Trivia: Born October 3, 1973, in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, Neve Campbell knew she was meant to be on the stage, but not, as many would assume, as an actor. From the age of six, Campbell trained as a dancer, earning a place with the National Ballet School of Canada when she was just nine years old. However, her ambitions to be a professional dancer were cut short by a series of injuries, leading her to pursue an acting career. Campbell got her first break on the 1992 Canadian television series Catwalk, from which she garnered stateside attention. After a string of minor films, Campbell eventually landed the role of Julia Salinger on the TV series Party of Five (1994). While the program was being saved from cancellation by a massive base of fan support, Campbell was finding work in film, first in the teenage coven classic The Craft (1996). Next came a lead role in Wes Craven's horror flick Scream (1996), a huge success that would define American teen films for years to come. It was duly followed up the next year by Scream 2, which, like its predecessor, proved to be enormously popular. In 1998, Campbell appeared in three wildly divergent films, ranging from the small Canadian independent Hair Shirt to 54 to Wild Things, in which Campbell and Denise Richards starred as two high schoolers with morally questionable extracurricular activities. With the concurrent successes of these films and her television work, Campbell has proven herself to be a rare kind of performer, moving effortlessly from television to film and back, without the negative connotations experienced by previous generations of actors. She appeared opposite William H. Macy in the drama Panic in 2000, and got to draw on her dance history by starring in Robert Altman's ballet film The Company. She earned strong reviews for her work in James Toback's drama When Will I Be Loved in 2004. She continued to work steadily, but didn't have a high-profile gig until she returned to the role that first brought her movie success by starring in Scream 4 in 2011.

Trivia: Born on June 15, 1964, Courteney Cox grew up with three older siblings in Mountain Brook, an affluent Alabama town. Though Cox participated in multiple extracurricular activities during her high school years, she did not exercise her taste for acting until she dropped out of the architecture program at Mount Vernon College. Landing a contract with the prestigious Ford Modeling Agency led Cox to several commercial appearances. Her first official role arrived in 1984, when she was cast as a young debutante in one episode of the long-running soap opera As the World Turns.Her big break, however, was rooted in director Brian De Palma's decision to feature Cox as the girl pulled from the audience in Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" video. Years later, after the actress had gained a great deal more notoriety, this short music-video appearance became a key piece of celebrity trivia in a multitude of magazines and entertainment shows. In 1985, she starred alongside Dean Paul Martin in the forgettable series Misfits of Science. Cox reappeared on the television screen as Michael J. Fox's girlfriend, Psychology major Lauren Miller, in the '80s sitcom Family Ties. Though Cox landed bit parts in a handful of mediocre films (Mr. Destiny, The Opposite Sex and How to Live with Them) after Family Ties wrapped in 1989, her status as an actress officially gelled in 1994, when she co-starred with Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, and, most notably, won the role of Monica Geller on the hugely successful sitcom Friends. This role brought her a nomination for an American Comedy Award, as well as a prominent role in Wes Craven's Scream trilogy. Cox's role as the notoriously cutthroat reporter Gale Weathers was significant not only in terms of critical acclaim, but also because the set of Scream was where she met fellow actor David Arquette, whom she married in 1999.Although she certainly attempted to match the big screen-success of her fellow Friends castmates with such efforts as 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001), and The Longest Yard (2005), Cox-Arquette fought a tortuous uphill battle, and never managed to land a part that brought her nearly as much goodwill as the high-strung Monica. She voiced Daisy the Cow in Steve Oedekerk's 2006 animated feature Barnyard, alongside an all-star cast that includes Danny Glover, Kevin James, Wanda Sykes, Sam Elliott and Andie MacDowell. The endeavor became a double-edged sword; on one hand, most critics detested the $50 million picture; on the other, it worked wonders at the box office, as one of the top grossers of its season. Cox-Arquette's decision to join the cast of the family-friendly superhero story Zoom alongside Tim Allen and Chevy Chase didn't prove nearly as capricious. The picture suffered from relentless (though arguably justifiable) critical drubbings and performed abysmally on a commercial front, grossing just over $4 million in the week that followed its premiere - from an estimated $60 million budget. It also became the latest in Allen's long line of box office stinkers that included Christmas with the Kranks, Joe Somebody, and many others; The New York Times's Jeannette Catsoulis moaned that it "bleeds boredom from every frame," while Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwartzbaum observed, "this lifeless family comedy sucks the joy from every joke it touches."That same year, the trades indicated Cox's forthcoming producer credit in longtime husband David Arquette's 2007 directorial debut, the slasher picture The Tripper, with Balthazar Getty, Paul Reubens and Lukas Haas. The Hostel-like story involved a group of potheads who travel to a Woodstock-esque concert for indulgence in sensual (and visceral) pleasures, but find themselves stalked by a psychotic. Cox and Arquette each cameo in the film. 2007 also found Cox returning to TV, producing and starring in the dramatic thriller Dirt, about the seedy side of an already seedy industry - the tabloid press. The show only ran until 2008, but Cox was soon onto the next project, the sitcom Cougar Town, which she produced and starred in as well. By 2011, she was back in the movies, working on Scream 4 -- though during the production of the film, she and husband/co-star David Arquette announced they were separating; their divorce was finalized in 2013.

Trivia: Born September 8, 1971, to a family of entertainers, David Arquette is the youngest brother of actors Rosanna Arquette, Patricia Arquette, and Alexis Arquette, and the son of veteran bit-part actor Lewis Arquette. During David's early years, the family lived on a Virginia commune, but moved to Los Angeles so that Rosanna could pursue an acting career. David first brought his quirky, eccentric persona to the small screen in 1989, with a television adaptation of the film The Outsiders. He had his big screen debut in 1992, when he performed in a number of films, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Where the Day Takes You. Small roles in subsequent features followed, including 1994's Airheads, but it wasn't until his turn as a bumbling deputy in Wes Craven's Scream (1996) that he began to receive wider recognition. The same year, his visibility was further increased by a secondary role in Beautiful Girls and his turn as a struggling prostitute in Johns. 1997 brought with it Scream's highly successful sequel, the accurately titled Scream 2. In addition, it brought Dream With Fishes, a film that Arquette both acted in and co-produced. 1999 was a busy year for the actor, signaling that Hollywood was finding more room to accommodate his offbeat talent. In addition to his recurring spot in a series of creepy AT&T commercials, Arquette had major roles in three movies, the Drew Barrymore romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, Muppets From Space, and Antonia Bird's much maligned Ravenous. Arquette further increased his Hollywood visibility with his marriage to Courteney Cox, whom he wed in April 1999.He starred in the wrestling film Ready to Rumble in 2000, and returned to the Scream franchise that same year for the third film in that series. The next year he appeared as a death camp prisoner in The Grey Zone, and had a part in the action comedy 3000 Miles to Graceland. He starred in the giant-spider movie Eight Legged Freaks and played the father in The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl.In the mid-2000s, Arquette began working mostly in television, but in several different jobs. He directed several episodes of his sister Patricia's show, Medium, and acted as a producer with then-wife Cox on her series Dirt and Cougar Town (he was also a guest star on Medium and Cougar Town). Arquette continued to act, though, and had guest spots on Pushing Daisies and My Name is Earl before returning to the Scream franchise once again in 2011 (even though Arquette and Cox had separated by this point and were headed towards a divorce).Arquette began voicing Skully the parrot on the Disney Junior series Jake and the Neverland Pirates in 2011, and continued the role in the 2014 spin-off, Jake's Buccaneer Blast.

