Trivia: British comedian Hugh Laurie could have easily taken another career track rather than that of well-known performer. As a secondary and college student, he was also a world-class oarsman. He wasn't the only one in the family to have a passion for the sport, however. His father won a gold medal at the 1948 London Olympics as part of the British national team. The youngest of four children, Laurie went to Eton College, perhaps Britain's best-known preparatory school. During his time there, he became involved in rowing. He quickly became one of the nation's best, and in 1977, he became one half of the national junior champion coxed pair. In the world junior championships held in Finland that year, he and his teammate finished fourth in the world.The following year, Laurie entered Cambridge University, with the intention of studying archeology and anthropology. He was also intent on joining the prestigious rowing team, which he had little problem doing. He reportedly became ill during his first year, however, and was forced to withdraw from the rowing competitions. While regaining his health, Laurie had his first experiences as a performer by getting involved with "the Footlights Club," a famed undergraduate comedy revue group. In his last year at Cambridge, Laurie was elected president of the club, with fellow Footlighter Emma Thompson acting as vice president.Traditionally, at the end of the year, the Footlights take their act on the road throughout the nation. While on these tours, Laurie met, via Thompson, a young playwright named Stephen Fry. They collaborated on a sketch called "The Cellar Tapes," which they entered in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1981. They were awarded "Pick of the Fringe," enabling the duo, along with the other Footlight performers (including Thompson) to go on tour throughout England and, eventually, Australia. Soon thereafter, Laurie, Fry, Thompson, Robbie Coltrane, and Ben Elton formed the television sketch program Alfresco, eventually leading Laurie to the famous (in Britain, at least) Black Adder series, headed by Rowan Atkinson, and also to the Jeeves & Wooster series with Fry. It wasn't long after these successes that he began appearing in films. In 1992, he appeared alongside fellow comedians Fry and Thompson, as well as Kenneth Branagh and Rita Rudner, in the ensemble comedy Peter's Friends. He subsequently did outstanding work as a character actor in such films as Sense and Sensibility (1995) and 101 Dalmatians (1996). In 1999, he took the lead in the adaptation of E.B. White's Stuart Little, playing the adopted father to a walking, talking, fully dressed mouse, a role he'd reprise in the film's 2002 sequel Stuart Little 2.After a two-year absence from the big screen, Laurie returned to the multiplexes in 2004 with a supporting role in Flight of the Phoenix, a remake of the 1965 James Stewart action-adventure film about a group of plane-crash survivors who attempt to build a new plane from the wreckage. That same year, Laurie essayed the titular role as the cynical but brilliant Dr. Gregory House in the prime-time Fox medical drama House, for which he would win a number of Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor in a TV Series Drama.Laurie is also a musician of note, performing as a keyboardist with the rock band Poor White Trash. He added yet another profession to his lengthy list of accomplishments when, in 1996, he published his first novel, The Gun Seller. Married since 1989, he has three children with his wife, Jo.

Trivia: Upon her election by The New York Times as a "top celebutante" in 1986 (due to her popularity in N.Y.C.'s club scene), then-19-year-old Lisa Edelstein reportedly grew wary of "fame for fame's sake" and spent years grounding her celebrity in a series of well-respected, if minor, acting assignments. She made a small-scale debut in a prestigious film -- the role of the makeup artist in Oliver Stone's controversial Jim Morrison biopic The Doors (1991) -- and thereafter was often pigeonholed in sitcom appearances, typically as a comically eccentric girlfriend or wife. This typecasting characterized Edelstein's appearances on Seinfeld, Mad About You, Sports Night, Frasier, and a myriad of other programs. There were exceptions, though, as the actress also starred on the short-lived but critically acclaimed drama Relativity in the mid-'90s as Rhonda Roth, a lesbian whose complex, non-sensationalized portrayal marked a step forward for homosexual characters on network TV. Edelstein also garnered recurring roles on such series as The West Wing (playing a law student whom Rob Lowe's character romances until he finds out she moonlights as a call girl), Felicity, and Ally McBeal (appearing as a transsexual who dates a lawyer played by James LeGros). Edelstein would score her biggest break to date with a lead role on the hit medical drama House in 2004. She would stick with the hugely successful show until 2011, in addition to roles on other shows throughout the 2000's, like American Dad!, The Good Wife, House of Lies and Castle.

