Trivia: With sleek, well-muscled good looks that easily lend themselves to romantic leading roles or parts that call for running, jumping, and handling firearms, Wesley Snipes became one of the most popular Hollywood stars of the 1990s. First coming to prominence with roles in Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues and Jungle Fever, Snipes went on to prove himself as an actor who could appeal to audiences as a man that women want and men want to be.Born in Orlando, FL, on July 31, 1962, Snipes grew up in the Bronx. He developed an early interest in acting and attended Manhattan's High School for the Performing Arts. His mother moved him back to Florida before he could graduate, but after finishing up high school in Florida, Snipes attended the State University of New York-Purchase and began pursuing an acting career. It was while performing in a competition that he was discovered by an agent, and a short time later he made his film debut in the Goldie Hawn vehicle Wildcats (1986). Although he appeared in a few more films during the 1980s, it was Snipes' turn as a street tough who menaces Michael Jackson in the Martin Scorsese-directed video for "Bad" that caught the eye of director Lee. He was so impressed with the actor's performance that he cast him in his 1990 Mo' Better Blues as a flamboyant saxophonist opposite Denzel Washington. That role, coupled with the exposure that Snipes had received for his performance as a talented but undisciplined baseball player in the previous year's Major League, succeeded in giving the actor a tentative plot on the Hollywood map. With his starring role in Lee's 1991 Jungle Fever, Snipes won critical praise and increased his audience exposure, and his career duly took off.That same year, Snipes further demonstrated his flexibility with disparate roles in New Jack City, in which he played a volatile drug lord, and The Waterdance, in which he starred as a former wild man repenting for his ways in a hospital's paraplegic ward. Both performances earned strong reviews, and the following year Snipes found himself as the lead in his first big-budget action flick, Passenger 57. The film, which featured the actor as an ex-cop with an attitude who takes on an airplane hijacker, proved to be a hit. Snipes' other film that year, the comedy White Men Can't Jump, was also successful, allowing the actor to enter the arena of full-fledged movie star. After a few more action stints in such films as Rising Sun (1993), which featured him opposite Sean Connery, Snipes went in a different direction with an uncredited role in Waiting to Exhale (1995). The same year he completely bucked his macho, action-figure persona with his portrayal of a flamboyant drag queen in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. Snipes continued to focus on less testosterone-saturated projects after a turn as a baseball player in The Fan (1996), starring as an adulterous director in Mike Figgis' One Night Stand (1997) -- for which he won a Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival -- and as Alfre Woodard's handsome cousin in Down in the Delta in 1998. That same year, Snipes returned to the action genre, playing a pumped-up vampire slayer in Blade and a wrongfully accused man on the run from the law in the sequel to The Fugitive, U.S. Marshals. The former would prove to be a massive cult hit and one of his biggest box-office successes to date. And while the new millenium would see most of Snipes' films relegated to straight-to-video releases, a pair of Blade sequels in 2002 and 2004 helped the actor remain a presence at the multiplexes.Sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion in 2008, Snipes began serving his term in 2010.

Trivia: Pretty, blonde-haired British actress Eliza Bennett broke into entertainment at the age of nine, with an 18-month turn on the London stage in the Sherman-Sams musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, then quickly moved into features -- achieving a steady output of film roles by mid-adolescence. During her early years, she specialized largely, though not exclusively, in science fiction and fantasy, a somewhat ironic fact given her reportedly limited off-camera interest in those genres. Her cinematic work commenced with a supporting turn as Princess Arabella in Martha Coolidge's lighthearted romantic comedy The Prince & Me. After that, Bennett appeared in such projects as the big-screen fantasy comedy Nanny McPhee (2005), the disaster-themed sci-fi telemovie Supernova (2005), the family-oriented time travel fantasy From Time to Time (2009), and the Iain Softley-directed literary fantasy Inkheart (2009), for which she took on a lead role.

