Trivia: Ewan McGregor rocketed to fame over a short period of time, thanks to a brilliant turn as a heroin addict in Trainspotting and the good fortune of being selected by George Lucas and co. to portray the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace. Because Menace arrived amid concomitant fanfare and massive prerelease expectations in early summer 1999, McGregor's appearance in the new trilogy drew a whirlwind of media attention and elicited a series of roles in additional box-office blockbusters, launching the then 28-year-old actor into megastardom. Born on March 31, 1971, in the Scottish town of Crieff, on the southern edge of the Highlands, McGregor joined the Perth Repertory Theatre after high school graduation and subsequently trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His studies at Guildhall led to a key role in Dennis Potter's 1993 Lipstick on Your Collar, a made-for-television musical comedy set during the Suez Crisis. That same year, McGregor received first billing in the British television miniseries Scarlet & Black, an adaptation of Henri Beyle Stendhal's 1830 period novel about a young social climber in post-Napoleonic, late 19th century Europe. McGregor made a well-pedigreed cinematic debut, with a bit part in Bill Forsyth's episodic American drama Being Human (1993), starring Robin Williams. The picture, however, undeservedly flopped and closed almost as soon as it opened, rendering McGregor's contribution ineffectual. The actor continued to turn up on television on both sides of the Atlantic until late 1996; some of his more notable work during this period includes his turn as a beleaguered gunman in an episode of ER and the Cold War episode of Tales From the Crypt, in which he plays a vampiric thief. McGregor landed his cinematic breakthrough role with Danny Boyle's noirish, heavily stylized Shallow Grave (1994). In that film, he essays the role of Alex, a journalist who finds himself in a horrendous position after a murder. He appeared in Carl Prechezer's little-seen British surfing parable Blue Juice (1995) and Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book (1996) before losing almost 30 pounds and shaving his head for his turn as heroin addict Mark Renton in Trainspotting, his sophomore collaboration with Danny Boyle, which gained the attention of critics and audiences worldwide. McGregor then took a 180-degree turn (and projected unflagging versatility) by portraying Frank Churchill in the elegant historical comedy Emma (1996).McGregor continued to work at an impressive pace after Emma, with appearances in Brassed Off (1996), Nightwatch (1998), The Serpent's Kiss (1997), and yet another project with Danny Boyle, the 1997 fantasy A Life Less Ordinary. (The latter film concludes on a raffish note, with an animated puppet of Ewan McGregor dressed in a kilt that bears the McGregor family tartan). In 1998, the actor signed to appear in the Star Wars prequels. (Lucas' decision to hire McGregor for Obi-Wan in the Star Wars prequels was hardly capricious; his uncle, Denis Lawson, had appeared as Wedge Antilles, decades earlier, in the original three installments of the series.) That same year, McGregor contributed a fine performance to Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine, with his portrayal of an iconoclastic, Iggy Pop-like singer during the 1970s glam rock era.As the new millennium dawned, McGregor had a full slate of projects before him, including several for his own production shingle, Natural Nylon, co-founded by McGregor and fellow actors Jude Law, Sean Pertwee, Sadie Frost, and fellow Trainspotter Jonny Lee Miller. Pat Murphy's biopic Nora (2000, co-produced by Wim Wenders' banner Road Movies Filmproduktion and by Metropolitan pictures), represented one of the first films to emerge from this production house. As a dramatization of the real-life relationship between James Joyce and Nora Barnacle, Nora stars McGregor as Joyce and Susan Lynch as the eponymous Nora. The actor stayed in period costume for his other film that year, Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge. Set in 1899 Paris, it stars McGregor as a young poet who becomes enmeshed in the city's sex, drugs, and cancan scene and embarks on a tumultuous relationship with a courtesan (Nicole Kidman). Following a turn in Black Hawk Down (2001), McGregor reprised his role as a young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the eagerly anticipated Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones. 2003 saw McGregor taking advantage of an odd quirk. Years prior, a magazine had commented on the uncanny resemblance between the young Scotch actor and the legendary Albert Finney as a young man. In dire need of a twenty- or thirty-something to portray Finney's younger self for his fantasy Big Fish, Tim Burton cast McGregor in the role; he fit the bill with something close to utter perfection. In that same year's erotic drama Young Adam (directed by David Mackenzie and originally screened at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival), McGregor plays one of two barge workers unlucky enough to dredge up the nearly naked corpse of a young woman. The young actor also starred alongside Renée Zellweger, who, fresh from the success of Chicago, played the unlikely love interest of McGregor's preening, sexist Catcher Block in Down With Love, director Peyton Reed's homage to '60s romantic comedies. McGregor returned to the role of Obie-Wan Kenobi once again in 2005 for Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith, the final film in George Lucas' epic saga. That same year, he lent his voice to the computer-animated family film Robots and starred opposite Scarlett Johansson in Michael Bay's big-budget sci-fi actioner The Island. He also secured the lead role of Sam Foster, a psychiatrist attempting to locate a suicidal patient, in Finding Neverland director Marc Forster's follow-up to that earlier hit, the mindbender Stay. Though that picture died a quick death at the box office, McGregor returned the following year as Ian Rider, a secret agent whose assassination sparks the adventure of a lifetime for his young nephew, in Geoffrey Sax's Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker. The film only had a limited run in the U.S., and was panned by critics.In late 2006, McGregor once again demonstrated his crossover appeal with turns in two much artier films: Scenes of a Sexual Nature and Miss Potter. The former -- Ed Blum's directorial debut, from a script by Aschlin Ditta -- is an ensemble piece about the illusions and realities in the relationships of seven British couples over the course of an afternoon on Hampstead Heath. The latter -- director Chris Noonan's long-awaited follow-up to his 1995 hit Babe -- is a biopic on the life of the much-loved children's author Beatrix Potter (played by Renée Zellweger). McGregor portrays Norman, her editor and paramour.McGregor was next cast in Marcel Langenegger's 2007 thriller The Tourist as Jonathan, an accountant who meets his dream girl at a local strip club but immediately becomes the prime suspect when the woman vanishes, and is accused of a multimillion-dollar theft. Over the coming years, McGregor would appear in a number of successful films, like Incendiary, Cassandra's Dream, I Love You, Phillip Morris, Amelia, Beginners, and Haywire.McGregor married French-born production designer Eve Mavrakis in 1995, with whom he has three children.

