Trivia: Although she initially gained fame for her real-life role as Brad Pitt's girlfriend, Gwyneth Paltrow went on to build a solid reputation as one of the leading actresses of her generation. Repeatedly summoning comparisons to such classic presences as Grace Kelly, the blonde, blue-eyed Paltrow has won acclaim for her parts in a number of films, most notably Shakespeare in Love, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar in 1999.The daughter of actress Blythe Danner and producer/director Bruce Paltrow, Paltrow was born in Los Angeles on September 28, 1972. When she was 11, her family moved to Massachusetts so that her father could direct summer stock productions -- it was there that the actress began to receive theatrical training under her parents' tutelage. Schooled at Manhattan's exclusive Spence School, Paltrow went on to study anthropology at the University of California before deciding to drop out to pursue her acting career. She got her first screen role in the 1991 movie Shout and in the same year she played the young Wendy in Steven Spielberg's Hook.Two years later, Paltrow made her first significant impression with a chilling turn as a young con artist in Flesh and Bone. She went on to minor but memorable roles in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) and Jefferson in Paris (1995) before earning her first true taste of fame with her part as Brad Pitt's wife in Seven (1995). Unfortunately, she got more attention for her status as the actor's girlfriend than for her work in the film, becoming one of the world's most photographed arm ornaments.However, the actress was able to come into her own the following year with the title role in Douglas McGrath's adaptation of Emma. She won acclaim for her work and her flawless British accent, and the same year she could be seen in two more films: The Pallbearer, with David Schwimmer, and Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight. However, it was not until 1998 -- having broken off her engagement with Pitt the previous year -- that Paltrow became better-known for her acting than for her ability to look good in designer evening gowns. That year, she had starring roles in no less than five films. Although both Hush and A Perfect Murder proved disappointments, and Great Expectations received mixed reviews, Paltrow's two English excursions, the comedy Sliding Doors and John Madden's Shakespeare in Love, netted positive receptions. The latter film drew particular acclaim, eventually winning seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress for Paltrow.The following year, she had the lead in another high-profile project, Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley. Starring opposite Matt Damon, Jude Law, and Cate Blanchett, Paltrow took part in a film that boasted one of the most photogenic collections of young stars that audiences had seen that year and it further enhanced her reputation as one of the most celebrated members of her generation to step in front of a camera. As photogenic as she may be, however, Paltrow's healthy sense of humor would give the delicate actress the gusto she needed to take on the role of a 300-pound object of funnyman Jack Black's affection in the Farrelly brothers' cheerfully offensive Shallow Hal in 2001. With roles in The Anniversary Party, Possession, and Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums that same year, Paltrow's versatility and popularity showed no signs of waning - even if the subsequent flight attendant comedy View From the Top didn't even climb high enough at the box office to take a nosedive.Of course the failure of View From the Top could not be placed squarely on the shoulders of Paltrow, and given the film's troubled production history it's a small wonder that the film was released at all. If that film had simply been a glazed-over comedy that gave its starlet little chance to shine, Paltrow would close out the year with a commendable and notably heavier performance in Sylvia. A film based on the life of literary legend Sylvia Plath, Sylvia couldn't have been more different than A View From the Top and provided Paltrow with a role she could truly sink her teeth into. Both her performance as well as the film itself fared fairly well through the duration of its limited art-house run, despite the fact that Plath's real life daughter Frieda Hughes publicly denounced the endeavor. The film also provided Paltrow with the opportunity to appear onscreen opposite her real-life mother Danner, who also played her ill-fated character's mother in the film.In the wake of her accolades from Sylvia, Paltrow closed out 2003 by wedding Coldplay singer Chris Martin. The new family would soon expand five months later with the birth of their first child, a girl they bestowed with the unique moniker Apple Martin. But family life didn't slow Paltrow's film career too much. By Autumn she could be seen opposite Jude Law in the sci-fi actioner Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and before the close of the year, audiences could catch her in director John Madden's Proof. Paltrow played a supporting role in the drama Infamous in (2006), and co-starred with Joaquin Phoenix in the 2008 romantic drama Two Lovers. Paltrow appeared in Iron Man (2008) and Iron Man 2 (2011) as the loyal assistant of zillionaire and hero du jour Tony Stark. The actress played a brief but vital role in Steven Soderbergh's Contagion in 2011, and reprised her role of Pepper Potts for the summer blockbusters The Avengers in 2012 and Iron Man 3 in 2013.

