke with an introduction to co-star Uma Thurman, whom he married in 1998 and had a daughter with later that same year. Also in 1998, the actor starred opposite Gwyneth Paltrow in an adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations; despite mixed reviews, the film heightened Hawke's profile while further establishing him as one of the leading interpreters of sensitive-boy artistic angst. After a starring turn as one of the titular Newton Boys alongside Matthew McConaughey, Skeet Ulrich, and Vincent D'Onofrio in Richard Linklater's neglected 1998 Western, Hawke took on an entirely different role in 1999. Starring in Scott Hicks' Snow Falling on Cedars, he portrayed a journalist investigating the murder of a Japanese-American man in post-WWII Washington State. The same year, he appeared in Joe the King, the directorial debut of his friend and Midnight Clear co-star Frank Whaley.In addition to his film work, Hawke has remained active in the theater. He was the artistic director of the now-defunct Malaparte, a New York theater company that he co-founded with a group of actors including Robert Sean Leonard, Frank Whaley, and Josh Hamilton. He has also worked behind the camera, directing the music video for Lisa Loeb's "Stay" in 1994.Hawke subsequently earned some of the best reviews of his career to date as the title character of Michael Almereyda's 2000 adaptation of Hamlet. Set in modern-day New York, the film allowed Hawke to give the famously tortured prince a slackerish spin that more than one critic noted seemed to come naturally to the actor. The following year, he could be seen in an altogether different feature, portraying a rookie cop opposite Denzel Washington in Training Day, Antoine Fuqua's gritty cop drama. He also collaborated again with director Linklater, first for Tape, a drama co-starring Robert Sean Leonard and wife Thurman, and then for Waking Life, a groundbreaking animated feature in which the actor reprised the role of Before Sunrise's Jesse. 2001 also marked Hawke's first significant foray behind the camera as the director of Chelsea Walls, a multi-character drama about various artists living in New York's famed Chelsea Hotel.In 2002, Hawke played alongside Frank Whaley in The Jimmy Show and made an appearance on the hit television drama Alias the next year. The year 2003 was not a banner one for the actor -- after rumors of an affair between Hawke and a young model began circulating among various television and print tabloids, Uma Thurman announced their official separation after five years of marriage. In 2004, Hawke starred with Angelina Jolie in director D.J. Caruso's Taking Lives and reprised his Before Sunrise role opposite Julie Delpy in Linklater's sequel Before Sunset, a film which also provided the long-time actor with his first screenwriting credit.Hawke appeared in several moderately successful films throughout 2005 and 2006 (Assault on Precinct 13, The Hottest State, Fast Food Nation), but found himself back in the limelight for 2007's crime thriller Before the Devil Know You're Dead, in which the actor played one of two brothers involved in a plan to rob their parents' jewelry store. The film would win the Best Picture from the American Film Institute. He found success yet again for his role in the 2008 crime drama What Doesn't Kill You. The film, which also stars Mark Ruffalo and Donnie Wahlberg, features Hawke as a street-hardened young adult struggling to rise above the dog-eat-dog lifestyle to which he has become accustomed. In 2009 Hawke starred in Daybreaker, in which he played a vampire sympathetic to the human plight, and worked with Don Cheadle, Wesley Snipes, and Richard Gere for his role as a narcotics officer in the crime thriller Brooklyn's Finest.In 2013 Hawke scored a minor hit as the star of the horror film The Purge. In that same year he returned with Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater with Before Midnight, their sequel to Before Sunset, which garnered Hawke a second Oscar nomination in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. He returned to Oscar contention in 2014, this time in the Best Supporting Actor category for playing the father in Linklater's Boyhood.

Trivia: In 1991, won a national television talent competition held by KBS in South Korea, which led to his acting debut on the country's television series Asphalt My Hometown. Was a very popular actor in South Korea, appearing in numerous films and television shows for nearly 20 years before making his Hollywood debut in GI Joe: The Rise of the Cobra in 2009. Has modelled for the designer Karl Lagerfeld in both fashion shows and print adverts. Was named a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF. Attended the launch of the Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS campaign for UNICEF in South Korea in 2006. Delivered a message of hope to victims of the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in 2011 at the request of the Japan Committee for UNICEF. In 2012, became one of the first two Koreans to leave his hand and foot prints outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood alongside fellow actor Ahn Sung-Ki. Won the award for Best Foreign Actor at the 9th Huading Awards in Hong Kong. Became the first Korean person to present at the Academy Awards in 2016. Is the founder of BHNC, a fashion line that specialises in hats, scarves and other accessories.