Trivia: In 1986, clean-cut American actor Robert Sean Leonard made his Broadway debut in Brighton Beach Memoirs and his film debut in The Manhattan Project. His first starring film role was as a high-school vampire in the '80s teen comedy My Best Friend Is a Vampire (1988). But Leonard's chiseled features and dark brown eyes made him perfect for the role of Neil Perry, the sensitive prep-school student whose acting aspirations are crushed by his wealthy father in the much-loved drama Dead Poets Society (1989). His next few films were period pieces: the Merchant-Ivory production Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990), Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing (1993), and Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (also 1993). Leonard also earned a Young Artist award for his performance in the WWII-era musical Swing Kids in 1993 and earned his first Tony nomination that same year for a revival of Candida. Though he often chose the stage over the screen, his theatrical training directed him toward roles in the talky feature films Married to It (1993), Safe Passage (1994), and The Last Days of Disco (1998). He also fared well in television adaptations of stage productions (The Boys Next Door [1996], In the Gloaming [1997]) and based-on-a-true-story docudramas (Killer: A Journal of Murder [1995], A Glimpse of Hell [2001]).In 2001, Leonard reunited with Dead Poets Society co-star Ethan Hawke to appear in the independent drama Chelsea Walls, Hawke's directorial debut. He also co-starred with Hawke and Uma Thurman in Richard Linklater's intensely talky drama Tape. After spending most of his career on the stage, Leonard finally earned a Tony award for his portrayal of A.E. Houseman in Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love. Also on Broadway, he could be seen in A Long Day's Journey Into Night and The Violet Hour. Though Leonard's 2004 projects would include the feature film The I Inside, based on the play Point of Death, it would soon become apparent that television was his true calling when, later that same year, he donned a white coat as Dr. James Wilson on the phenominally successful series House.

Trivia: An actress who first earned her critical laurels (and reeled in a substantial television fanbase) as Dr. Alison Cameron on the blockbuster medical drama House (2004), Jennifer Morrison grew up well outside the realm of Hollywood, in a middle-class family in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois. As a preteen and teenager, Morrison entered showbusiness via modeling, appearing in innumerable print campaigns and gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated for Kids at one point; after wrapping up high school, she attended Loyola University as a theater major (reportedly graduating in only three years) and subsequently trained with the legendary Steppenwolf theatrical ensemble, onetime home to such stars as John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, and Glenne Headly. From there, Hollywood fame was merely a short leap away; by the time of her Loyola graduation, Morrison had already officially debuted onscreen, with a small part as the daughter of Richard Gere and Sharon Stone in the psychological drama Intersection (1994) and a more significant role as a missing girl who psychically haunts Kevin Bacon in the supernatural thriller Stir of Echoes (1999). Morrison signed for her first lead with a role that many felt unworthy of her talents and intelligence: that of Amy Mayfield, a young film student who gets in way over her head amid a thesis project on urban legends, in John Ottman's slasher outing Urban Legends: The Final Cut (2000). Subsequent projects included Michael Davis's teen-oriented romantic comedy 100 Women (2002), Casey La Scala's teen comedy Grind (2003), and -- as something of a nadir -- the critically despised holiday gross-out fest Surviving Christmas (2004), in which she played Ben Affleck's snotty girlfriend.As indicated, House represented Morrison's breakthrough and the role that finally brought her public attention. The long-running Fox drama told of Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), a diagnostician with an astounding degree of medical knowledge and an absolute dearth of social skills. As Dr. Cameron (an immunologist with a not-so-secret crush on the physician), Morrison brought a much-needed dose of warmth and vulnerability to the series.Morrison subsequently made headlines in 2007, when she was tapped to appear as Winona Kirk, James T. Kirk's mother, in J.J. Abrams's much-anticipated 11th installment of the Star Trek series. Despite it being a fairly small role, Morrison still managed to make a big impression in Star Trek, and a somewhat meatier role in 2011's Warrior, as the wife of a natural born fighter from a fractured family, preceded her departure from House the following year. Her ties to television remained tight, however, thanks to a recurring role on the hit CBS comedy series How I Met Your Mother starting in 2010, with a turn as Emma Swan -- a mother who doesn't believe in fairy tales -- in ABC's Once Upon a Time revealing that Morrison possessed a flair for fantasy as well.