Trivia: The 5' 3," sandy blonde-haired Gen-Y icon Sarah Michelle Gellar's life story reads like a preteen wish fulfillment fantasy. Born in Manhattan in 1977 and discovered by an agent in a Manhattan restaurant at the age of four, Gellar signed for her first role (in the 1983 telemovie An Invasion of Privacy) not one week later. A plethora of bit parts in television series (Spenser: For Hire) and theatrical films (Over the Brooklyn Bridge, 1984; Funny Farm, 1988; High Stakes, 1989) followed, before Gellar landed a recurring role, in the early '90s, on the decades-long daytime soap opera All My Children. Throughout the early years of her career, Gellar was managed and supervised by her mother, a former nursery school teacher who insisted on straight A's as a prerequisite of an acting career. Sarah Michelle delivered, time and again.Despite the apparent fairy tale-like quality of her rise, Gellar reportedly battled several decidedly unhappy experiences as a child, including a parental divorce, decades of estrangement from her father, and social struggles in a New York City high school, experiences parlayed into her first (and most infamous) lead: that of Buffy, a California valley girl high school student-turned-"exterminator of the undead" in the early-'90s syndicated cult fantasy series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Gellar inherited the role from Kristy Swanson, who fleshed it out in the (decidedly more comic) 1992 theatrical release of the same name. Under Gellar's aegis, the show lasted seven years, from 1996 through 2003, and it became a massive international hit, garnering legions of fans. The subject matter of the series required the young actress to engage in rigorous exercise and physical training off-camera throughout Buffy's run.Gellar (a compulsive shopper and brand aficionado off-camera) then signed as a Maybelline spokeswoman and prepared to move into the third phase of her acting career. As Buffy wrapped, it coincided with the resurgence of American teen horror films led by Wes Craven's Scream series, and although Gellar did not join the cast of the first installment, her popularity on Buffy the Vampire Slayer thematically paved the way for involvement in one Scream sequel and one emulator: Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer (both 1997). In 1999, Gellar teamed up with two other notables of the same generation, Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe, for the Dangerous Liaisons teen update Cruel Intentions. As Kathryn Merteuil -- the depraved schemer who coaxes her stepbrother (Phillippe) into deflowering the school headmaster's daughter (Witherspoon), and thus inadvertently sets in motion a chain of disasters that will destroy them all -- Gellar played off of her wholesome, "all-American girl" image and helped turn the picture into a minor hit. Meanwhile, Gellar met and fell in love with Hollywood heartthrob Freddie Prinze Jr. (the son of the ill-fated, late-'70s Hispanic comedian Freddie Prinze), and the two married in Mexico in 2002, the same year they co-starred as Fred and Daphne for director Raja Gosnell in the live-action summer blockbuster Scooby-Doo. Two years later, Gellar and Prinze took the wheel of the Mystery Machine to fight a mischievous specter in 2004's Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Gellar (long a student and admirer of Japanese culture) then traveled to Japan to do battle with some truly frightening entities in the 2004 J-horror remake The Grudge. In that effort, she plays an American student employed at a Japanese health center who uncovers a centuries-old curse that feeds off of anger and guides one victim after another into an unquenchable, violent rage.Subsequent vocal work on the animated cult hit Robot Chicken found the former vampire slayer having a bit of behind-the-scenes fun without the stress of appearing before the camera, and a role as an ambitious porn star teetering on the edge of the apocalypse in director Richard Kelly's eagerly anticipated Donnie Darko follow-up, Southland Tales, preceded a trip back into terror as a successful business woman haunted by a decades-old murder in the 2006 supernatural thriller The Return. In that picture, Gellar plays Joanna Mills, a thick-skinned, courageous Midwestern girl plagued by haunting supernatural visions, who attempts to uncover the origin of these specters. Unfortunately, that film opened to horrendous critical reviews and lackluster box office numbers in November 2006, appearing and disappearing quickly.Gellar would do plenty of voice acting in movies like the family-friendly CG-animated fairy tale Happily N'Ever After and the Weinstein-produced, CG-animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Gellar would ultimately find continued success in TV, however, lending her voice to the animated sketch comedy series Robot Chicken, and her role on the series Ringer.

Trivia: An actor whose name became synonymous with "comic relief" during the late 1990s, Jamie Kennedy made his reputation playing a series of wise-asses in such films as the Scream trilogy and the independent comedy Clockwatchers. Born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, on May 25, 1970, Kennedy showed comedic inclinations from an early age, and first became inspired to pursue an acting career when he was cast as an extra in Dead Poets Society (1989). After high school, Kennedy moved to L.A., where he wanted to have a career as an extra. Unfortunately, Hollywood casting agents had other ideas, and the aspiring actor found himself working odd jobs ranging from a restaurant busboy to a gum-scraper at K-Mart. During this time, he also studied at the American/British Drama Academy and began finding stand-up work at various improv clubs. It was in one of these clubs that he caught the attention of an independent filmmaker and was subsequently cast in the little-seen The Legend of Flin Flon. The actor's bona fide entry into the film industry came with a supporting role in Baz Luhrmann's 1996 William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, in which he played a fuchsia-haired thug. That same year he had a huge breakthrough in Wes Craven's Scream, which cast him as a video store clerk with an unnerving lust for horror movies. The great success of the film opened a number of doors for Kennedy, one of which led to a memorable role as an office boy in Jill Sprecher's well-received independent comedy Clockwatchers (1997), which also starred Lisa Kudrow, Parker Posey, and Toni Collette. The actor also reprised his role for the inevitable Scream 2 (1997) and Scream 3 (2000) and appeared in such slacker extravaganzas as Bongwater and Starf*cker (both 1998).Kennedy got a shot at more grown-up fare with a supporting role in David O. Russell's acclaimed Gulf War drama Three Kings (1999), and a turn as a movie studio gofer in the satirical Bowfinger (1999). His growing popularity was reflected in the number of projects he was involved with in 2000; included amongst them were Ben Younger's The Boiler Room, in which Kennedy played an ambitious young stock broker, and The Specials, an ensemble comedy that cast him as a member of a motley group of superheroes.He appeared in the movies Max Keeble's Big Move and Bug before moving to the small screen to host the series The Jamie Kennedy Experiment. He was the star of the ill-fated sequel Son of the Mask and he was one of the voiceover artists in the comedy Farce of the Penguins. His other projects include Malibu's Most Wanted, Finding Bliss, and Tyler Perry's Good Deeds.