Trivia: One of the latest in an illustrious line of British actresses to graduate from the English Rose School of Acting into the realm of full-bodied contemporary roles, Lena Headey first came to the attention of audiences in 1992, when she played the younger version of Jeremy Irons' wife in Waterland. Hailing from Yorkshire (though she was born in Bermuda in 1973), Headey originally intended to be a hairdresser. Fate intervened, however, when her performance in a one-off show in the company of six school friends at the National Theatre caught the interest of a casting agent, who contacted her drama teacher and subsequently cast Headey in Waterland.Headey's turn as a sexually adventurous schoolgirl in the film led to her being cast as a sexually adventurous maid in Merchant Ivory's The Remains of the Day in 1993. More period adventure followed that same year in The Summer House, in which Headey played a quiet young lass being forced into a 1950s marriage with an insufferable mama's boy. After another stint as a corseted virgin in The Jungle Book (1994), Headey finally got to take part in the latter half of the 20th century in the BBC miniseries Loved Up (1995), in which she played an Ecstasy-saturated raver. That same year, she took part in another BBC mini, Band of Gold, in which she further distanced herself from her period past by portraying a lesbian prostitute. Over the next several years, Headey would appear in several projects like Posession, The Brothers Grimm, and The Red Baron, as well as TV series like Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Game of Thrones.The actress returned to period drama in Marleen Gorris' adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1997), which cast her as the younger version of the title character's best friend. More contemporary work subsequently came her way in Antonia Bird's Face (also 1997), a crime thriller in which she played the social worker girlfriend of Robert Carlyle's political idealist-turned-gangster. She also starred in the romantic fantasy The Man with Rain in His Shoes (1998) as one of the love interests (along with Penelope Cruz) of an out-of-work Scottish actor (Douglas Henshall).After supporting turns in the lavish made-for-TV Merlin (1998) and Onegin (1999), the latter of which featured her as Liv Tyler's sister, Headey crossed over into the realm of Hollywood teen-oriented offerings with Gossip (2000), a college-set drama that cast her as one of three students who start a nasty rumor about two of their classmates (Kate Hudson and Joshua Jackson). Although the film was a bomb, Headey's career looked bright with a number of projects on the horizon. Included amongst them was Aberdeen (2000), a road movie set in Norway and Scotland that also starred Ian Hart, Charlotte Rampling, and Stellan Skarsgård.

Trivia: Tall, sandy-haired British actor Charles Dance trained for a career in graphic design at Plymouth College of Art and Leicester College of Art. Dance developed a taste for the theatre by listening to the reminiscences of two elderly actors who ran a pub in his Dover neighborhood. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at the age of 29, and made his first film, the James Bond picture For Your Eyes Only, six years later. Dance's widest professional exposure came in 1984 when he appeared in "The Jewel in the Crown," a 14-part British TV production seen in the U.S. on Masterpiece Theatre. Charles Dance's best-remembered performances have been as D.W. Griffith in Good Morning Babylon (1987); the role of Meryl Streep's husband in Plenty (1985); the title part in the 1990 TV adaptation of Phantom of the Opera; and the displaced "imaginary" villain in Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Last Action Hero (1993).