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: Australian actor Jesse Spencer launched his career with a long stint (from the mid- to late '90s) on the popular Aussie soap opera Neighbours, playing Billy Kennedy. He followed that up with a number of key supporting roles in acclaimed features, such as that of Marwood de Whichehalse in Mike Barker's R.D. Blackmore adaptation Lorna Doone (2001) before signing on for the lead in Russell Mulcahy's inspirational drama Swimming Upstream (2002). That picture -- about a young man destined to become a champion swimmer despite the setbacks thrown into his path by an abusive father (Geoffrey Rush) became a small-scale hit and earned favorable reviews. After a turn in the Brittany Murphy vehicle Uptown Girls (2003), Spencer landed one of his greatest achievements when he signed on to play Dr. Robert Chase on the Fox medical drama House, and the series quickly became a hit. Offscreen, Spencer made headlines for his romantic involvement with House co-star Jennifer Morrison (Dr. Allison Cameron). The two -- who reportedly met on the set of House -- became engaged during the 2006 holidays.

Trivia: Born on July 15, 1972, in Kansas City, KS, Foley is the oldest of three sons. Thanks to his father's job as an international banker, Foley grew up all over the world, spending the most time in Sydney, Australia and Tokyo, Japan. He caught the acting bug at age six after his mother took him to see the children's musical Annie. Foley made his theatrical debut only a few years later, singing "I'll Do Anything" in his school's production of Oliver. When he was a teenager, his family settled in St. Louis, MO, where he participated in community and regional theater. Shortly after graduating high school, he bought a one-way plane ticket to Hollywood.Foley's big break came when he landed a role on the WB's teen drama Dawson's Creek, playing all-American high school quarterback Cliff Elliot, Dawson's (James Van Der Beek) romantic rival. Originally hired to guest star in the series' first three episodes, Foley hung around for five. With his popularity steadily increasing, WB executives cast Foley in Felicity, a one-hour drama about a college freshman who follows her lifelong crush from their California high school to a university in New York City. Originally hired to portray the object of Felicity's (Keri Russell) affection, Foley stepped in to play her resident advisor and confidante, Noel Crane, when producers could not find an actor for the role. The show, which first aired in the fall of 1998, became a critical favorite and earned a Golden Globe nomination in its first year.Foley would stick with Felicity for its four year run, cementing his position as a TV star. After the show wrapped, Foley would continue to find starring roles on a series of popular shows, like A.U.S.A., Scrubs, The Unit, Grey's Anatomy, and True Blood. Foley booked another series regular gig on the hit series Scandal, joining the show during the second season, playing Captain Jake Ballard.

Trivia: Texas-born actress Meredith Monroe is best known to many as the sweet-faced Andie McPhee from '90s TV series Dawson's Creek. Early in her career, Monroe worked as a model, appearing on Nancy Drew book covers and packaging for products like a Conair hair crimper. She eventually branched into movies and TV, playing the famous role of Andie and wracking up a large number of appearances over the years on everything from House to Californication.

Trivia: Began her acting career in the theater before transitioning to roles in television and film. Provided the voice for Elisa Maza in the animated Gargoyles series. Played Bill Cosby's daughter in the film I Spy Returns. Her husband, Dondre Whitfield, has also worked with Cosby, guest starring on The Cosby Show as daughter Vanessa's boyfriend Robert. Became pregnant with her second child during the filming of Season 3 of Eureka. Producers wrote her pregnancy into the script.