Trivia: Matriculating from Illinois State University, actress Laurie Metcalf was one of the charter members of Chicago's groundbreaking Steppenwolf Theatre troupe. She moved on to New York in the early '80s, winning a 1984 Theatre World Award and an Obie for her performance in Balm in Gilead. In films since 1985, the flexible Metcalf has been seen in director Susan Seidelman's Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) and Making Mr. Right (1987), and also in several other highly regarded productions, notably Uncle Buck (1989), JFK (1991), and Mistress (1992). Metcalf is best known to the TV-watching public for her Emmy-winning portrayal of Roseanne Conner's police-officer sister, Jackie Harris, on the long-running sitcom Roseanne. In 1997, following the demise of her television series, Metcalf turned in a deliciously over-the-top performance as the tightly wound aspiring reporter Debbie Salt in Scream 2. In the decades to come, Metcalfe would find success on shows like Norm and The Big Bang Theory, as well as movies like Stop-Loss Georgia Rule. Despite her hectic schedule, Laurie Metcalf still finds time for an occasional return-to-the-womb appearance at the Steppenwolf Theatre, usually in the company of fellow Steppenwolfians John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, and/or Glenne Headly.

Trivia: Although she may not have achieved her youthful dream of becoming a Solid Gold dancer, some might argue that it was more a matter of overshooting that dream rather than failing to achieve it. Elise Neal still loves to dance, even appearing on Star Search before working professionally as a dancer, though she is more likely to be recognized for her frequent work in television and film.Born in Tenessee, Neal's ballerina beginnings were set into motion after spending long hours in front of the television admiring the cutesy song-and-dance antics of Shirley Temple. A popular teenager, Neal was voted Homecoming Queen, and after high school moved to New York to pursue a career as a dancer. Finding frequent work in musical theater that eventually led to small roles in commercials, Neal soon began to realize her affection for appearing on camera. After moving to L.A. to chase her newfound dreams of becoming a full-time actress, Neal made an appearance on Law & Order before her screen debut in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992). Appearing frequently in television for the next few years with recurring roles in such series as SeaQuest DSV and Tales of the City, Neal later appeared in John Singleton's Rosewood and Money Talks (both 1997) before making a memorable appearance in Scream 2. Moving seamlessly between roles in television and film, Neal moved into sitcom territory with The Hughleys before returning to the screen in 2000 with Mission to Mars.

Trivia: Like Henry Thomas and a few others of the same generation, Jerry O'Connell proves that second acts are far from impossible for Hollywood actors who began their careers as children. O'Connell first gained recognition among film fans as "that fat kid from Stand By Me," when he starred in the 1986 Rob Reiner film at the age of eleven - then experienced a massive physical transformation. Several years and many lost pounds later, O'Connell emerged as a tall, handsome screen lothario, a development that provoked substantial commentary from both film critics and any number of lay viewers.Born in New York City on February 17, 1974, O'Connell enrolled in acting classes at the age of six. He obtained his first professional assignments acting in commercials when he was ten, and a year later made his film debut in the critically acclaimed Stand By Me. Though somewhat overshadowed by the presence of teen idol co-stars River Phoenix and Corey Feldman, O'Connell still managed to win a place in the coming-of-age pantheon. After Stand By Me, he appeared in the memorable syndicated television series My Secret Identity (as a high schooler with superpowers) and enrolled at Manhattan's Professional Children's School. Following his graduation, he attended New York University, where he attained a B.A. in Film and Television in 1995. While still an NYU student, O'Connell appeared in the eminently forgettable Jason Priestley vehicle Calendar Girl (1993).After his college graduation, O'Connell began to pursue thesping full-time. He soon landed a starring role on the sci-fi series Sliders, which, despite low ratings, had a very loyal viewership. In 1996, the actor's popularity grew beyond the confines of television when he starred in both Joe's Apartment and Jerry Maguire. The latter film was a particular success, and O'Connell began to land steady film assignments once again. Next up was the slasher movie Scream 2 (1997), in which he played Neve Campbell's boyfriend. After an uncredited role in the Jennifer Love Hewitt vehicle Can't Hardly Wait (1998), O'Connell returned to television to star as a young Vietnam War soldier in the miniseries The '60s in 1999. That same year, he starred as a neanderthal-like jock in Body Shots, a film about the search for love and/or a lay amongst a group of Los Angeles twentysomethings.At this point, if O'Connell still carried a full resume, he often seemed to alternate between respectable A-list material - such as the disappointing but ambitious Brian De Palma sci-fi'er Mission to Mars (2000) and the generally pleasant family comedy Yours, Mine and Ours (2005) - and ridiculous studio dreck, such as the misogynistic sex comedy Tomcats (2001) and the awful 2002 "family" picture Kangaroo Jack (where the actor co-starred alongside a wisecracking CG-animated marsupial). In fall 2007, O'Connell trekked back to the small screen for one of the three lead roles in the sitcom Carpoolers - about a cadre of male buddies who share rides to and from work each day. O'Connell would spend the next few years appearing in movies like Obsessed and Piranha, in addition to successful TV runs like Do Not Disturb and The Defenders.O'Connell married supermodel and actress Rebecca Romijn in 2007. The two have two children.

Trivia: Bearing the kind of sharp-eyed, vaguely sinister good looks that often get actors cast as charismatic drug dealers or murder suspects, Timothy Olyphant first impressed film audiences playing none other than the resident charismatic drug dealer of Doug Liman's Go (1999). Born in Hawaii on May 20, 1968, Olyphant grew up in California. After attending the University of California, where he swam competitively, the actor made his professional debut in the Playwrights Horizons' production of The Monogamist, for which he won a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Debut Performance. Olyphant's first film appearance came courtesy of a miniscule role in The First Wives Club (1996); somewhat more substantial work followed in 1997's Scream 2, in which the actor was cast as one of Neve Campbell's friends. After a turn in When Trumpets Fade (1998), a critically acclaimed made-for-TV WWII drama, and a memorable guest-shot on an episode of Sex and the City, Olyphant gave a scene-stealing performance in Go, managing to stand out in an ensemble cast that included Sarah Polley, Katie Holmes, Taye Diggs, and Scott Wolf. His work caught the notice of more than one industry observer, and by the following year, the actor had a number of projects in the works. Included among them were The Broken Hearts Club, a comedy that cast Olyphant as a gay photographer; Gone in Sixty Seconds, which featured him as a detective on the trail of a car thief (Nicolas Cage); and Auggie Rose, a drama about assumed identity in which Olyphant played the ex-cellmate of a dead con man. In 2001, Olyphant would turn up in the tale of an aspiring singer who gets to live a dream, Rock Star.Once touted as "the next big thing," Olyphant's stock seemed to drop after attaching himself to a string of duds, most notably the aforementioned Rock Star, Dreamcatcher, and A Man Apart, the latter two both released in 2003. Fortunately, the following year saw things looking up for the actor, with a starring role on the critically acclaimed series from HBO, the Western Deadwood. Over the next several years, Olyphant would appear in films like Live Free or Die Hard and I Am Number Four, in addition to a role on the night time drama Damages, as well as the massively popular series Justified.