Trivia: Since 1963, Gemma Jones has been one of the most esteemed character actresses in British film and theater. Not until 1995, however, did she receive widespread recognition outside the U.K. That was the year she played the mother of two darlings of the modern cinema, Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, in their roles as the Dashwood sisters in director Ang Lee's Oscar-winning adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility. In 1997, Jones performed in another acclaimed film, Wilde, as Lady Queensbury, the woman who accused 19th century Irish author Oscar Wilde of corrupting her son, thereby setting in motion a notorious trial that ruined Wilde. Then good got better for Jones. Between 1999 and 2001, she played in three other popular productions that won numerous awards: first as Grace Winslow opposite Nigel Hawthorne in David Mamet's production of The Winslow Boy, then as Elizabeth Harrison in Charles Sturridge's production of Longitude, and finally as Mrs. Pam Jones in Sharon Maguire's production of Bridget Jones' Diary. By 2002, Gemma Jones was at work filming what promised to be one of the biggest box-office draws of the year, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, in which she portrays Madame Pomfrey, the maker of magical healing potions.The daughter of British actor Griffth Jones, Gemma Jones was born Jennifer Jones on December 4, 1942, in London. Because acting was in her blood, it was no surprise when she enrolled in the British Academy of Dramatic Art to be molded into an actress in the classic tradition. Shortly after graduation, she performed in Baal on the same stage with Peter O'Toole. After other stage and TV productions, she debuted on film in director Ken Russell's The Devils in 1971, then performed in several TV series, including The Duchess of Duke Street, a popular 1976 series in Britain that starred her as "London's best cook." Between film and TV roles, she also performed on the stage as a member of the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company in such Shakespeare plays as A Winter's Tale, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, King Lear, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet. She also acted in productions of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, Arthur Miller's The Ride Down Mount Morgan, and Henrik Ibsen's The Masterbuilder. When stardom arrived in 1995 with Sense and Sensibility, she continued to perform in lesser known but highly praised productions, including The Feast of July, Jane Eyre, The Theory of Flight, and Captain Jack. Her 2002 role in the Harry Potter film promises to make her a household name among children as well as adults -- perhaps for decades to come.