Trivia: Grew up on a ranch. At age 12, lived with an American family in Vermont for a year. Studied at the New York Film Academy and at the Larry Moss Studio. His character in The Magnificent Seven (2016) was featured in a stand-alone vignette, The Outlaw, released prior to the film.

Trivia: From the Tlingit and Koyukon-Athabascan tribes of Alaska. Was certified as a welder in high school. Worked on an oil rig while trying to make it as an actor. Is an ambassador for the Native Wellness Institute and the Boys and Girls Club of America.

Trivia: Naples, FL, native Haley Bennett entered show business in the mid- to late 2000s, juggling ambitions as a singer, songwriter, actress, and poet. The multihyphenate (who reportedly began authoring poetry and songs at the age of 14) moved with her mother to Southern California immediately after high school graduation to accommodate her dreams of becoming a Hollywood star and promptly landed both representation and a key role as a pop diva in the Hugh Grant/Drew Barrymore romantic comedy Music and Lyrics. The part, of course, suited Bennett perfectly, as it enabled her to demonstrate her abilities in multiple spheres; as a follow-up, the ingénue switched genres altogether to star in the title role of the psychological thriller The Haunting of Molly Hartley (2008); in that film, she played a high school student whose torturous past suddenly and shockingly catches up with her. The same year, Bennett starred in the teen-oriented sex farce College as co-ed Kendall. Meanwhile, at about the same time, Bennett began work on her first pop album.

Trivia: An actor who has demonstrated a fearless capacity for exploring the darker side of human nature, Peter Sarsgaard became synonymous with the term "edgy young performer." With looks that allow him to either play soft-skinned pretty boys or greasy-haired white trash refuse, Sarsgaard has used his malleable features and brooding charisma to great effect in such films as Kimberly Peirce's Boys Don't Cry.A graduate of St. Louis' Washington University, where he was a co-founder of the improvisational group Mama's Pot Roast, Sarsgaard studied at the Actors' Studio in New York. After he completed his studies, he was cast in the off-Broadway production of Horton Foote's Laura Dennis, and, as a member of Douglas Carter Beane's Drama Department, he appeared in John Cameron Mitchell's off-Broadway production of Kingdom of Earth.Sarsgaard made his screen debut in Tim Robbins' Dead Man Walking (1995) but had his first substantial role in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), which cast him as the ill-fated son of John Malkovich's dueling Muskateer. He then appeared in a series of largely unseen independent features, including Larry Clark's Another Day in Paradise and Morgan J. Freeman's Desert Blue (both 1998). In 1999, Sarsgaard broke out of obscurity with his role in Kimberly Peirce's Boys Don't Cry. Cast as a violent yet charismatic ex-con, the actor managed to stand out in a film saturated with strong performances, and the film's unanticipated success provided him with an introduction to a wide audience. His increased profile was reflected in the number of projects he was involved with the following year, including P.J. Hogan's Unconditional Love, a drama about a woman (Kathy Bates) who joins forces with the lover of a dead pop star to track down the star's murderer.Sarsgaard reached a new level of critical acclaim with his supporting performances in two little-seen but highly praised features: 2003's journalist drama Shattered Glass and 2004's biopic Kinsey. In the former, he played dedicated, soft-spoken New Republic editor Chuck Lane, who becomes increasingly more agitated as he catches hotshot reporter Steven Glass fabricating stories. Racking up scores of Best Supporting Actor nods from critics' groups and the Golden Globes, it seemed inevitable that the Academy would recognize Sarsgaard, but he was passed over. A similar fate occurred with Kinsey, in which the actor convincingly played the curious, bisexual assistant - and occasional lover - of the sex researcher.Though ignored by the Oscars, Sarsgaard found his profile rising with powerful casting directors, and in turn, the public. After memorably essaying the role of a stoner gravedigger in the popular 2004 indie Garden State, the actor broke through to mass audiences in 2005 with a trio supporting performances in big-budget genre films: the supernatural thriller The Skeleton Key, the blockbuster Flighplan, and the war memoir Jarhead. Bringing his distinctively low-key delivery to a range of parts that were by turns mystical, sinister and conflicted, Sarsgaard secured his place in the pantheon of great Hollywood character actors.Saarsgard delivered solid performances in Year of the Dog and Rendition (both 2007), and co-starred with Dennis Hopper and Patricia Clarkson for the psychological drama Elegy in 2008. The following year he played the role of a man who becomes increasingly concerned about the behavior of his adoptive daughter for The Orphan, and took on the part of the much-older boyfriend of a 16-year-old girl (Carey Mulligan) for the coming of age drama An Education. Saarsgard joined Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise for a supporting role in the action comedy Knight and Day (2010), and joined the cast of The Green Lantern in 2011.