Trivia: Standing merely five feet tall, Jada Pinkett Smith is known for her high-energy charm, receiving attention for the spunky role she played in her friend Keenan Ivory Wayans' Low Down Dirty Shame in 1994. She was born on September 18, 1971, in Baltimore, MD, where she grew up and went on to study dance at Baltimore School for the Arts. She then attended North Carolina School of Arts, but dropped out when Wayans found her an agent to launch her acting career.Real notice came when she worked on Bill Cosby's series A Different World starting in 1991. Thereafter she appeared in several films including her more serious roles as the single mother in Menace II Society and the girlfriend in Jason's Lyric (1994). Eddie Murphy's 1996 rendition of The Nutty Professor brought her back to comedy, and the extensive hype around the film allowed her fame to swell. In 1997, she married fellow actor (and former rap star) Will Smith; the following year, she appeared in Woo and Return to Paradise, and gave birth to son Jadan. Pinkett Smith made a cameo in Spike Lee's Bamboozled in 2000, and then returned to a serious lead role in Doug McHenry's Kingdom Come (2001) with Whoopi Goldberg, which was shot while she was pregnant with daughter Willow.Her film career later ramping up with roles in the two Matrix sequels, the Tom Cruise thriller Collateral, and with vocal work in the Madagascar series, Pinkett Smith made the leap to television as a compassion head of nursing on TNT's Hawthorne, which debuted in 2009 and ran for three seasons. An ardent supporter of Barack Obama, Pinkett Smith also fronts the heavy metal band Wicked Wisdom, which released their first CD in 2006, and performed on the Ozzfest tour in 2009.

Trivia: Displaying the kind of off-kilter charm that makes him a natural for leading roles in independent films and character parts in mainstream features, Liev Schreiber has made a name for himself on both circuits. Born October 4, 1967, in San Francisco, Schreiber was raised on New York's Lower East Side. A graduate of Hampshire College in Massachusetts, he initially wanted to become a writer, but later decided to try his hand at acting, training at both London's prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and the Yale School of Drama.Schreiber's first acting job was on Broadway, where he appeared in In the Summer House. More theater work followed and in 1994, the actor made his film debut in the Steve Martin comedy Mixed Nuts. The film was an unequivocal flop, although Schreiber's role as a rather muscular transvestite proved to be one of the picture's few memorable features. His next project, the 1995 indie Denise Calls Up, fared a little better; despite almost non-existent box-office ratings, it was rewarded with critical approval. Following more minor film work, he landed the role of a British bouncer in the successful indie flick Party Girl (1995), which also starred nascent indie queen Parker Posey. Schreiber got an introduction to a more mainstream audience thanks to his role as killer Cotton Weary in Wes Craven's mega-hit Scream, a role he reprised in the film's sequel, Scream 2 (1997). The same year, Schreiber had leading roles in two more independent films, The Daytrippers (which again paired him with Posey) and Walking and Talking, as well as a secondary role in the bloated Mel Gibson thriller Ransom. Deftly straddling the divide between Sundance and the studio, Schreiber went on to make three major mainstream pictures in 1998: Phantoms, with Rose McGowan and Ben Affleck; Twilight with Susan Sarandon, Paul Newman, and Gene Hackman; and Sphere with Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone, and Dustin Hoffman. The following year, Schreiber returned to more familiar territory with his role in Tony Goldwyn's small but successful drama A Walk on the Moon. As the man Diane Lane cuckolds for Viggo Mortensen, Schreiber mined endless possibilities from what could have been a narrow role, giving his character the sort of charming, good-intentioned inadequacy that became one of the actor's trademarks.In 2000, Schreiber returned to the role of Cotton Weary a third time to close out the Scream franchise. It was around this time that he also began doing a considerable amount of voice-over work, mainly for PBS's NOVA series. As the decade progressed, Schreiber continued to be a presence in bigger mainstream projects, such as the 2002 adaptation of Tom Clancy's The Sum of All Fears. Two years later, he could be seen in another high-profile, politically tinged thriller, this time opposite Denzel Washington in director Jonathan Demme's remake of The Manchurian Candidate.In 2005 he made his directorial and screenwriting debut with Everything Is Illuminated, and appeared in the critically acclaimed, Golden Globe-winning HBO movie Lackawanna Blues, a life-affirming film about a selfless black woman (played by S. Epatha Merkerson) in 1950s segregated New York who provides a home and a guiding hand to the youths who come to live at her boarding house. His 2006 project would be quite a departure from this sweet, poignant tale, as Schreiber took the role of Robert Thorne in John Moore's remake of the 1976 horror classic The Omen. Heavily publicized for its "666" release date (June 6th, 2006), the film pleased horror fans, as did Schreiber's performance as husband to Julia Stiles and father to the infamous Damien, a little boy who seems to harbor an evil that at best makes him disturbingly cold and at worst, places him at the crux of the devil's own plan for hell on Earth. Schreiber next went into production on The Painted Veil, an adaptation of the novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Playing the playboy whom Naomi Watts cuckolds her husband with, the actor immersed himself in the part for the drama. Meanwhile, a return to the stage in the lauded revival of Glengarry Glen Ross not only earned Schreiber a Tony award, and in 2005 he made his debut as a film director and screenwriter with the indie Everything Is Illuminated. Always up for new challenges, he played the role of the comic-book supervillain Sabertooth in the 2009 summer blockbuster X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In addition to his acting, Schreiber also has a lucrative career narrating documentaries and commercials.