Trivia: Before he started acting, Mark Wahlberg was best known as Marky Mark, the pants-dropping rapper who attained fame and notoriety with his group the Funky Bunch. In the tradition of Will Smith and Ice Cube, Wahlberg has made a successful transition from music to film, garnering particular early praise for his role in Boogie Nights.Born June 5, 1971, in Dorchester, MA, Wahlberg had a troubled early life. One of nine children, he dropped out of school at 16 (he would later earn his GED) and committed a number of minor felonies. After working various odd jobs, Wahlberg briefly joined brother Donnie and his group New Kids on the Block before forming his own, Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch. The group had widespread popularity for a time, most notably with its 1992 hit single "Good Vibrations." However, it was Wahlberg himself who received the lion's share of attention, whether it was for the homophobia controversy that surrounded him for a time, or for the 1992 Calvin Klein ad campaign featuring him wearing nothing more than his underwear, Kate Moss, and an attitude. In 1993, Wahlberg turned his attentions to acting with a role in The Substitute. The film, co-starring a then-unknown Natasha Gregson Wagner, was a critical and commercial failure, but Wahlberg's next project, 1994's Renaissance Man, with Danny De Vito, gave him the positive notices that would increase with the release of his next film, The Basketball Diaries (1995). Although the film received mixed reviews, many critics praised Wahlberg's performance as Mickey, Leonardo Di Caprio's friend and fellow junkie. Following Diaries, Wahlberg appeared in Fear (1996) in the role of Reese Witherspoon's psychotic boyfriend.It was with the release of Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights in 1997 that Wahlberg finally received across-the-board respect for his commanding yet unassuming performance as busboy-turned-porn-star Eddie Adams/Dirk Diggler. The film was nominated for three Oscars and a slew of other awards by associations ranging from the British Academy to the New York Film Critics Circle to MTV. The positive attention landed Wahlberg on a wide range of magazine covers and gave him greater Hollywood pulling power. He had, as they say, arrived. Wahlberg's follow-up to Boogie Nights was 1998's The Big Hit, an action comedy that, particularly in the wake of Boogie Night's acclaim, proved to be a disappointment. This disappointment was hardly lessened by the relative critical and commercial shortcomings of Wahlberg's next film, The Corruptor (1999). An action flick that co-starred Chow Yun-Fat, The Corruptor showcased Wahlberg's familiar macho side and indicated that success in Hollywood is a strange and unpredictable thing. Though he gained positive notice for his role in David O. Russell' s unconventional war film Three Kings the same year, the film was only a moderate success, paving the way for an even more dramatic turn in the downbeat true story of the ill-fated Andrea Gail, The Perfect Storm, in 2000.The following year found Wahlberg filling some big shoes -- and receiving some hefty criticism as a result -- with his lead role in Tim Burton's much-anticipated remake of Planet of the Apes. Taking over the role that Charlton Heston made famous, Wahlberg found himself pursued onscreen by sinister simians, as well as offscreen by critics who decried the lack of depth that the actor brought to the role. Late that summer, Wahlberg came back down to Earth -- specifically to the everyday-Joe-rises-to-fame territory of Boogie Nights -- with Rock Star, the story of a tribute-band singer who gets a chance to sing for the band he idolizes. Though his noble attempt to fill the considerable shoes of Hollywood legend Cary Grant in the 2002 Charade remake The Truth About Charlie would be only slightly exceeded by his assumption of the role originally played by Michael Caine in the following year's remake of The Italian Job, Wahlberg would subsequently prove that there's nothing like the fresh breeze of an original script in director David O. Russell's existential 2004 comedy I Heart Huckabees. Of course, Wahlberg was never one to let a crowd down, and after riling audiences alongside Tyrese Gibson and André Benjamin in the Detroit-based revenge flick Four Brothers, the athletic actor would take to the gridiron to tell the inspirational story of one football fan whose dreams of playing in the NFL actually came true in the 2006 sports drama Invincible. Also released in the fall of 2006, The Departed allowed Wahlberg to act opposite such heavy hitters as Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, and his old Basketball Diaries co-star Leonardo Di Caprio under the direction of Martin Scorsese. Not only did Wahlberg hold his own against the cast of critics' darlings, he landed the film's only acting Academy Award nod. In 2007, Wahlberg starred in the suspense actioner The Shooter, as well as in director Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lovely Bones. Wahlberg starred as the leader of a ragtag group trying to survive amidst murderous plant life in M. Night Shyamalan's so-bad-it's-good The Happening (2008), and played the titular role of Max Payne, which was adapted from a video game of the same name. In 2010 the actor starred in the inspirational docudrama chronicling the life of brothers Micky and Dicky Ecklund as they take on the world of boxing. Wahlberg earned an Academy Award nomination for producing the film; that same year, he began producing a new show for HBO, Boardwalk Empire. Wahlberg had a huge hit in 2012 with Seth MacFarlane's Ted, and joined the Transformer franchise in Transformers: Age of Extinction in 2014. Wahlberg continued his steady work, starring and producing both Deepwater Horizon (which was nominated for two Oscars) and Patriots Day (about the Boston Marathon bombing) in 2016.

Trivia: Adept at essaying a broad array of roles, Michael Peña launched his career with guest appearances on such series as NYPD Blue, Homicide: Life on the Street, and ER, as well as longer stints on Felicity and The Shield. Though his big-screen work officially stretches back several years prior to Million Dollar Baby (2004), that Clint Eastwood-directed Best Picture winner represented Peña's first major Hollywood credit. His involvement only amounted to a small part, but he re-teamed with Baby scripter Paul Haggis for higher (supporting) billing in the latter's Crash (2005) -- also a Best Picture Winner, and this one a searing, acerbic indictment of inner-city racism. Peña scored one of his first leads under the aegis of director Oliver Stone, co-starring opposite Nicolas Cage in the taut, suspenseful thriller World Trade Center (2006) -- a docudrama about the two New York City Port Authority rescue workers trapped beneath the rubble of the fifth building when the towers fell. Peña followed it up with a turn as a genial, resourceful FBI agent who assists a government-conned scapegoat (Mark Wahlberg) in Antoine Fuqua's conspiracy thriller Shooter (2007), and essayed a key supporting role in director Robert Redford's ensemble drama Lions for Lambs, opposite Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise. As the years followed, Peña would find continued success in comedy endeavours like Observe and Report, 30 Minutes or Less, and Tower Heist, as well as on the TV series Eastbown & Down.