Trivia: Grew up in a devoutly religious family in Dayton, OH, where his father is a Pentecostal minister; learned to play the drums in church. One of first auditions in Hollywood was for the title role in the 2005 CBS biopic Elvis, which ultimately went to Jonathan Rhys Meyers. In 2007, started playing drums for the rock band Mitchells Folly, who released their debut album, Whirlwind, in 2008. At the 2008 Breckenridge Festival of Film, shared a Best Supporting Actor Award with costar Dan McCabe for War Eagle, Arkansas. His competition for the buzzed-about role of Ryan Lafferty on ABC's Brothers & Sisters included actors Jason Ritter and Scott Porter.

Trivia: Has British and Swiss-German ancestry. Attended high school with actor Lee Pace and remains good friends with him. Got his acting start in a Houston stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire while in high school. After graduating from college, moved to New York and landed recurring roles on daytime soaps All My Children and Guiding Light. Was tipped to star in Superman Returns (2006), until a change of directors led to Brandon Routh being cast as the titular superhero. Gained a higher profile with starring roles on the short-lived ABC drama Traveler and the acclaimed USA Network series White Collar. Named People magazine's Sexiest Rising Star in 2009. Was awarded a Golden Globe in 2015 for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in The Normal Heart. Supports 12 charities involving research into AIDS and cancer, as well as equal rights and family life.

Trivia: Washington native Cam Gigandet is perhaps best known as the mysterious Kevin Volchok on the popular nighttime soap The O.C.. Like a lot of young actors, he started his career making small appearances on popular TV shows like CSI, but by 2005, the 23 year old had scored the recurring role that would make him famous, and he quickly became a well-known face to thousands of fans. When his role on the show ended, Gigandet moved on to films like 2008's Never Back Down, but his next major career move wouldn't come until later that year with the movie Twilight. A film adaptation of a wildly popular series of young-adult novels, the movie showcased Gigandet's dark charm with the role of James, a beautiful but villainous vampire. In 2010 he was cast in the musical Burlesque and took a part in the sleeper hit Easy A. The next year he appeared in Trespass and The Roommate. In 2014, he returned to TV in the short-lived series Reckless.

Trivia: Wrote and acted in 1997's Paradise Falls, which won awards at the Atlanta Film Festival, the Hollywood Film Awards, and WorldFest Charleston. Son Jackson Bridgers acted with him in two separate series: Deadwood and Justified. Won Best Actor award at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival for his star turn in The Woman. In 2012, he wrote and directed a short film, The Birthday Present, starring his daughter Kate. Started an independent film production company, Travelin' Productions, with friend Michael Hemschoot.

Trivia: Received his Ph.D. in American History from Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, in 2013. Moved to California in the early 2000s to break into acting, but was initially unsuccessful so he chose to further his academic career instead. Appeared on stage in productions of Les Misérables and Jesus Christ Superstar. Wrote a dissertation on Pope Gregory I and his role "in developing permanent ecclesiastical institutions under the authority of the Bishop of Rome to feed and serve the poor." Founded independent production company Historia Films in July, 2012. Directed a 30-second commercial featuring Brett Favre to enter in PetSafe's Bark for Your Park contest in 2014, and won $25,000 for the building of a dog park in his hometown of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Wrote and directed his first feature film The Historian, which starred Colin Cunningham and William Sadler, in 2014.