Trivia: A paragon among character actors, the late American thesp Lewis Arquette faded smoothly and imperceptibly into his individual roles with such efficiency and success that many television devotees and filmgoers will sooner recognize the names of Arquette's craggily-voiced, cantankerous personages than his own name -- from Seinfeld's Leapin' Larry, the crippled furniture magnate whose establishment burns to the ground as the result of a freak accident, to retired taxidermist Clifford Wooley in Christopher Guest's uproarious mockumentary Waiting for Guffman (1996) to the pot-bellied law enforcement officer, Chief Louis Hartley, in Scream 2 (1997). The son of television personality Cliff Arquette (a Tonight Show mainstay), Lewis Arquette was born December 14, 1935. He launched his career as a Broadway stage actor, then returned home to the Windy City and enlisted with the infamous Second City troupe. As a member of that ensemble, Arquette fine-tuned his own aptitude for spur-of-the-moment improvisation -- a gift that, combined with Arquette's distinctive look, prompted Hollywood to summon him for numerous character roles. Arquette began on the small screen (on an uncharacteristically somber note) as J.D. Pickett in the melancholic, tragedy-laden seventh season of the hit CBS series The Waltons -- a role that lasted for several years, until the program wrapped in August 1981. Arquette spent the late '70s, '80s, and '90s filling his resumé with bit parts in alternately forgettable and memorable pictures. Roles (in addition to the aforementioned turns) included Hatcher in The China Syndrome (1979), the warden in the "coming attractions" parody Loose Shoes (1980), a foreman in Badge of the Assassin (1985), Mr. Stokes in the Lily Tomlin-Bette Midler comedy Big Business (1988), Herm in The Great Outdoors (1988), Wyler in Tango & Cash (1989), Sheriff Bugiere in Chopper Chicks in Zombietown (1991), Texas Joe in The Linguini Incident (1992), Mr. Ingersol in Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (1993), and a cardinal in the Adam Sandler comedy-fantasy Little Nicky (2000). Arquette was still active onscreen when he died of congestive heart failure on February 10, 2001 -- just two months after his 65th birthday. Arquette was the father of actresses Rosanna and Patricia Arquette, as well as actors David Arquette, Alexis Arquette, and Richmond Arquette. He co-starred with his sons and daughters in many of his pictures.

Trivia: Played basketball at NYU and had a tryout for the New York Knicks (but never played in the NBA); made theatrical-movie debut in White Men Can't Jump (1992). Produced and starred in the 1998 Fox sitcom Getting Personal; was a regular on the 1992-93 NBC sitcom Out All Night. Was nominated for a 1998 Daytime Emmy for Different Worlds: A Story of Interracial Love. Wife Tisha Campbell-Martin played his sister in a recurring role in his 2003-06 UPN/CW sitcom All of Us. Cowrote, coproduced and starred in the 2003 crime drama Ride or Die and the 2004 comedy Seat Filler (he also distributed Seat Filler and cowrote it with Campbell-Martin). Founded Impact Sports, an agency that represents pro athletes, in 1987; other business interests have included real estate and a Beverly Hills beauty salon.

Trivia: Bearing talent and good looks in equal measure, African American actor Omar Epps first became visible to audiences and critics alike with his 1992 film debut in Ernest R. Dickerson's urban drama Juice. Epps shone in his role as one of a group of four Harlem friends trying to make good, with the praise he earned for his work paving the way for steady industry employment.Born Omar Hashim Epps in Brooklyn, New York, on July 23, 1973, Epps was raised by his mother, an elementary school principal. He nurtured his interest in acting at both the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the New York High School for the Performing Arts. After his breakthrough in Juice, Epps ran the risk of being typecast, playing athletes in a series of films. However, his performances were consistently solid, and he earned particular acclaim for his portrayal of a young man attending college on an athletic scholarship in John Singleton's Higher Learning (1995). Around this same time, Epps also excelled in a brief recurring role as an emotionally stressed intern on E.R.; he would later identify that role as the one that made it possible for audiences to finally put a name to his face.After some memorable roles in Scream 2, In Too Deep, and Love & Basketball, Epps entered the 2000's strong. He would appear in various films over the coming years, like Perfume, Big Trouble, and Against the Ropes. Epps would also find tremendous success on the small sceen, with a starring role on the massively popular medical drama House M.D.

Trivia: Manchester native David Warner supported himself as a book salesman while studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Warner made his stage bow at the Royal Court Theater in 1962, the same year that he first appeared on television. In 1965, Warner became the youngest-ever member of the Royal Shakespeare Company to tackle the role of Hamlet. In films from 1963 (he played Master Blifil in Tom Jones), Warner achieved international fame for his star turn as the certifiably insane protagonist of Morgan! (1966). His appearance as the village idiot in Straw Dogs (1971) went uncredited due to an injury that rendered him uninsurable on the set; but this was the only time that Warner's contribution to a film would ever go unofficially unheralded. Seldom settling for a normal, sedate characterization, Warner has been seen as Jack the Ripper in Time After Time (1981), the Evil Genius in Time Bandits (1983), Dr. Alfred Necessiter (who had some interior decorator!) in The Man With Two Brains (1984), and genially eccentric Professor Jordan Perry (a good guy, for a change) in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 (1992). He has also played two different roles in two consecutive Star Trek films. On television, David Warner has played Heydrich in Holocaust (1978), Pomponius Falco (a performance that won him an Emmy) in Masada (1981), and Bob Cratchit (what-not Scrooge?) in the 1984 adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

Trivia: Luxuriantly tressed blonde Portia de Rossi combined her former interest in the law with her subsequent acting career and achieved TV fame when she joined the cast of the Fox TV hit Ally McBeal in 1998. Born Mandy Rogers in Melbourne, Australia, de Rossi acted in TV commercials as a teen and modeled, but entered college to become a lawyer. She changed professions, however, when she was cast as one of the titular beauties tempting the wife of stuffy Hugh Grant in John Duigan's comedy Sirens (1994). de Rossi relocated to Los Angeles and appeared on TV sitcoms Too Something (1995) and Nick Freno: Licensed Teacher (1996), as well as in the blockbuster horror sequel Scream 2 (1997) as one of the terrorized sorority sisters. After a starring role in the TV crime movie Perfect Assassins (1998), de Rossi joined Ally McBeal in its second season as icy legal hotshot Nelle. The series opened her up to a wider audience, and de Rossi would continue to act in films like The Invisibles and Cursed.After the 2002 demise of Ally McBeal, de Rossi wasted little time in attaching herself to another edgy and successful project. Another critically-acclaimed Fox show, the ensemble sitcom Arrested Development cast the actress as the self-righteous twin sister of Jason Bateman's Michael Bluth. During the cult hit show's three seasons, it earned such a rabid fanbase that it was only cancelled after a massive public outcry. And though de Rossi would spend the ensuing decade starring on other shows, like Nip/Tuck and Better Off Ted, the power of Arrested Development's fanbase would bring it back after a decade, as the entire cast announced in 2012 that they would reunite for a new season of the show, released directly on Netfix.De Rossi came out as a lesbian in 2005. She married beloved talk show host Ellen Degeneres in 2008.