Trivia: A distinguished actor of the stage and screen, Danny Glover is known for his work in both Hollywood blockbusters and serious dramatic films. Towering and quietly forceful, Glover lends gravity and complexity to the diverse characters he has portrayed throughout his lengthy career.A native of San Francisco, where he was born July 22, 1947, Glover attended San Francisco State and received his dramatic training at the American Conservatory Theatre's Black Actors' Workshop. He made his film debut in Escape from Alcatraz (1979). In the early '80s, Glover made his name portraying characters ranging from the sympathetic in Places in the Heart (1984) to the menacing in Witness (1985) and The Color Purple (1984). He reached box-office-gold status with the three Lethal Weapon flicks produced between 1987 and 1992, playing the conservative, family-man partner of "loose cannon" L.A. cop Mel Gibson. Glover carried over his fiddle-and-bow relationship with Gibson into his off-screen life, and also contributed an amusing cameo (complete with his Lethal Weapon catch-phrase "I'm gettin' too old for this!") in Maverick (1994). In 1998, Glover again reprised his role for the blockbuster-proportioned Lethal Weapon 4, and that same year gave a stirring performance in the little-seen Beloved.In the following years Glover would walk the line between Hollywood heavyweight and serious-minded independent actor with a skill most actors could only dream of, with an affectinate role in Wes Anderson's 2001 comedy drama The Royal Tenenbaums and a surprising turn toward horror in Saw serving well to balance out lesser-seen but equally powerful turns in Boseman and Lena, 3 A.M., and Lars von Trier's Manderlay. The same year that Glover retreated into the woods as a haunted Vietnam veteran in the low-key drama Missing in America, he would turn in a series of guest appearances on the long-running television medical drama E.R. Despite a filmography that seemed populated with an abundance of decidedly serious dramas in the years following the millennial turnover, Glover did cut loose in 2006 when he took a role as Tim Allen's boss in The Shaggy Dog and stepped into the studio to offer vocal performances in the animated kid flicks The Adventures of Brer Rabbit and Barnyard. On television, Glover played the title role in Mandela (1987), cowpoke Joshua Deets in the 1989 miniseries Lonesome Dove, legendary railroad man John Henry in a 1988 installment of Shelley Duvall's Tall Tales, and the mercurial leading character in the 1989 "American Playhouse" revival of A Raisin in the Sun. For his role in Freedom Song as a caring father struggling to raise his young son in 1960s-era Mississippi, Glover was nominated for an Emmy award and took home an Image award for Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Mini-Series, or Dramatic Special. Glover played a proprietor of a struggling blues club in John Sayles' musical drama Honeydripper in 2007, and went on to participate in The Garden (2008), a documentary about a produce garden developed in the aftermath of the L.A. riots. He continued to tackle complex social issues as an executive producer for Trouble the Water, a 2008 documentary following the struggles of New Orleans residents in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and as an associate producer for The Time That Remains (2009), a poignant series of short stories about Palestinians in Israel. Glover also worked as an associate producer for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, an avante-gard fantasy drama that received the Palme d'Or at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