Trivia: Born on December 31, 1937, as the only son of a baker, Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins was drawn to the theater while attending the YMCA at age 17, and later learned the basics of his craft at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1960, Hopkins made his stage bow in The Quare Fellow, and then spent four years in regional repertory before his first London success in Julius Caesar. Combining the best elements of the British theater's classic heritage and its burgeoning "angry young man" school, Hopkins worked well in both ancient and modern pieces. His film debut was not, as has often been cited, his appearance as Richard the Lionhearted in The Lion in Winter (1968), but in an odd, "pop-art" film, The White Bus (1967).Though already familiar to some sharp-eyed American viewers after his film performance as Lloyd George in Young Winston (1971), Hopkins burst full-flower onto the American scene in 1974 as an ex-Nazi doctor in QB VII, the first television miniseries. Also in 1974, Hopkins made his Broadway debut in Equus, eventually directing the 1977 Los Angeles production. The actor became typed in intense, neurotic roles for the next several years: in films he portrayed the obsessed father of a girl whose soul has been transferred into the body of another child in Audrey Rose (1976), an off-the-wall ventriloquist in Magic (1978), and the much-maligned Captain Bligh (opposite Mel Gibson's Fletcher Christian) in Bounty (1982). On TV, Hopkins played roles as varied (yet somehow intertwined) as Adolph Hitler, accused Lindbergh-baby kidnapper Bruno Richard Hauptmann, and the Hunchback of Notre Dame.In 1991, Hopkins won an Academy Award for his bloodcurdling portrayal of murderer Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. With the aplomb of a thorough professional, Anthony Hopkins was able to follow-up his chilling Lecter with characters of great kindness, courtesy, and humanity: the conscience-stricken butler of a British fascist in The Remains of the Day (1992) and compassionate author C. S. Lewis in Shadowlands (1993). In 1995, Hopkins earned mixed acclaim and an Oscar nomination for his impressionistic take (done without elaborate makeup) on President Richard M. Nixon in Oliver Stone's Nixon. After his performance as Pablo Picasso in James Ivory's Surviving Picasso (1996), Hopkins garnered another Oscar nomination -- this time for Best Supporting Actor -- the following year for his work in Steven Spielberg's slavery epic Amistad. Following this honor, Hopkins chose roles that cast him as a father figure, first in the ploddingly long Meet Joe Black and then in the have-mask-will-travel swashbuckler Mask of Zorro with Antonio Banderas and fellow countrywoman Catherine Zeta-Jones. In his next film, 1999's Instinct, Hopkins again played a father, albeit one of a decidedly different stripe. As anthropologist Ethan Powell, Hopkins takes his field work with gorillas a little too seriously, reverting back to his animal instincts, killing a couple of people, and alienating his daughter (Maura Tierney) in the process.Hopkins kept a low profile in 2000, providing narration for Ron Howard's live-action adaptation of Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas and voicing the commands overheard by Tom Cruise's special agent in John Woo's Mission: Impossible 2. In 2001, Hopkins returned to the screen to reprise his role as the effete, erudite, eponymous cannibal in Ridley Scott's Hannibal, the long-anticipated sequel to Jonathan Demme's Silence of the Lambs (1991). The 160-million-dollar blockbuster did much for Hopkins' bank account but little for his standing with the critics, who by and large found Hannibal to be a stylish, gory exercise in illogical tedium. Worse yet, some wags suggested that the actor would have been better off had he followed his Silence co-star Jodie Foster's lead and opted out of the sequel altogether. Later that year, the moody, cloying Stephen King adaptation Hearts in Atlantis did little to repair his reputation with critics or audiences, who avoided the film like the plague.The long-delayed action comedy Bad Company followed in 2002, wherein audiences -- as well as megaproducer Jerry Bruckheimer -- learned that Chris Rock and Sir Anthony Hopkins do not a laugh-riot make. But the next installment in the cash-cow Hannibal Lecter franchise restored a bit of luster to the thespian's tarnished Hollywood career. Red Dragon, the second filmed version of Thomas Harris' first novel in the Lecter series, revisited the same territory previously adapted by director Michael Mann in 1986's Manhunter, with mixed but generally positive results. Surrounding Hopkins with a game cast, including Edward Norton, Ralph Finnes, Harvey Keitel and Emily Watson, the Brett Ratner film garnered some favorable comparisons to Demme's 1991 award-winner, as well as some decent -- if not Hannibal-caliber -- returns at the box office.Hopkins would face his biggest chameleon job since Nixon with 2003's highly anticipated adaptation of Philip Roth's Clinton-era tragedy The Human Stain, a prestige Miramax project directed by Robert Benton and co-starring Nicole Kidman, fresh off her Oscar win for The Hours. Hopkins plays Stain's flawed protagonist Coleman Silk, an aging, defamed African-American academic who has been "passing" as a Jew for most of his adult life. Unfortunately, most critics couldn't get past the hurtle of accepting the Anglo-Saxon paragon as a light-skinned black man. The film died a quick death at the box office and went unrecognized in year-end awards.2004's epic historical drama Alexander re-united Hopkins and Nixon helmer Oliver Stone in a three-hour trek through the life and times of Alexander