Trivia: A consummately British leading man, actor James Wilby cut his thespian teeth in the British theater world and appeared in a number of British period films during the 1980s and 1990s.Though he was born abroad, Wilby was educated in England, attending a private school and Durham University. Intent on becoming an actor, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in the early '80s and began acting in plays, including Another Country. He added films to his resumé, with small roles in the drama Privileged (1982), alongside fellow newcomer Hugh Grant, and the Lewis Carroll biopic Dreamchild (1985).Wilby firmly established himself as a rising British film actor with producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory's adaptation of the E.M. Forster novel Maurice in 1987. Centering on love affairs between Wilby's 1910s title youth and Hugh Grant and Rupert Graves, Maurice earned Wilby and Grant the Best Actor prize at theVenice Film Festival and an international art house audience. Wilby garnered more accolades for his performance as the repressed 1930s husband caught in a love triangle with wife Kristin Scott Thomas and interloper Rupert Graves in the highly regarded Evelyn Waugh adaptation A Handful of Dust (1988). Continuing his winning streak, Wilby subsequently appeared in Masterpiece Theater's well-mounted miniseries of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (1989), and co-starred with Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins in another acclaimed Merchant/Ivory adaptation of E.M. Forster, Howards End (1992). Though the rest of Wilby's 1990s movies were not as impressively received, he continued to appear regularly in British films and TV, including Immaculate Conception (1992), the World War I drama Regeneration (1997), and the children's movie Tom's Midnight Garden (1998). Wilby reunited with Ismail Merchant in the producer's directorial effort Cotton Mary (1999), but the British colonial drama did not match the success of Wilby's prior Merchant/Ivory work.Wilby subsequently appeared among the distinguished ensemble populating Robert Altman's Oscar-winning period piece Gosford Park (2001). As "upstairs" guest the Honorable Freddie Nesbitt, Wilby was a most dishonorable schemer and a possible murder suspect in Altman's witty anti-Merchant Ivory dissection of the British class system and its usual depiction in polished costume dramas and Agatha Christie murder mysteries.

Trivia: When Imogen Stubbs delighted worldwide audiences with her performance as Viola in a 1996 film production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Americans may have wondered who this talented newcomer was, when in fact Stubbs was no neophyte actress but a seasoned veteran well-known to British audiences. Highly regarded for her intelligence, versatility, and formidable acting skill, she had appeared previously, mostly in the U.K., in stage and radio plays, television series, and motion pictures. Among her credits were challenging roles in productions of Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, George Bernard Shaw, Anton Chekhov, and, for good measure, Monty Python.Stubbs was born on February 20, 1961, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in Northumberland, England. She and her family lived for a short time in Portsmouth, where her father served as a naval officer, then moved to London to an unusual address -- a barge on the River Thames. Her London environs and their rich theater heritage no doubt fed her acting fancies, and after graduating from Oxford, she received classical training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.When she was only 21, she launched her film career playing, coincidentally, the part of Imogen in Privileged, then appeared as Mrs. Gilbert in the TV series The Browning Version in 1985 and as Nanou in a film of the same name in 1986. As her talent matured, she took on a demanding schedule, making six more films -- including Erik the Viking -- between 1988 and 1991. While making these six films, she squeezed in stage performances, including a portrayal of Desdemona in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Othello under the supervision of acclaimed director Trevor Nunn, whom she later married. It was Nunn who directed her in the film version of Twelfth Night. In that film, she plays a young woman disguised as a man, who in her male garb, unwittingly attracts the attentions of another woman (Helena Bonham Carter). Stubbs' gender-bending role is a formidable test of her acting skill. On the one hand, she has to remain charming and feminine for filmgoers, who know she is really a woman, and bold and masculine for the characters in the play, who believe she is really a man. She passed the test, winning worldwide attention and the plaudits of critics.In fact, the 1990s were golden for Stubbs. Besides her triumph in Twelfth Night, she appeared in other popular films, including the 1995 film production of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, in which she played Lucy Steele. She also took to the stage as Stella Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, Yelena in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Joan in George Bernard Shaw's St. Joan, and Ellie Dunn in Shaw's Heartbreak House. In addition, she played a detective in a highly popular British television series, Anna Lee. During all this time, Stubbs managed to perform one other important role -- mother. She and Nunn have two children, Ellie and Jesse.

Trivia: British supporting and occasional leading actress Sophie Ward made her film debut in Full Circle (aka The Haunting of Julia) (1977) and did not appear in films again until Shocking Accident in 1982. The daughter of actor Simon Ward, her subsequent film appearances have been sporadic.

Trivia: British actress Susannah York studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she won the Arthene Seyler and Ronson Awards. Several theatrical appearances and TV plays later, York was cast in her first film, 1960's Tunes of Glory. Her best early film roles included Sophie Western in Tom Jones (1963) and a profoundly disturbed patient in John Huston's Freud (1962). She created a mild tabloid sensation in 1968 when she gamely participated in scenes involving masturbation and lesbian lovemaking in The Killing of Sister George. Her performance as a bleach-blonde 1930's loser in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? won her the BFA award and an Oscar nomination; she would go on to collect a Cannes award for her work in Robert Altman's Images (1972). The biggest box-office successes with which she was associated were the first two Superman films, cast as the Man of Steel's Kryptonian mother. Adding writing to her long list of accomplishments, Susannah York co-authored the script for her 1980 film Falling in Love Again, and published several popular children's books. She died at age 72 in early 2011.

Trivia: Has been a vegetarian since he was 18; is a patron of the Vegetarian Society. In 1995, released a cover version of "Unchained Melody" with his Soldier Soldier co-star Robson Green; it sold more than a million copies and was the best-selling single of the year. Robson and Jerome donated £27,000 to Greenpeace from the proceeds of their singles. Before his appearance on Game of Thrones in 2011, had not been on screen for 10 years. Is a patron of The Forces-Helpline, a website that helps address any bullying issues in the Navy, Army or Royal Air Force.

Trivia: Portly, balding British character actor, onscreen from 1968; he often plays self-important types.

Trivia: Hollow-cheeked character player Kenneth Colley acted in several of the "trendy," director-dominated films glutting the market of his native England in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Colley was seen in Michael Winner's The Jokers (1967), Richard Lester's How I Won the War (1968), Ken Russell's The Devils (1971) and The Music Lovers (1971). Many of the actor's later performances were in more conformist films like Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973) and Return of the Jedi (1983) (as Admiral Piett), though in 1989 he was back with Ken Russell in The Rainbow (1989). Colley portrayed Lord Horatio Nelson in the four-part TV biography I Remember Nelson, telecast in America as part of the 1981-82 season of Masterpiece Theatre.