Trivia: American actress Kate Mara realized many an ingenue's dream in late 2005, when she nearly stole Ang Lee's film Brokeback Mountain. As Ennis Del Mar's (Heath Ledger) 19-year-old daughter, Alma Jr., who becomes one of the first familial recipients of Ennis' newfound ability to project love and affection, Mara walked away with one of the most powerful scenes in the picture. It marked a small contribution but a masterful one, and it made audiences take notice of her for the first time. Admirers of this scene may not have realized that Mara's onscreen history stretched back a decade prior to this.As the great-granddaughter of Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney and New York Giants progenitor Tim Mara, Kate Mara began life in Bedford, NY, and came of age in nearby Westchester. Mara debuted on-camera in her early teens, in a 1997 episode of Law & Order, and took her cinematic bow two years after that, as Kristin Scott Thomas' daughter in Sydney Pollack's romantic drama Random Hearts. The film struck audiences as laborious and unsatisfying, but great things lay in store for Mara -- and if she scraped bottom with the direct-to-video slasher flick Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005) and paid her dues with bit roles in such blockbuster series as CSI and 24, her extraordinary contribution to Brokeback (playing, ironically, the daughter of an actor only a few years older than the actress herself) paved the way for more covetable assignments.Thanks in no small part to an inherited football passion, Mara particularly warmed to the part of Annie Cantrell in McG's sports drama We Are Marshall. Mara then appeared as Sarah Fenn, opposite Mark Wahlberg, in Antoine Fuqua's action saga Shooter (2007). She followed that up with a role in Machinist director Brad Anderson's tense thriller Transsiberian, alongside Ben Kingsley and Woody Harrelson. In 2010 she appeared in the indie films Peep World and happythankyoumoreplease, as well as having a key role in the Oscar-nominated drama 127 Hours. She had a leading part in the 2011 twentysomething drama Ten Year. She had a supporting role in the first season of American Horror Story, and then appeared on the first two seasons of House of Cards.

Trivia: Stone-jawed and puppy-eyed, Elias Koteas has the enviable ability to call on both his distinctive looks and talent to portray a variety of complex, often troubled characters. Koteas is one of Canada's most prominent and well-respected actors, and during the late '90s, he began to amass international critical attention for his work in a number of high profile films, including David Cronenberg's Crash (1996) and Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998).Koteas, who is of Greek ancestry, was born in Montreal on March 11, 1961. His father was a mechanic for the Canadian National Railways and his mother worked as a hatmaker; Koteas himself planned to be an architect until his teenage introduction to acting changed his plans. He was particularly inspired by Nick Nolte's performance in the TV miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man; little did Koteas know that two decades later, he would be starring opposite Nolte in The Thin Red Line. After beginning his education at Montreal's Vanier College, Koteas left to study at New York's prestigious American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1981. Following his graduation, he went to New York's Actors Studio, where he studied under Ellen Burstyn and Peter Masterson. The actor made his film debut in the Mary Steenburgen drama One Magic Christmas in 1985 and went on to do supporting work in a variety of films that included Francis Ford Coppola's Gardens of Stone (1987), Some Kind of Wonderful (1987), Coppola's Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), and She's Having a Baby (1988). In 1989, he earned a Genie Award nomination (Canada's equivalent of the Oscar) for his portrayal of the title character of Malarek: A Street Kid Who Made It; two years later, he earned additional acclaim for his performance as a voyeuristic insurance adjustor in Atom Egoyan's The Adjuster. It was for his portrayal of an embittered DJ in another of Egoyan's films, Exotica (1994), that Koteas garnered his second Genie nomination; following this critical success, he began to appear in an increasing number of high profile productions.Koteas was subsequently featured to great effect as the creepy Vaughan in David Cronenberg's controversial Crash (1996), and he invested his brief but pivotal role as Holly Hunter's mystery man in the acclaimed Living out Loud (1998) with memorable charisma. In The Thin Red Line, he managed to stand out from his accomplished co-stars -- who included Nolte, Sean Penn, John Cusack, and Ben Chaplin -- as Captain Storos, an alienated, idealistic soldier who refuses his superior's orders to send his men on a suicidal attack plan. Over the next several years, Koteas would prove to be a consistent force on screen, appearing in films like Shooter, Shutter Island, and Let Me In, as well as the series Combat Hospital.