the Great. The following year, Hopkins turned up in two projects, the first being John Madden's drama Proof. In this Miramax release, Hopkins plays Robert, a genius mathematician who - amid a long descent into madness - devises a formula of earth-shaking proportions. That same year's comedy-drama The World's Fastest Indian saw limited international release in December 2005; it starred Hopkins - ever the one to challenge himself by expanding his repertoire to include increasingly difficult roles - as New Zealand motorcycle racer Burt Munro, who set a land speed record on his chopper at the Utah Bonneville Flats. The quirky picture did limited business in the States but won the hearts of many viewers and critics.He then joined the ensemble cast of the same year's hotly-anticipated ensemble drama Bobby, helmed by Emilio Estevez, about the events at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles just prior to RFK's assassination. Hopkins plays John Casey, one of the hotel proprietors.Hopkins long held true passions in arenas other than acting - specifically, painting and musical composition. As for the former, Hopkins started moonlighting as a painter in the early 2000s, and when his tableaux first appeared publicly, at San Antonio's Luciane Gallery in early 2006, the canvases sold out within six days. Hopkins is also an accomplished symphonic composer and the author of several orchestral compositions, though unlike some of his contemporaries (such as Clint Eastwood) his works never supplemented movie soundtracks and weren't available on disc. The San Antonio Symphony performed a few of the pieces for its patrons in spring 2006.Hopkins would remain a prolific actor over the next several years, appearing in films like The Wolfman, Thor, and 360.Formerly wed to actress Petronella Barker and to Jennifer Lynton, Hopkins married his third wife, actress and producer Stella Arroyave, in March 2003.

Trivia: As the offspring of producer/writer Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal, it is not surprising that Jake Gyllenhaal has been acting since childhood. Raised in Los Angeles, Gyllenhaal acted in school plays and made his winsome screen debut when he was in the fifth grade, playing Billy Crystal's son in the blockbuster summer comedy City Slickers (1991). Keeping it in the family while acting with some of the industry's most notable talents, Gyllenhaal subsequently appeared in his parents' 1993 adaptation of the novel A Dangerous Woman with Debra Winger, and played Robin Williams' son in a 1994 episode of TV's Homicide that was directed by his father. Poised to make the transition from child to adult actor, Gyllenhaal earned rave reviews, heralding him as a star in the making, for his emotionally sincere performance as real-life rocket builder Homer Hickam in the warmly received drama October Sky (1999). Though he opted to stay in school and attend college at Columbia University, Gyllenhaal continued his creative pursuits, playing in a rock band and starring as the oddball title character alongside Drew Barrymore in the Barrymore-produced Sundance Film Festival entrant Donnie Darko (2001). Gyllenhaal could be seen later that same year as the titular character in the ill-fated Bubble Boy.After co-starring on the London stage in This Is Our Youth in spring 2002, Gyllenhaal was declared one half of Entertainment Weekly's "It Gene Pool" (with sister Maggie Gyllenhaal) for his aversion to taking the easy, teen flick route. In keeping with his preference for off-center work, Gyllenhaal coincidentally played the younger love object of choice in two consecutive indie comedies, appearing as Catherine Keener's sensitive boss in Nicole Holofcener's slyly witty Lovely & Amazing (2002) and Jennifer Aniston's enticing yet disturbed co-worker in Miguel Arteta's sardonic The Good Girl (2002). As further proof that he had the acting chops to go with his sad-eyed good looks, Gyllenhaal subsequently co-starred with Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon as a young man enmeshed in his dead fiancée's family in Moonlight Mile (2002).With his star on the rise and his status as a heartthrob all but cemented, it became impossible for Gyllenhaal to avoid the draw of a big summer blockbuster. In 2004, he starred alongside Dennis Quaid in the mega-budgeted The Day After Tomorrow, and the success of that film put him in another league altogether. What followed was an interesting, challenging mix of roles for the young actor. He could be seen in the fall of 2005 starring in no less than three high-profile prestige films, all of them adaptations: the delayed big-screen version of the Pulitzer-prize winning play Proof, with Gwyneth Paltrow; the Gulf War memoir Jarhead, directed by American Beauty wunderkind Sam Mendes; and Ang Lee's cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain. The first two films received an indifferent response by critics, even though Jarhead's opening-weekend gross confirmed Gyllenhaal's bankability. Lee's film, however, garnered the most acclaim of 2005, and offered him perhaps his riskiest, most rewarding role to date. Playing the closeted, romantically frustrated rancher Jack Twist, Gyllenhaal added heartbreaking shades of vulnerability to his usual frat-boy cockiness, and more than held his own opposite a memorably gruff, taciturn Heath Ledger. As praise was heaped out upon the film and its two male leads, Gyllenhaal found himself the recipient of a BAFTA award, a National Board of Review notice, and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Gyllenhaal would spend the next several years enjoying his status as a leading man, appearing in projects like Zodiac, Brothers, Love and Other Drugs, and Source Code.