Trivia: During his lifetime, it was hard to determine when and where actor Yul Brynner was born, simply because he changed the story in every interview; confronted with these discrepancies late in life, he replied, "Ordinary mortals need but one birthday." At any rate, it appears that Brynner's mother was part Russian, his father part Swiss, and that he lived in Russia until his mother moved the family to Manchuria and then Paris in the early '30s. He worked as a trapeze artist with the touring Cirque D'Hiver, then joined a repertory theater company in Paris in 1934. Brynner's fluency in Russian and French enabled him to build up a following with the Czarist expatriates in Paris, and his talents as a singer/guitarist increased his popularity. And when Michael Chekhov hired Brynner for his American theater company, he added a third language -- English -- to his repertoire. After several years of regional acting, Brynner was hired by the Office of War Information as an announcer for their French radio service. In 1945, Brynner was cast as Tsai-Yong in the musical play Lute Song, which starred Mary Martin; the production opened on Broadway in 1946, and, though its run was short, Brynner won the Most Promising Actor Donaldson award. He went on to do theater in London and direct early live television programs in the States, including a children's puppet show, Life With Snarky Parker. In 1949, the actor made his movie debut as a two-bit smuggler in a Manhattan-filmed quickie Port of New York, which has taken on a video-store life of its own since lapsing into the public domain. On the strength of his Lute Song work of several years earlier, Brynner was cast as the King of Siam in Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1951 musical The King and I. The play was supposed to be a vehicle for Gertrude Lawrence, with the king an important but secondary role; but so powerful was Brynner's work that the role was beefed up in rehearsal, causing supporting actor Murvyn Vye to quit the show when Vye's only song was cut to give more stage time to Brynner. The King and I was an enormous hit, supplying Brynner with the role of a lifetime, one in which he would repeat brilliantly in the 1956 film version -- and win an Oscar in the process. Cecil B. DeMille, impressed by Brynner's King performance, cast the actor as the Egyptian Pharoah Rameses I in DeMille's multimillion-dollar blockbuster The Ten Commandments (1956). It became difficult for Brynner to play a "normal" character after this, so he seldom tried, although he came close to subtle believability in Anastasia (1956) and The Journey (1959). The first baldheaded movie idol, Brynner occasionally donned a wig or, as in Taras Bulba (1962), a Russian pigtail, but his fans (particularly the ladies) preferred him "scalped," as it were. Outside of his film work, Brynner was also an accomplished photographer, and many of his pictures appeared in major magazine spreads or were used as official studio production stills. Hollywood changed radically in the '70s, and the sort of larger-than-life fare in which Brynner thrived thinned out; so, in 1972, the actor agreed to re-create his King and I role in an expensive weekly TV series, Anna and the King. But it lasted all of eight weeks. Brynner's last major film role was in the sci-fi thriller Westworld (1973) as a murderously malfunctioning robot, dressed in Western garb reminiscent of the actor's wardrobe in 1960's The Magnificent Seven. What could have been campy or ludicrous became a chilling characterization in Brynner's hands; his steady, steely-eyed automaton glare as he approached his human victims was one of the more enjoyably frightening filmgoing benefits of the decade. In 1977, Brynner embarked upon a stage revival of The King and I, and though he was dogged by tales of his outrageous temperament and seemingly petty demands during the tour, audiences in New York and all over the country loved the show. The actor inaugurated a second King tour in 1985; this time, however, he knew he was dying of lung cancer, but kept the news from both his fans and co-workers. Unable to perform the "Shall We Dance" waltz or get all the words out for the song "A Puzzlement," Brynner nonetheless played to packed audiences willing to shell out 75 dollars per ticket. Two months after the play closed in 1985, Brynner died in a New York hospital -- still insisting that his public not know the severity of his condition until after his death, although he had recorded a dramatic public-service announcement to be broadcast afterward that blamed the illness on smoking.