Trivia: British actress Rhona Mitra's rise to success was helped by two unlikely and dissimilar factors: a video game and an American teen drama. Born in London's Paddington district on August 9, 1976, Mitra was, by her own admission, a troubled adolescent who was expelled from two boarding schools and spent several years involved in London's club culture. In time, she developed an interest in acting and, deciding it was time to take a more serious approach to her life, enrolled in drama school. After one year in the three-year program, Mitra was convinced she knew enough to start looking for work, and began performing in regional theater. In 1997, after landing small roles in several British television shows, she was cast as Flora in a three-part television adaptation of Jilly Cooper's novel The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, and made her film debut the same year in a fantasy adventure for children, A Kid in Aladdin's Palace, in which she played Sheherazade. In 1998, Mitra's resemblance to Laura Croft, the heroine of the popular video game Tomb Raider, won her a job impersonating Croft at trade shows and gaming conventions in the U.K.; she spent most of the year as Croft, and even made an album in which she sang several songs as the character. That same year, Mitra found time to play a small role in the acclaimed British drama Croupier. In 1999, her career got a major boost in the United States when she was cast in the recurring role of Holly Beggins, a British student studying medicine in America, on the successful television series Party of Five. Mitra spent the better part of a year on the show, and in 2000, found herself moving up to portraying a full-fledged doctor, Dr. Ollie Klein, on the well-regarded medical drama Gideon's Grossing, which left the air in 2001. Mitra's television work helped raise her profile in the film industry, and she earned showy supporting roles in Hollow Man, Get Carter, and Sweet Home Alabama.

Trivia: Was born in Portugal but moved with his parents to Canada as a young child. Grew up in North York, Ont. Went by the stage name Justin Louis for 25 years because he was told his real name was too ethnic. He changed it back as a tribute to his mother, who died in 2008. Provided voice-overs for a series of Mazda commercials. In 2008, received a Gemini Award for his role as serial killer Ray Prager in the Canadian drama series Durham County.

Trivia: With his handsome, everyman looks and strong abilities on stage and screen, actor Tate Donovan has endured to become one of the most talented actors that no one recognizes. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing; with previous girlfriends such as Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Aniston and solid performances in Clean and Sober (1988) and Memphis Belle (1990), it's readily apparent that he has the charm to match his talent. A Tenafly, NJ, native who took up acting in his teens, Donovan's early screen appearances came with troubled teen roles in such efforts as Not My Kid and Into Thin Air (both 1985), as well as a memorable appearance in the 1986 sci-fi adventure Space Camp. A move to Los Angeles found Donovan closer to the world of film production while he pursued his higher education at U.S.C., and it was there that he made the acquaintance of longtime friends such as George Clooney. A post-collegiate role in Memphis Belle (1990) proved that Donovan was indeed honing his skills in front of the camera to good effect, and following an appearance as a recovering drug addict in Clean and Sober (1988), he took his first leading role in the 1992 romantic comedy Love Potion No. 9. Though a relationship with that film's co-star, Sandra Bullock, would result in an engagement, the couple parted ways two short years later, and Donovan began a series of appearances in such art-house efforts as Ethan Frome (1993). A role in the Buena Vista comedy Holy Matrimony (1994) found Donovan getting in good with the folks at Disney, and in three short years he would be providing the voice for the eponymous character in the animated Disney adventure Hercules. More success came in the late '90s with appearances in the popular television series Ally McBeal and Friends, and in addition to a memorable appearance in Homicide: Life on the Street, Donovan gained even more exposure when he was spotted around Tinseltown with high-profile squeeze Jennifer Aniston. Though such later efforts as The Office Party (2000) and Exposed (2002) went largely unseen, Donovan returned to the small screen in 2003 with supporting roles in the series The O.C. and Mister Sterling. Over the coming years, Donovan would continue to appear in several projects, including movies like The Pacifier, Shooter, and Argo, as well as TV series like The O.C. and Damages.