Trivia: Hailed as one of the film industry's most exciting and provocative new talents after the huge success of The Usual Suspects (1995), director Bryan Singer has built his reputation on making films that are essentially lengthy, verbally dexterous flirtations with the darker side of human nature.Born in 1966, Singer was brought up in southern New Jersey. Raised in a Jewish household, his early childhood was, in part, marked by his formation with a couple of non-Jewish friends of a so-called "Nazi Club." The existence of the club -- which, Singer has said, was formed more out of a fascination with WWII than as a slight to his own heritage -- was unsurprisingly put to a quick end by the director's mother. The incident catalyzed Singer's own awareness of his Jewish identity, something that would later inform his adaptation of Stephen King's Apt Pupil and cause one interviewer to label him (presumptuously, perhaps) as "young Hollywood's great Jewish hope."Singer's upbringing was also marked by his interest in filmmaking, something he began pursuing as a teenager. Following his high school graduation, he was admitted to New York City's School of Visual Arts, but he transferred to USC to finish his studies. It was at USC that he met two of his future collaborators, composer and editor John Ottman and co-producer Kenneth Kokin. After graduation, Singer wrote and directed a short film called Lion's Den. Starring high-school friend Ethan Hawke and filmed for a cost of 16,000 dollars, it told the story of a group of high-school pals who reunite a few years after graduation and find that they are not as close as they once were. Lion's Den paved the way for Singer's next effort, Public Access. The director's first collaboration with screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie, the independent feature was an examination of the dangers wrought by mass media upon a small town community, and it won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Festival.Two years later in 1995, Singer, in collaboration with McQuarrie, Ottman, and Kokin, had his true breakthrough with The Usual Suspects. A twisting, insanely intricate whodunit that was as remarkable for the strength of its ensemble cast (which featured Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, Gabriel Byrne, and Pete Postlethwaite) as its almost obsessive complexity, the film was an unanticipated commercial and critical success, earning a slew of international awards which included Oscars for Spacey as Best Supporting Actor and McQuarrie for Best Original Screenplay.Singer followed up The Usual Suspects in 1998 with Apt Pupil. The film was adapted from Stephen King's novella about a young boy (Brad Renfro) who enters into an unholy pact with a Nazi war criminal (Ian McKellen); it was marked by hype from the beginning (mainly owing to a mild controversy stemming from charges that some of the film's young male actors were coerced into performing a scene naked -- charges that were eventually dropped) but ultimately proved to be a relative disappointment.The director resurfaced in 2000 with X-Men. A much-anticipated adaptation of the beloved Marvel comic, it was Singer's most high-profile project to date, featuring a cast that included Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, and Anna Paquin with a budget of 75 million dollars. Widely hailed by critics and audiences as one of the most successful comic-book superhero screen adaptations to come down the pipe in quite some time, one of X-Men's greatest strengths was the remarkable sense of dimension imbued in the film's characters. Of course, a healthy dose of hair-raising action didn't hurt either, and the film went on to become one of the summer's biggest hits -- with anticipation running high for a sequel. Of course, having taken so much time to perfect the first film, Singer was understandably protective of the franchise and in no rush to crank out a by-the-numbers, quick cash-in sequel; a fact that resulted in skyrocketing expectations on the part of fans and much speculation as to where he would go with the series. By the time X2 hit theaters in early May of 2003, it had been three years since the first film floored audiences, and the sense of public anticipation was palpable. Fortunately, Singer had once again crafted a finely tuned adaptation that remained remarkably true to the characters while cranking up the stakes and action to a fever pitch. X2 was generally regarded as, at the very least, an equal to its predecessor, and many fans voiced the opinion that it actually did X-Men one better. The trades anticipated Singer's involvement with the 20th Century Fox property X-Men: The Last Stand, and reported a projected release date of June 2006, but all did not go according to plan. Fox purportedly shut Singer out, and instead signed on Rush Hour helmer Brett Ratner, while Warner Bros. and Peters Entertainment tapped Singer (doubtless drawing on his superhero expertise) to head up 2006's highly-anticipated and plugged Superman Returns. Singer hearkened back to Usual Suspects pal Kevin Spacey to assume the position of the diabolical Lex Luthor, and enlisted Brandon Routh (a neophyte with no prior big screen appearances) to inherit the Man of Steel from the late Christopher Reeve. The opus (arguably Singer's most high-profile release to date) opened in June 2006 and divided critics. The eloquent and perceptive Stephanie Zacharek of Slate proclaimed, "This sturdy, poetic fantasy proves that, of all comic-book heroes, the Man of Steel belongs to everyone," and Time's Richard Corliss remarked, "The best Hollywood movies always knew how to sneak a beguiling subtext into a crowd-pleasing story. Superman Returns is in that grand tradition. That's why it's beyond super. It's superb." Yet on the other side of the fence, Roger Ebert tagged it "a glum, lackluster movie in which even the big effects sequences seem dutiful instead of exhilarating" and Manhola Dargis of The New York Times chided cynically, "the Man of Steel has been resurrected in a leaden new film not only to fight for truth, justice, and the American way, but also to give Mel Gibson's Passion a run for his box-office money. Where once the superhero flew up, up and away, he now flies down, down, down, sent from above to save mankind from its sins and what looked like another bummer summer." Yet Warner remained supremely confident in the film's box-office appeal, to such a degree that they immediately began talks with Singer to helm a sequel, projected for release three years down the road. Sadly for the Caped Crusader, Superman Returns' largely lackluster reviews and poor performance at the box office gave the gung-ho studio second thoughts, and the planned sequel never materialized. Singer's next film Valkyre, a thriller centering on a real-life plot to assassinate Hitler and starring Tom Cruise, didn't fare much better with critics or filmgoers, but with an executive producer credit on the wildly popular medical series House and a slew of other film and television projects, his career was still in full swing. Meanwhile, behind the camera, Singer began production on his next feature, 2013's Jack the Giant Killer -- an imaginative take on the beloved fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk.Though he had worked as a writer and a producer on 2011's X-Men: First Class, Singer didn't return to the director's chair on the series until 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past, which became one of the best-reviewed and highest-grossing films of the series.