Trivia: For years recognizable solely for her work as "the Noxzema Girl," Rebecca Gayheart has become one of many models to attempt the transition to acting. Gayheart, if not widely known, has certainly increased her recognition with her work in films such as Urban Legend and Jawbreaker. Born August 12, 1972 in Hazard, KY, Gayheart moved to New York at the age of 15 following a summer modeling job in the city. She studied acting at the prestigious Lee Strasberg Studio, and during her education there, she landed her first role, on the NBC soap opera Loving. Her stint on the show lasted from 1992 to 1993 and led to further television work, most notably on Beverly Hills 90210. During this time, she also acted in a number of forgettable television shows, and it wasn't until her part as a sorority girl in 1997's Scream 2 that she started to find film work. Her first project after Scream 2 was in Nothing to Lose, but her following film, 1998's Urban Legend, was successful enough to earn her a place among Hollywood's latest batch of up-and-coming starlets.After Legend, Gayheart co-starred with fellow Scream-er Neve Campbell in the obscure Canadian film Hair Shirt (1998). Her next project, the Heathers take-off Jawbreaker, faltered both at the box office and with critics, but did Gayheart the service of casting her in another leading role, helping to increase her fresh-scrubbed profile. After portraying a grim reaper in 2003 in Showtime's fantasy comedy Dead Like Me, she went on to play the role of Trudy Nye, a blind woman who, albeit briefly, won the attention of plastic surgeon and ladies man Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) in FX's prime-time medical drama Nip/Tuck (2004-2006).

Trivia: Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and possessing a certain bodacious je ne sais quoi, Heather Graham has had one of the more inspiring career trajectories of the 1990s. After debuting in 1988's License to Drive, which featured the two Coreys (Haim and Feldman) and little else, Graham worked in relative obscurity for years before hitting it big in a string of successful films, including Swingers, Boogie Nights, and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Originally hailing from the Midwest, Graham was born in Milwaukee, WI, on January 29, 1970. The elder of two girls (younger sister Aimee is also an actress), Graham led a fairly itinerant childhood thanks to her father's job with the F.B.I. A quiet, unpopular girl, by her own account, Graham became interested in acting at a young age. She had her first role, as Dorothy, in a school production of The Wizard of Oz and remained active in the theater throughout high school, winning the title of Most Talented from her peers. After high school, Graham packed up and headed to Los Angeles, where she discovered that talented as she may have been, it was no guarantee of employment. She worked a variety of odd jobs, including a stint as an usher at the Hollywood Bowl, before making her 1988 film debut in License to Drive as the object of Corey Haim's desire. The following year, Graham's career began to travel in a more auspicious direction when she was cast as a doomed drug addict in Gus Van Sant's critically acclaimed Drugstore Cowboy. Despite winning raves for her performance, stardom eluded Graham, as her subsequent film roles were largely incidental. However, she did win a recurring role on the TV series Twin Peaks in 1990, and the following year, starred in the widely celebrated made-for-TV movie O Pioneers!. In 1992, Graham had a supporting role in Diggstown, the most notable effect of which was a relationship with co-star James Woods, who was twice her age. After appearing in a few more films of varying quality (Six Degrees of Separation [1993] at one end of the spectrum and 1994's Don't Do It, which paired her with Drugstore boyfriend James LeGros, at the other), the actress finally got a break with the 1996 hit Swingers, appearing in a small but memorable role as the girl of Jon Favreau's dreams. The part marked the beginning of an upswing in Graham's career; in the following year she had a bit part in the movie-within-a-movie in Scream 2, which led to her inclusion on a Rolling Stone cover featuring the movie's assorted Hot Young Things, and also had her breakthrough role in Boogie Nights. As Rollergirl, an underdressed, oversexed, coke-snorting young porn actress, Graham made an indelible impression on audiences everywhere. In 1997 she also starred in Gregg Araki's Nowhere, in which she did little except have copious amounts of sex with the similarly golden-tressed Ryan Phillippe, and Two Girls and a Guy, a critically acclaimed piece that featured her as one of the title's two girls opposite Robert Downey Jr.'s guy.Unfortunately, Graham's first big-budget undertaking, the 1998 sci-fi film Lost in Space, was swallowed in a deep pit of critical and commercial quicksand. The actress more than rebounded the following year, however, earning top billing in two films, the Steve Martin comedy Bowfinger and the eagerly awaited Austin Powers sequel Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. The same year Graham earned the 1999 ShoWest convention's Female Star of Tomorrow title.Though she appeared to be on a track toward superstardom as the a new decade and millennium unfolded, a string of duds (From Hell, The Guru, Killing Me Softly, etc.) derailed Graham's career a bit. As many actors in her position often do, she decided to give television a try. Unfortunately, like much of her film work of the period, the ABC comedy Emily's Reasons Why Not was met with little excitement from critics audiences alike, and the heavily hyped series was cancelled after a single episode. Her recurring role on the comedy Scrubs, however, was well received. She continued to work in little-seen movies, but that changed in 2009 when she played a Vegas girl who falls for Ed Helms nerdy dentist in the smash hit The Hangover. Two years later she would play Aunt Opal in Jus Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer, and score a small part in the horror sequel Scream 4.

Trivia: Perhaps the screenwriter most identified with teenage horror and hormones in the 1990s, Kevin Williamson has risen swiftly through the screenwriting ranks, thanks to both the phenomenal success of the Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer series and Dawson's Creek, his hit series for the WB Network. Williamson's scripts tend to be notable for their deft blend of irony, humorous genre knowledge, and self-conscious intelligence, qualities that the screenwriter has essentially made his copyright.A native of North Carolina, Williamson initially studied film and theater at East Carolina University, moving to Los Angeles to try and break in as an actor. This effort led to little more than bit parts so he turned his attention instead to writing and directing, first striking a deal for Killing Mrs. Tingle, a film that he would eventually direct in 1999 under the revised title of Teaching Mrs. Tingle. The sale of his second work, the script for Scream (1996), followed quickly, and the huge success of the film, as well as its sequel, duly established Williamson as one of Hollywood's newest forces to be reckoned with. In 1997, the same year that Scream 2 was released, the screenwriter further whetted the growing appetite for teen horror films with his script for I Know What You Did Last Summer. Like Scream, it was another self-referential slasher flick that featured some of Hollywood's more photogenic young performers, and, also like Scream, it proved to be incredibly popular. Williamson struck a series of deals during late 1997, including one to develop a television series -- the first effort being Dawson's Creek, a teen-angst drama airing on the Warner Bros. Network. The series became an unanticipated success, further adding to the Williamson mystique and making stars out of its young cast. In addition to his work on the show (which he wrote and executive produced until 1999), Williamson kept busy writing teen slasher films, notably Halloween: H20 and The Faculty, which was directed by Robert Rodriguez. He made his directorial debut the following year with the aforementioned Teaching Mrs. Tingle, which proved to be an unmitigated flop among both critics and audiences alike, despite the substantial amount of hype surrounding it. On a more personal note, Williamson publicly came out as gay that same year, just a short time after one of the characters on Dawson's Creek did the same on an episode of the show. In 2000 Williamson again returned to the Scream machine, supplying the original story for Scream 3. He tried his hand at TV again with Glory Days in 2002 and Hidden Palms in 2007, and a attempted to find Scream's success outside of that franchise by writing and producing Cursed, but he was back on board when Wes Craven decided to revive the franchise with Scream 4 in 2011.