Trivia: British video artist Steve McQueen (not to be confused with the Hollywood actor of the same name) distinguished himself by working in a laudably diverse number of mediums; though he began with film-related projects, he quickly branched out to include such mediums as sculpture and still photography. He began his formal training by studying at the Chelsea School of Art and at Goldsmith College in London, where he began making student films. Early short-subject works were done almost exclusively in black-and-white, without sound; they included the short Bear (1993) (depicting a brief and unusual encounter between two naked men), the 1997 Deadpan (with a gentleman standing in the middle of a building as it repeatedly falls down around him), and Drumroll (1998), for which McQueen affixed cameras to a barrel and rolled the barrel through Manhattan streets. McQueen shot and released his debut mainstream feature in 2008; entitled Hunger and starring Brian Milligan and Liam McMahon, it dramatizes the last painful months of Bobby Sands, a famous IRA (Irish Republican Army) activist who protested his brutal treatment by guards in Belfast's Maze Prison by undergoing a debilitating hunger strike and ultimately starving himself to death. His next film, the psychological sex drama Shame (2011), starred Michael Fassbender as a successful New York City executive whose debilitating sex addition slowly boils to the surface during an unexpected visit from his sister, a talented young chanteuse. An intense and challenging film, Shame earned the emerging director both a CinemAvvenire Award and a FIPRESCI Prize at the 2011 Venice Film Festival, and a Volpi Cup for star Fassbinder.

Trivia: Long before earning his B.A. from the University of Texas and his M.A. in Education from C.C.N.Y., Eli Wallach made his first on-stage appearance in a 1930 amateur production. After World War II service and intensive training at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, the bumpy-nosed, gravel-voiced Wallach debuted on Broadway in Skydrift (1945). In 1951, he won a Tony award for his portrayal of Alvaro Mangiaco in Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo. Though a staunch advocate of "The Method," Wallach could never be accused of being too introspective on-stage; in fact, his acting at times was downright ripe -- but deliciously so. He made his screen debut in Baby Doll (1956) playing another of Tennessee Williams' abrasive Latins, in this instance the duplicitous Silva Vaccaro; this performance earned Wallach the British equivalent of the Oscar. He spent the bulk of his screen time indulging in various brands of villainy, usually sporting an exotic accent (e.g., bandit leader Calvera in The Magnificent Seven [1960]). Perhaps his most antisocial onscreen act was the kidnapping of Hayley Mills in The Moon-Spinners (1965). Even when playing someone on "our" side, Wallach usually managed to make his character as prickly as possible: a prime example is Sgt. Craig in The Victors (1963), who manages to be vituperative and insulting even after his face is blown away. Busy on stage, screen, and TV into the 1990s, Wallach has played such unsavory types as a senile, half-blind hitman in Tough Guys (1986) and candy-munching Mafioso Don Altobello in The Godfather III (1990). He continued to work steadily into the 1990s with parts in the Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes, the remake of Night and the City, Article 99, and narrating a number of documentaries. He didn't slow down much at all during the 21st century, appearing in the comedy Keepin the Faith, Clint Eastwood's Oscar Winning Mystic River, and The Hoax. In 2010 he acted for Roman Polanski in his thriller The Ghost Writer, and for Oliver Stone in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which was to be his last film role; Wallach died in 2014 at age 98.His television work has included an Emmy-winning performance in the 1967 all-star TV movie The Poppy Is Also a Flower and the continuing role of mob patriarch Vincent Danzig in Our Family Honor. Married since 1948 to actress Anne Jackson, Wallach has appeared on-stage with his wife in such plays as The Typists and the Tiger, Luv, and Next, and co-starred with her in the 1967 comedy film The Tiger Makes Out. Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson are the parents of special effects director Peter Wallach.

Trivia: Has stated that he didn't fit in at school and it was his drama teacher who encouraged him to take up a career in acting. Played the role of Romeo and other main roles at school. Takes his stage name from his grandfather's first name. Once played a tree in a play with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Had never ridden a horse before he began working on the film War Horse. Has Type 1 Diabetes and participated in a medical trial that tested an artificial pancreas. Is interested in military history and collects weapons from the First and Second World Wars. Almost gave up acting to become a welder prior to landing his big break in War Horse in 2011. One of his grandfathers was Sir Ralph Lilley Turner, an eminent linguistics specialist and university administrator.