Trivia: Considered one of the former Yugoslavia's finest actors, Rade Serbedzija (also credited as Rade Sherbedgia) appeared in over 40 of the fractured country's feature films and was a two-time winner of the Pula Film Festival's coveted Golden Arena for Best Actor. In addition to his film credits, Serbedzija was also a distinguished stage actor, once heralded as Yugoslavia's definitive Hamlet. In cinema, he gained international exposure in the Oscar-nominated Pred Dozhdot/Before the Rain (1994). The film earned ten awards at the 1994 Venice Film Festival, including the Grand Prix Golden Lion; Serbedzija also won the festival's Critics' Award for Best Actor. Thereafter, Serbedzija continued to star and co-star in international productions such as Italy's La Tregua (1997); however, beginning with the 1997 Hollywood adventure yarn The Saint, his presence in American films increased tenfold. He racked up subsequent A-list credits including Mighty Joe Young (1998), Polish Wedding (1998), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Mission: Impossible II (2000), and The Fog (2005). He also made memorable appearances on such U.S. television programs as the hit action thriller series 24 (as the villainous former Soviet Red Army general Dmitri Gredenko during season six) and the short-lived sci-fi show Surface (as a mysterious Serbian scientist). In 2008, Serbedzija teamed up with co-directors Xavier Palud and David Moreau and star Jessica Alba for a supporting role in the psychologically charged horror opus The Eye. He went on to appear in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, as well as in Angelina Jolie's directorial debut In the Land of Honey.

Trivia: Portly American character actor Ned Beatty originally planned to enter the clergy, but after appearing in a single high-school play, he changed his mind and decided to become a thespian instead. By his early twenties, Beatty was playing Broadway and it was his work in the play The Great White Hope that attracted the interest of film director John Boorman, who cast him as one of the four main stars in his gripping backwoods thriller Deliverance (1972). Forever immortalized in the notorious "squeal like a pig" rape scene, Beatty subsequently went on to become one of the screen's more prolific supporting actors, frequently appearing in up to four films per year. His more notable film work includes Nashville (1975), All the President's Men (1976), Network (for which he earned an Oscar nomination), The Big Easy (1987), Hear My Song (1991), A Prelude to a Kiss (1992), Radioland Murders (1994), and He Got Game (1998). In 1999, he could be seen as a small-town sheriff in the Robert Altman ensemble film Cookie's Fortune.At the start of the 21st century the always-employed character actor continued to work steadily in projects as diverse as Roughing It, Where the Red Fern Grows, Shooter, and Charlie Wilson's War. He joined the Pixar family when he voiced Lotso, the bad guy in Toy Story 3, and he provided the voice of Mayor in 2011's Oscar winning animated feature Rango.

Trivia: After supporting roles in a handful of small films, Dallas-born actor Lane Garrison gained fame with a role in the first season of Fox's cult series Prison Break. Though his character didn't last very far into the second season, Garrison parlayed his success into a part in the Mark Wahlberg action thriller Shooter, released in the spring of 2007. Garrison's burgeoning film career, however, was set back when the actor pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge stemming from an incident in December 2006. Driving while under the influence of alcohol and drugs, Garrison plowed his SUV into a tree, killing one of his passengers.

Trivia: British character actor John Standing has a pedigree in performing that spans seven generations and includes his grandfather Sir Guy Standing, the son of actress Kay Hammond, and Sir Ronald George Leon. Considered one of his country's most important actors, he has appeared frequently on British television and also guest starred in many American television series, including L.A. Law, Murder She Wrote, and Civil Wars. He is a distinguished stage actor in both London and New York. Standing made his feature film debut in The Wild and Willing (1963). In film, Standing primarily works as a supporting actor. When not performing, Standing has earned a reputation as a fine painter.

Trivia: Worked as a bouncer. Starred in BBC Children's show The Story of Tracy Beaker between 2004 and 2006. In 2015, directed the annual Urdd National Eisteddfod youth musical 'Chwarae Cuddio'. In 2018, joined the Directors UK Board as Nations and Regions Representative for Wales. Since 2018, has starred as Gwyn Wilde in S4C drama Gwaith/Cartref.