Trivia: Displaying a sort of weary Botticelli beauty and a crisp brand of intelligence, Hope Davis has made a name for herself portraying good women wronged by bad men. Playing such characters in her two breakthrough films, The Daytrippers and Next Stop Wonderland, Davis displayed a remarkable blend of lovable bitterness and cynical charm, endearing herself to legions of art house filmgoers who recognized an unmistakable ring of truth in her performances.Born in Englewood, NJ, Davis had a childhood that was notable in part for her friendship with her neighbor across the street, Mira Sorvino. Davis' first brush with acting came when the two girls -- then eight or nine -- wrote a play and performed it for their neighbors. The actress' next encounter with fame came some years later, in the rather dubious form of her bit part as one of Billy Baldwin's used-and-abused girlfriends in the 1990 film Flatliners. Following a bit role as a French ticket agent in the same year's Home Alone, Davis had yet another dubious brush with fame in Kiss of Death (1995), in a role memorable for the sole reason that it required Davis to be bench-pressed by co-star Nicolas Cage. The following year brought with it more auspicious work in The Daytrippers, an independent comedy in which Davis played the suspicious wife of philandering Stanley Tucci. Co-starring Parker Posey, Liev Schreiber, and Anne Meara, the film was a hit on the independent circuit, but Davis would strike even more indie gold in 1998 with her starring role in Brad Anderson's Next Stop Wonderland. Critics adored her performance as Erin, a nurse recovering from a major -- and bitterly hilarious -- breakup with her activist boyfriend (played with joyful loathsomeness by Philip Seymour Hoffman).By this time, the actress had established a niche for herself in the realm of quirky, independently minded films, and she would continue to appear in similar films over the years, like Mumford, About Schmidt, American Splendor, Proof, Charlie Bartlett, The Lodger, and Synechdoche, New York. Davis would also make succesful runs on the small screen, with Six Degrees, In Treatment, and the HBO mini series Mildred Pierce.

Trivia: A native of New Delhi, India, British character actor of theater and film Roshan Seth honed the skills he learned at London's Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in British repertory theater. His first break came in Peter Brook's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which toured in 1972. Seth entered feature films in Richard Lester's Juggernaut (1974), but because subsequent filmmakers only wanted Seth for ethnic roles, his career abruptly stalled. Discouraged, he abandoned acting and returned to India, where he worked as an editor and journalist until the early '80s, when Richard Attenborough asked Seth to play Pandit Nehru in Gandhi (1982). Shortly thereafter, Seth essayed Indian author Victor Mehta and toured the globe in playwright David Hare's biography A Map of the World. After the play's Broadway run, Seth's movie career took off, with roles in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and David Lean's A Passage to India (1984). Seth's subsequent film credits include Mississippi Masala (1992), Street Fighter (1994), and The Journey (1997).

Trivia: Emmigrated to the USA when he was 5-years old in 1952. Performed with the Dinglefest Theatre Company when he was at Northern Illinois University. Worked frequently with the playwright-director David Mamet when he was part of the Chicago theatre scene. Played the role of Mr. Robinson in a Broadway production of The Graduate in 2002. Played the role of Benjamin Franklin in a theatre production of Mr Foote's Other Leg at the Hampstead Theatre in 2015. Involved in a charity auction for Art for Cure, raising money for the care and cure of breast cancer in 2016.

Trivia: Lived in refugee camps in Mozambique until she was 2. Developed her acting skills at a mixed-race theater company, Over the Edge, in Zimbabwe. Received the Trumbull College Arts Prize from Yale University. Is a member of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Council. Founded the charity Sponsored Arts for Education.