Trivia: Son of a first-generation Puerto Rican mother.Lived in Rockland County for 10 years so he could attend a private school.The first song he sang on a stage was Mariah Carey's "Hero" when he was 11.Studied at the Professional Performing Arts School in New York.Has a minor degree in Gender and Sexuality Studies from Marymount Manhattan College.Recorded his audition for Penny Dreadful on an iPhone, in his dressing room while working in the movie Stonewall (2015).

Trivia: Actor Caleb Landry Jones made his film debut as a boy on a bicycle in the 2007 Cohen Brothers thriller No Country for Old Men. He soon moved on to more prominent roles, however, with appearances in 2010's The Last Exorcism and Friday Night Lights. Growing into steadily more mature characters throughout the coming years, Jones soon found himself acting alongside cinematic heavyweights, such as Mark Wahlberg in 2012's Contraband.

Trivia: Bearing the sort of sensual, androgynous looks that would have landed him in Calvin Klein ads if he hadn't gone into acting, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers has been making a name for himself in roles that call for a certain kind of alluringly deviant behavior. Since 1996, Rhys-Meyers has given trouble a good name in such films as Velvet Goldmine and The Governess. Born July 27, 1977, in Dublin, Ireland, Rhys-Meyers led a tumultuous childhood after his father abandoned his family when the actor was only two and a half. His troubles accumulated as he grew older, culminating with his being kicked out of school at the age of 16. Rhys-Meyers took to hanging about in pool halls, where he was discovered by a casting agent. The agent encouraged him to audition for the film War of the Buttons; when Rhys-Meyers failed to get the part, he gave up on acting. However, he was soon asked to do some commercials, which in turn led to his film debut with a small role in A Man of No Importance (1994). A starring role as an errant runaway in The Disappearance of Finbar (1996) followed, as did a brief but memorable turn as the assassin of the titular hero in Michael Collins (1996). After more film work, including a supporting role as Brad Renfro's nemesis in Telling Lies in America, Rhys-Meyers landed the lead in Todd Haynes' much-anticipated Velvet Goldmine (1998). Despite the hype surrounding the director's celebration of and requiem for the early-'70s glam rock scene, as well as the presence of actors Christian Bale, Toni Collette, and Ewan McGregor, the film was far from a critical or box office smash, despite developing a loyal cult following. However, Rhys-Meyers continued to stay busy, making The Governess with Minnie Driver the same year and Michael Radford's B. Monkey the next (the film would eventually be released the following year). In 1999, he starred in a number of high-profile projects: in addition to Mike Figgis' The Loss of Sexual Innocence, he appeared as part of a "hot young things" lineup in Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil, starring with such up-and-comers as Tobey Maguire and Skeet Ulrich, and then turned his talents to interpreting Shakespeare in Titus, Julie Taymor's adaptation of Titus Andronicus.While continuing to appear in independent, left-of-center films such as Prozac Nation and Happy Now, Rhys-Meyers had a bit of a mainstream breakthrough when the indie comedy Bend It Like Beckham became a surprise hit in 2003. This might have made the actor's unique face more familiar to movie makers, as he was soon seen with Reese Witherspoon in the period movie Vanity Fair, and in the Oliver Stone epic Alexander. These main-stream successes were nothing, however, compared to the coveted role of Elvis Presley that he won in 2005. The high-profile CBS mini series Elvis exposed Rhys-Myers to American audiences like never before, and he picked up a Golden Globe Award for his performance. That same year, the Irish lad starred with Scarlett Johansson in the Woody Allen drama Match Point. Widely regarded as the best movie from the legendary director in well over ten years, the role helped to cement Rhys-Myer's position in American cinema, as evidenced by the fact that he soon afterward joined the cast of action thriller Mission Impossible III.