Trivia: With roles (and a look) that usually cast him as the perfect "everyman," character actor Peter Jacobson debuted on the small screen in the early '90s, as a guest player on a 1993 episode of NYPD Blue and then in a 1994 episode of Law & Order. A string of supporting roles in highly acclaimed feature films ensued through the end of the 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium. Jacobson's credits during this period include the John Travolta-headlined legal drama A Civil Action (1998); Billy Crystal's wonderful baseball picture 61* (2001), about Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle; and George Clooney's sophomore directorial effort, Good Night, and Good Luck. (2006). In 2007, Jacobson received his highest billing up through that time as studio mogul and deadbeat husband Kenny Kagan in the cable miniseries The Starter Wife, headlined by Debra Messing. In the fall of that year, Jacobson garnered a coveted role on the smash-hit Fox medical series House, joining the cast during the show's fourth season. He was in the box-office blockbuster Transformers in 2007, and followed that up in 2008 with The Midnight Meat Train. As he continued with his recurring role on House, he lent his vocal talents to Pixar in Cars 2.

Trivia: On many an occasion, Olivia Wilde's sleek hair (which alternated between blonde and coal black), sultry figure, and haunting blue eyes typecast her in the mold of an evil seductress and vamp. The N.Y.-born Wilde -- not a blood relation to the famous writer Oscar Wilde, as is commonly assumed, but one inspired by him, who borrowed his surname -- launched into show business with a portrayal of Jewel Goldman, the female lead of Jerry Bruckheimer's short-lived Fox drama Skin (2003). The series constituted an update of Romeo and Juliet and depicted the romance between a porn producer's daughter and a district attorney's son. It folded not long after it premiered, but provided a convenient showcase for Wilde's talents. After key roles in two drug-themed features -- the Nick Cassavetes-directed Alpha Dog and director John Herzfeld's Bobby Z -- Wilde catapulted sensationalism-hungry viewers to their television sets when she portrayed a lesbian bartender who attempts to seduce lovely Mischa Barton on The O.C. She then received regular billing as Jenny Reilly on The Black Donnellys (2007), an NBC series about the exploits of an Irish crime family residing in Hell's Kitchen, which didn't make it past its first season. Wilde rebounded quickly with a coveted role on the smash-hit Fox medical series House, joining the cast during the show's fourth season. She remained on the show for three seasons, and also built up a big-screen career with roles in Year One, Tron: Legacy, The Change-Up, Butter, Cowboys & Aliens, and People Like Us. Once leaving House, she largely focused on her film work, often alternating bigger budget films (like 2013's Rush) with smaller, independent films (like 2013's Drinking Buddies, which she also executive produced).