Trivia: From The Mighty Ducks to the mighty Dawson, Joshua Jackson has proven to be one of the more promising members of the Hollywood teen invasion. The Canadian actor, best known for his portrayal of hellion-with-a-heart-of-gold Pacey Witter on Dawson's Creek, has enjoyed a rising popularity since Dawson's 1998 premiere and was named one of Teen People's "21 Hottest Stars Under 21" in 1999.Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, on June 11, 1978, Jackson spent most of his early childhood in California with his casting director mother. After moving back to Vancouver, Jackson got his start in commercials, and from there went on to appear in a number of forgettable films. His big break came in 1992 with The Mighty Ducks and its two sequels. Following these, he got a bit role in a film that was helping to usher in the teen horror flick craze, Scream 2 (1997). Then, in 1998, Jackson landed the part that was to give him stardom in Dawson's Creek. As the show gained popularity among both critics and television viewers, Jackson was able to broaden his film experience with 1998's Apt Pupil and Urban Legend. In 1999 he appeared as the gay and peroxided Blaine Tuttle in Cruel Intentions, which he starred in with fellow teen sensations Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, and Reese Witherspoon. For his next role, however, Jackson chose to stray from the teen genre with his appearance in Muppets From Space (1999), where his co-stars were more likely to do advertisements for the Children's Broadcasting Network than Noxzema.In 2000, the young actor returned to the teen genre with two separate projects, The Skulls and Gossip. Both films were set on elite college campuses and featured Jackson as upright young men forced to right the wrongs committed by their peers, something that signified the audience's growing identification with the actor as an unlikely hero for the new millennium.When Dawson's Creek finally came to a close, he kept plugging away at a movie career showing up in the indie comedy I Love Your Work, Cursed, and Emilio Estevez's Bobby. However, he found his greatest success on the small screen when he was the center of Fringe, a J.J. Abrams sci-fi show that built and maintained a cult audience and ran from 2008 to 2013. Once Fringe wrapped up, he was immediately cast in The Affair, opposite Dominic West, Ruth Wilson and Maura Tierney. The show was critically lauded and Jackson received a People's Choice Award nomination for his work.

Trivia: After a string of guest roles on TV and bit parts in movies, actress Marisol Nichols gained prominence as the lead in the 2001 made-for-television romantic drama The Princess and the Marine. Playing an Arab princess who falls in love with an American Marine, Nichols delivered a performance that earned her the Outstanding Actress in a Made for Television Movie or Miniseries prize at the 2002 American Latino Media Arts Awards. More supporting roles on TV followed until 2005, when Nichols landed the female lead opposite Ron Eldard on the Steven Bochco-produced cop show Blind Justice. The series proved to be short-lived, but Nichols' status as a lead performer was cemented, and in 2006 she was cast on the Kyle MacLachlan legal drama In Justice. That same year, she appeared with Martin Lawrence in the comedy sequel Big Momma's House 2. In 2007, In Justice got the axe from ABC, but not before Nichols joined the cast of Fox's hit serial 24 as Nadia Yassir, a U.S. counter-terrorism agent of Middle Eastern descent struggling with an atmosphere of deepening distrust toward Arabs in the wake of a fictional terrorist attack. For the next few years it appeared as if Nichols was focusing all of her energies toward television, with featuerd roles in The Storm, The Gates, and GCB following in quick succession, and serving well to keep ehr in the public eye.

Trivia: TV personality and former Miss South Carolina Nancy O'Dell got a degree in marketing from Clemson University in 1990 before pursuing a career in television. She began with small appearances on various series before snagging a gig as a main presenter on the entertainment news show Access Hollywood in 1998. She remained with the show until 2008.

Trivia: A scion of one of the most powerful television families in Hollywood and a repeatedly maligned starlet, Tori Spelling spent years in television purgatory before finally getting respect for her acting in films such as The House of Yes and Trick. Weathering assorted rumors and attacks on her acting and appearance, Spelling has proven that, while nepotism may provide a convenient entrance into Hollywood, endurance and a sense of humor are necessities for long-term survival.Born Victoria Davey Spelling on May 16, 1973, Spelling made her Hollywood debut in 1989, first with a small role in (appropriately enough) Troop Beverly Hills and then on the TV sitcom Saved by the Bell. In 1990, Spelling was cast in the role that would make her famous, that of Donna on Beverly Hills 90210. With fame came the widespread speculation the Spelling was hired because of her father's position as producer of the show, although Aaron Spelling claimed this was not the case. Whether truth or fiction, the allegations kicked off a series of unfavorable comments made about Spelling over the next few years, comments that were hardly made better by the dubious television programs in which she was repeatedly cast.1997 marked a change in direction for Spelling's career. With 90210 in decline, she started acting in films, appearing in the small but well-respected The House of Yes and in Scream 2, in which she poked fun at her image with her appearance as herself. A further sign that she was gaining positive attention was her casting in Trick (1999), a critically acclaimed film that took a lighthearted and unconventional look at gay love and lust in the 1990s. With Sundance credibility firmly in hand, Spelling finally appeared ready to move forward and leave her image as a 90210 casualty behind her. Unfortunately that was easier said than done, and after failing to find her footing in film and television in the early 2000s, Spelling reprised her most famous role not once but twice -- first in Seth MacFarlane's straight-to-video feature Family Guy Presents Stewis Griffin: The Untold Story, and later in the flesh when 90210 was resurrected in 2008. Her greatest success outside of that famous zipcode, however, would come when she and husband Dean McDermott became the subjects of their own reality television show in 2007. Cleverly titled Tori and Dean: Inn Love, the series followed the photogenic couple as they became the owners and operators of their very own California bed and breakfast while starting a family as the entire world looked on.