Trivia: After essaying a series of roles in her native Israel that carried her through her thirties, actress Ayelet Zurer relocated to Los Angeles and achieved a dual breakthrough in 2005: Steven Spielberg cast her as the wife of a Mossad agent in his period thriller Munich, and Israeli producers recruited her to play one of the leads on BeTipul ("In Treatment"), a blockbuster prime-time drama on local television in Israel. Zurer subsequently chalked up a covetable series of Hollywood roles, typically playing characters of variable Middle Eastern origin; projects included Paul Schrader's Holocaust-themed drama Adam Resurrected (2007) and Pete Travis' assassination-themed political thriller Vantage Point (2008, as a European paramedic with possible ties to clandestine groups).

Trivia: An Irish actor of charisma and talent, Ciarán Hinds has applied his skills to screen, stage, and television. A towering, burly man whose jagged features make him a natural for playing strong, silent types, Hinds has won respect and recognition from critics and drooling women alike.Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on February 9, 1953, Hinds was the fifth child of a doctor and an amateur actress. He attended Belfast's Queen's University for a year with an eye toward studying law, but he left to pursue acting. After studying at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Hinds found employment with the Glasgow Citizens Company, where he made his professional debut playing the back end of a horse in Cinderella. He acted with the company for the better part of the next decade, splitting his time between Glasgow and Ireland. In 1987, he received one of his first big breaks, at the hands of esteemed director Peter Brook, who selected him as a member of his Paris-based theatrical company; the actor was soon performing all over the globe.Hinds made his film debut in John Boorman's 1981 Excalibur, but he did not make another movie until 1989. That year, he appeared in a supporting role in Peter Greenaway's stylishly horrifying The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. After sharing the screen with actors like Richard Bohringer, Tim Roth, and Excalibur co-star Helen Mirren, Hinds went on to make December Bride the next year, and in 1993 he won acclaim for his performance in the made-for-TV Hostages. Two years later, Hinds began to win recognition outside of the U.K., first for his small role as a university professor in the popular Circle of Friends and then for his more sizable performance in Roger Michell's acclaimed adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion. As Captain Frederick Wentworth, captor of heroine Anne Elliot's repressed affections, Hinds caused many an audience member to wonder where he had been for so long, and, more important, when and where he would reappear. When was the following year and where was Some Mother's Son, a drama based on a 1981 hunger strike in a Belfast prison. Hinds had a supporting role in the film, which reunited him with Mirren, but the next year he had a more substantial part in Gillian Armstrong's Oscar and Lucinda, in which he played a reverend. That character was a far cry from his next role, a man trapped in the Irish conflict in 1970s Belfast in Titanic Town (1998). In 1999, Hinds could be seen in Chris Menges' The Lost Son with Daniel Auteuil, Bruce Greenwood, and Natassja Kinski, and in Il Tempo Dell'Amore, which was shown at that year's Toronto Film Festival.The new millennium seemed to bring about something of a re-birth for Hinds' enduring career, with featured roles in such widely-seen films as The Sum of All Fears, The Road to Perdition, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, and The Phantom of the Opera hinting that Hollywood may have finally grown savvy to the impressive talents of the physically-imposing actor. Of course it wasn't all Hollywood glamor, with roles in such limited-release but critically-praised independents as The Weight of Water and Veronica Guerin, and Calendar Girls serving well to help Hinds balance out the big-budget blockbusters. In 2006 Hinds would step into the sandals of no less that Julius Caesar when he essayed the role of the notorious Roman general in HBO's lavish historical drama Rome, with a subsequent role in director Steven Spielberg's 2005 drama Munich preceding a turn as a hard-charging FBI agent in Michael Mann's high-octane action thriller Miamy Vice in 2006. In 2007 he played the closest associate of oil tycoon Daniel Plainview in Paul Thomas Anderson' Oscar-winning There Will Be Blood, and appeared in Margot at the Wedding. He was in Todd Solondz's sort-of sequel to Happiness, Life During Wartime, and was prominent in the well-reviewed 2011 adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. He joined the cast of Harry Potter in that successful series' final entry, and a very busy 2012 found him with major roles in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, The Woman in Black, and providing a voice in the infamous box-office flop John Carter.In addition to his screen work, Hinds has kept busy both on television and the stage. On the small screen, he has appeared in series like Prime Suspect 3 (1993), A Dark Adapted Eye (1994), Jane Eyre (1997), and Ivanhoe (also 1997). On the stage, Hinds has taken part in a number of productions, perhaps most notably the London and Broadway productions of Patrick Marber's Closer in 1998 and 1999. As part of an ensemble cast including Natasha Richardson, Rupert Graves, and Anna Friel, Hinds won raves for his work, further establishing himself as an actor of international acclaim.

Trivia: Was not interested in acting until he was recruited by a casting agent at school and offered an audition. At the age of 11, was chosen out of approximately 10,000 young actors for the role of Steve in the film The Tree of Life opposite Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. Has long enjoyed sports, having played baseball and run on the track team during high school. Was named in Indiewire's list of Top 25 Filmmakers and Actors to Watch in 2011.