Trivia: Kal Penn qualifies as one of the very few Indian-American actors of Gujarati heritage working in Hollywood. He was born Kalpen Suresh Modi on April 23, 1977, in Montclair, NJ, to an engineer father and a mother employed as a fragrance sampler for a perfume manufacturer. Modi bravely and intelligently cut against the grain of social expectations as a child, rejecting the prompting of his peers to join the soccer team, and instead joining the school drama team. Though allegedly mocked by classmates for his decision, Penn changed everyone's mind with his performance in a school production of The Wiz, and received a standing ovation for his work in that production -- no mean accomplishment for a beginner. During elementary school and junior high, Modi felt struck, again and again, by the crass Indian stereotypes perpetuated in Hollywood films, specifically in movies such as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and 1986's Short Circuit, in which Caucasian actor Fisher Stevens plays the Indian-American Ben Jabituya for comic relief. Quietly vowing to work against this trend, Modi actually spent years attaining the box-office clout to make it happen. After his secondary school education (first at New Jersey's Howell High, then at Freehold Township High), Modi trained intensely as a dramatist on the Manhattan theatrical circuit, then attended UCLA as a drama major in the mid-'90s, and simultaneously started to land television parts right and left, in such series as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and Spin City. At about that time, he took the advice of friends and family, and -- though initially reluctant to do so -- anglicized his name, changing it to Kal Penn. As a result, he later reported, job offers escalated by 50 percent.Penn made his feature debut coming in the 1999 culture-clash drama Freshmen. A supporting role in the independent romantic comedy American Desi (2001) quickly followed -- ironically, an exploration of race and identity, about an Indian-American boy, Krishna (Deep Katdare), who moves away from home and changes his name to Kris to disguise his ethnicity, but finds himself saddled with several roommates of like heritage. Penn plays Ajay, an Indian student who has immersed himself in black ("Afrocentric") behavior. The film received extremely limited U.S. theatrical bookings in the spring of 2001 and fair reviews from the critics who saw it. Penn then jointed the cast of the Animal House-cloned gross-out farce National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002), about a seventh-year senior (Ryan Reynolds) threatened by his father's (Tim Matheson) decision to cut off his seemingly unlimited allowance. Widely drubbed as unfunny, the picture did embarrassing box office and opened and closed in one month, but its A-list issue nonetheless gave Penn (who plays Van's Indian friend, Taj Mahal Badalandabad) with his highest-profile exposure to date. Penn's onscreen activity escalated meteorically from 2003 through 2006, with the young actor averaging around seven or eight first-run features per year, and ascending to higher and higher credit billings. Most notably, he co-starred as Kumar (alongside fellow Gen-Xer John Cho) in 2004's stoner comedy Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, a surprise sleeper hit (and recipient of many enthusiastic notices) about two buddies, an Asian-American banker and an Indian-American medical student, whose unstoppable quest to find some White Castle hamburgers gives way to an epic road trip. Penn also delivered a brief supporting turn as Stanford, a henchman of Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) in 2006's Superman Returns. Meanwhile, Penn made an indelible impression on the small screen as well, as Harrison in the 2004 NBC 9/11 NBC drama Homeland Security. Penn was less effective in the ill-advised 2006 sequel National Lampoon's Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, an installment that -- per its title -- finds Penn's Taj Mahal Badalandabad carrying Van's off-the-wall hijinks to Camden University in England. Penn subsequently signed on for an additional sequel, 2007's Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, which finds the boys of the title mistaken for terrorists when they attempt to slip a bong aboard a flight to Amsterdam. That same year, Penn would headline Epic Movie, a massively scaled attempt to "send up" the Hollywood fantasy epic, Airplane! style,and join the cast of Fox's hit series thriller 24, during its sixth season. A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas followed in 2011, with concurrent roles in television's How I Met Your Mother and House guaranteeing continued small screen exposure between big screen outings.

Trivia: Is of Cuban and Colombian descent. Was raised in a bilingual home. Began career at age 5 in the film Kindergarten Cop (1990). In 2007, joined the cast of the ABC series October Road. Breakthrough film role came in the 2008 action flick Cloverfield. Provided the voice for the character Amata Almodovar in the 2008 video game Fallout 3. Appeared in the music video for Weezer's "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To."

Trivia: Born in sunny southern California in 1986, actress and comedian Charlyne Yi started pursuing a full-time career in stand-up comedy when she was fresh out of high school. A strange and innovative mix of jokes, games, music, magic, and crowd participation, Yi's act carved out a niche in the comedy scene, and she soon began branching out. She appeared in a 2006 episode of 30 Rock, as well as in the 2008 comedy Semi-Pro, but many fans remembered her as the couch-dwelling stoner in 2007's Knocked Up.In 2009, Yi expanded her canvas even further, writing, producing, and starring in the romcom Paper Heart. A creative mix of fiction and reality, Yi played a fictionalized version of herself in the film, in a scripted story about the comedienne working with a documentary crew to make a movie about her own search for love (and potentially finding it, with real-life boyfriend Michael Cera, who also played himself). However, the clips of interviewees in the movie-within-the-movie -- whom Yi questioned about their own insights on love and romance -- were all real, melding the fictional and documentary aspects of the film even further. It proved to be a winning combination, taking home the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