Trivia: Although he made his film debut in the acclaimed independent film Bottle Rocket, actor Luke Wilson, born on September 21st, 1971, initially got more recognition for his real-life role as Drew Barrymore's boyfriend than for his acting. Fortunately for Wilson, his onscreen talents outlasted his relationship with Barrymore, and he has enjoyed steady employment and increasing visibility through substantial roles in a number of films.A native Texan, Wilson was born in Dallas in 1971. The son of an advertising executive and a photographer, he was raised with two brothers, Owen and Andrew. The three would all go on to make their careers in film, with Wilson discovering his love of acting while a student at Occidental College. In 1993, the brothers Wilson collaborated with Wes Anderson to make Bottle Rocket, which was initially a 15-minute short. The gleefully optimistic story of three Texans who aspire to become successful thieves, Bottle Rocket premiered at the 1993 Sundance Festival, where it attracted the attention of director James L. Brooks. With Brooks' help, the short became a full-length feature film released in 1996. That same year, Wilson also appeared in the coming-of-age drama Telling Lies in America.After large roles in three 1998 comedies, Bongwater, Home Fries, and Best Men (the latter two co-starring Barrymore), Wilson went on to star in another three comedies the following year. The first, Dog Park, was a Canadian film directed by Kids in the Hall alum Bruce McCulloch and featured Wilson as one of a group of twenty-somethings undergoing the trials and tribulations of love. Blue Streak starred the actor as the sidekick of robber-turned-policeman Martin Lawrence, while Kill the Man (which premiered at the 1999 Sundance Festival) cast him as the owner of a small copy center competing with a large chain store across the street.Though he would stick closely to comedy through 2001 with roles in Charlie's Angels (2000) and Legally Blonde (2001), Wilson took a turn for the sinister in the thrillers Preston Tylk and Soul Survivors (both 2001), before reteaming with his brother Owen and Wes Anderson to give one of his most memorable performances as Richie, the suicidal tennis pro in The Royal Tenenbaums.In 2003, Wilson reprised two past roles, appearing in both Charlies Angels: Full Throttle and Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde. That same year, he also scored a hit as one of the stars of Todd Phillips' Old School. 2004 saw Wilson embark on The Wendell Baker Story, a film he stars in, co-directs with brother Andrew Wilson, and co-writes with brother Owen Wilson. Laced with supporting roles and cameos from such iconic friends as Harry Dean Stanton, Kris Kristofferson, and Eddie Griffin, this quirky low-budgeter made the festival rounds in 2005-6 and the responses were encouragingly supportive; Variety's Joe Leydon observed, "The co-directing Wilson siblings smartly refrain from pushing anything too hard or too often, making the unpredictable eruptions of straight-faced absurdity all the more effective. Luke Wilson is extremely engaging in lead role." Many praised the Wilson brothers' directorial and scriptwriting intuition and their willingness to take risky-yet-triumphant gambles onscreen.Wilson joined the cast of early 2006's box-office sleeper hit The Family Stone, a family drama with an ensemble that includes Diane Keaton, Craig T. Nelson and Sarah Jessica Parker; the remainder of the year sees Wilson appearing in a string of supporting roles in light and dark comedies. In a minor performance in May 2006's Hoot, Wilson plays Officer David Delinsky, who attempts to sabotage a plot by local children to blow up a pancake house. His appearance in July 2006's My Super Ex-Girlfriend marks director Ivan Reitman's return to the big screen since 2001's box-office disappointment Evolution; it stars Uma Thurman as a superhero who gets even with her ex-beau (Wilson) after he casts her aside. He also highlights summer 2006's Mini's First Time, a black comedy about an incestuous daughter and stepfather who have the mother committed to a mental hosiptal; co-stars include Jeff Goldblum and Carrie-Anne Moss. Idiocracy, directed by cult fave (and Beavis and Butthead creator) Mike Judge, has Wilson as a moron hurled a thousand years into the future by the U.S. Government, only to discover he is the most intelligent person on the planet.In the tradition of 8mm, 2007's jet-black paranoid thriller Vacancy will co-star Wilson and Sex and the City's Sarah Jessica Parker as husband-and-wife who check into a hotel and unwittingly become the targets of a snuff film, while, in that same year's semi-spoof Dallas (2007) (adapted from the early-eighties TV sensation and directed by Gurinder Chadha) Wilson will tentatively co-star as Bobby Ewing, alongside Jennifer Lopez as Sue Ellen, Shirley MacLaine as Miss Ellie, and John Travolta as the infamous J.R.. Wilson's additional film roles throughout 2007 include Barry Munday (an indie pic helmed by Chris d'Arienzo and adapted from Frank Hollon's novel Life is A Strange Place, about a chauvinist who wakes up and discovers his own emasculation); and Last Seduction helmer John Dahl's mafioso comedy You Kill Me. In 2010, Wilson appeared in the films Death at a Funeral and Middle Men.

Trivia: An inventive dance and physical comedy choreographer who turned his knack for planning out a scene into a successful directorial career, filmmaker Adam Shankman rose through the ranks as one of the best music video dance choreographers in the business before stepping behind the camera to helm such high-profile mainstream comedies as The Wedding Planner, Bringing Down the House, and The Pacifier.A true fan of all things theater from his childhood years, Los Angeles native Shankman moved to the East Coast to enroll in Juilliard dance program after graduating high school, and spent the next five years as a dancer and actor in and around New York. After returning to sunny entertainment capitol Los Angeles, Shankman performed frequently in music videos for such artists as Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul, with his impressive moves eventually culminating in a role as a featured dancer at the 1989 Academy Awards ceremony. Subsequently establishing a partnership with music video director Julian Temple, the then-24-year-old Shankman entered into a tirelessly productive period which found him choreographing music videos for a variety of popular artists including Whitney Houston, the B-52's, and Stevie Wonder. Film work was quick to follow, and Shankman racked up choreography credits on such popular features as Addams Family Values, Don Juan DeMarco, Boogie Nights, and Scream 2. In 1998, it was time to venture into the realm of directing with the acclaimed short film Cosmo's Tale.As adept behind the camera as he was in front of the lens, Shankman quickly made the leap to features with the 2001 Jennifer Lopez comedy The Wedding Planner. Though he would still serve as choreographer on occasion, it seemed as if Shankman had finally found his calling as a director with such features as the teen romance A Walk to Remember, Bringing Down the House, and Cheaper by the Dozen 2, the latter two of which found him forming a successful working relationship with longtime comic Steve Martin. In 2005, Shankman expanded his credits to include the role of executive producer for the suburban comedy The Pacifier, a role that he continued to develop with producer credits on such features as Cheaper by the Dozen 2 and the 2006 dance drama Step Up. After turning toward television to helm the pilot episode of Worst Week of My Life, Shankman next began preparations to bring the hit Broadway musical Hairspray back to the big screen. Through it all, Shankman never shied away from his performance-based past, with occasional acting roles in both his own films as well as Rockula, Scream 2, and Stuck on You allowing the lifelong dancer the occasional pleasure of simply cutting loose in front of the camera. He directed the 2008 Adam Sandler film Bedtime Stories, and brought the hair-metal jukebox musical Rock of Ages to the big screen in 2012.