Trivia: Like many of his Canadian contemporaries, actor Matt Craven broke into films by way of such adolescent sex comedies as Meatballs (1979) and Hog Wild (1980). Craven honed his acting skills on the off-Broadway stage, beginning with the 1984 production Blue Willows. He has since contributed supporting performances to films like Blue Steel (1990), A Few Good Men (1992), and Crimson Tide (1995). Matt Craven's TV-series roles include bartender Ritchie Massina in the Robby Benson starrer Tough Cookies (1986) and Bobby Kratz in the Alan Arkin vehicle Harry (1987). In 1998, Craven was part of an ensemble cast for the medical drama L.A. Doctors. In the 21st century he enjoyed a brief recurring role on the hit medical dram ER and appeared in moves such as Dragonfly and Timeline. He continued to work steadily on a wide variety of projects including The Life of David Gale, the TV series The Lyon's Den, the remake of Assault on Precinct 13, Disturbia, Public Enemies, and the superhero prequel X-Men: First Class.

Trivia: Is of German Jewish and Irish Catholic descent. His parents met in the Bronx while studying medicine. Moved with his family to Oregon while he was six months old and was raised in the Portland area. Was hired for an Adidas commercial after stumbling into an audition, having just shaved his head in the wake of a bad breakup. Was recommended to director Nicolas Winding Refn for Neon Demon by his Love director Gaspar Noé.

Trivia: An actor whose hulking presence belies his ability to slip quietly into an astonishing variety of roles, Vincent D'Onofrio is one of Hollywood's most unpredictable and compelling performers. Throughout his career, D'Onofrio has played a diverse range of characters, from Full Metal Jacket's fatally unhinged army recruit to a wholly convincing Orson Welles in Ed Wood to a bisexual porn star in The Velocity of Gary.Born in Brooklyn, NY, on June 30, 1959, D'Onofrio was raised in the diverse locales of Hawaii, Colorado, and Miami's Hialeah section. His career as an actor began on the stage, with study under Sonia Moore of New York's American Stanislavsky Theatre and Sharon Chatten at the Actors Studio. D'Onofrio's early years in the theater were filled with an obligatory helping of obscurity and miniscule paychecks (so miniscule that he worked for a time as a bouncer to help pay the bills). His fortunes began to shift in 1984, when he joined the American Stanislavsky Theatre as a performer. There, he appeared in such well-regarded productions as Of Mice and Men and David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and also made his Broadway debut in Open Admissions.D'Onofrio debuted onscreen in the straight-to-oblivion 1983 comedy The First Turn-On!, but it was not until his haunting portrayal of Pvt. Pyle (a role for which the actor gained 70 pounds) four years later in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket that he earned much-deserved notice for his work. Defying easy categorization, D'Onofrio next appeared in the romantic comedy Mystic Pizza (1988), slimming down to his normal weight and giving a convincing portrayal as Lili Taylor's lovestruck boyfriend.Having thus given audiences a glimpse of his remarkable versatility, D'Onofrio spent the next few years making his presence felt in such films as JFK (1991), in which he played assassination witness Bill Newman; The Player (1992), which cast him in the pivotal role of ill-fated screenwriter David Kahane; and Nancy Savoca's Household Saints (1993), which, through a particularly odd feat of casting, had him playing the father of Lili Taylor. Although D'Onofrio worked at a prolific pace, it was not until he portrayed Conan the Barbarian author Robert E. Howard in the 1996 The Whole Wide World that he really had his screen breakthrough. A low-key romantic drama about the relationship between Howard and a schoolteacher (Renée Zellweger), the film allowed D'Onofrio to take center stage, rather than lend support to better-known co-stars. Critics roundly applauded his performance, but although the actor kept working steadily, he was by no means a Hollywood fixture. Eschewing the limelight, he turned in particularly memorable performances in Feeling Minnesota (1996) as Cameron Diaz's cuckolded fiancé and in the 1997 blockbuster Men in Black, which cast him as the film's resident bad guy.D'Onofrio had long since become an established actor by the 2000's, and he would remain a solid force on screen in such films as The Cell, Happy Accidents, Steal This Movie, andThumbsucker. D'Onofrio would also find just as much notoriety on the small screen, most notably as Detective Robert Goren on the phenomenally successful Law & Order spin-off Criminal Intent, and even step behind the camera, penning, helming and starring in the drama Mall.