Trivia: The classically beautiful, Massachusetts-born actress Anne Dudek received formal training in a number of theatrical masterworks, including the lead in a Chicago production of Iphigenia in Taurus, staged by JoAnne Akalaitis, before transitioning to supporting roles in filmed work. After a 2001 guest spot on ER, Dudek played Lisa Silk, daughter of racially masked professor Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins) in Robert Benton's thoughtful drama The Human Stain (2003). Dudek offered a memorable comic turn as snooty heiress Tiffany Wilson in the Wayans Brothers farce White Chicks (2004), and guest spots on such series programs as Six Feet Under (in 2003) and Desperate Housewives (in 2004), then scored her highest billing to date as Lorraine in Brad Silberling's 10 Items or Less (2006), starring Morgan Freeman. That same year, Dudek landed a plum role in Kurt Voelker's nutty, ensemble-driven farce, Park. In 2007, the actress scored several memorable and notably diverse supporting roles on the small screen: a '60s housewife on the critically acclaimed AMC drama Mad Men; one of the wives of the scheming Alby Grant on the HBO polygamist drama Big Love; and one of Dr. Gregory House's (Hugh Laurie) possible new employees at the start of the hit medical drama House's fourth season. Her ambitious character on the latter show, dubbed by House as "Cutthroat Bitch," was ultimately not chosen for his elite medical team, but she returned later in the season as the love interest of his best friend, Dr. Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard).Over the next several years, Dudek would land starring roles on still more successful shows like Big Love and Covert Affairs.

Trivia: As the daughter of American child star-turned-cult favorite Russ Tamblyn (Peyton Place, Twin Peaks), Hollywood heartthrob and ingenue Amber Tamblyn inherited the stunning red hair, fair complexion, and acting chops of her famous dad. Born in the early '80s to Russ and wife Bonnie Murray, Tamblyn was discovered by an agent at her school during her preteen years, and soon landed a prominent role as the maniacal tot Emily Quartermaine on General Hospital -- a turn she sustained from 1995 to 2001.Tamblyn guested on such series as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Boston Public in the early 2000s, and tackled a small role in Gore Verbinski's 2002 shocker The Ring (as one of Samara's unfortunate victims), but the actress failed to generate a sizeable fan base prior to the advent of the fantasy-tinged drama series Joan of Arcadia in 2003. Tamblyn received first billing in that program as Joan Girardi, a seemingly average high school teenager who is tapped by the Almighty to perform various assignments. Joan drew a substantial cult following and outstanding critical assessments (USA Today pegged it as the most promising dramatic series of 2003), but unfortunately, its popularity failed to spread beyond a small enthusiastic band of adherents and it folded within two years.Tamblyn then segued back into film work, with first billing in Ken Kwapis' coming-of-age comedy drama The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in 2005, as one of four teenage girlfriends (alongside America Ferrera, Blake Lively, and Alexis Bledel) who make a good-luck pact; the picture received outstanding reviews and ensured continued stardom for Tamblyn. In 2006, the young actress essayed the title role in Hilary Brougher's fine psychological drama Stephanie Daley, about a troubled teenager accused of killing her newborn child. Tamblyn also traveled the programmer route that year with a turn in the horror sequel The Grudge 2. The following year, the actress starred in Beth Schacter's teen comedy Normal Adolescent Behavior and Rigoberto Castaneda's indie thriller Blackout. In the latter -- a high-wire suspense picture about a bunch of people trapped in a hospital elevator -- Tamblyn played a young woman desperate to reach her grandmother before the elderly woman dies. In 2008, she reprised her Traveling Pants role in the sequel, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.Amber Tamblyn is also a prolific poet and runs her own website, The Rebel Asylum, with postings of her work. Her volume of poetry Free Stallion was published by Simon & Schuster in 2005.

Trivia: Alexander Hall was a stage actor virtually from infancy, and a film actor from 1914 on. Following World War I service, Hall returned to Hollywood with a yen for learning the production side of the business. He spent the 1920s as an editor and assistant director, finally graduating to full director at Paramount with 1932's Sinners in the Sun. From 1937 to 1947, Hall was the star contract director at Columbia. Among Hall's major works were the charming Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Bedtime Story (1941), My Sister Eileen (1942), Once Upon a Time (1944) and Down to Earth (1947). Alexander Hall was at one time married to actress Lola Lane.