Trivia: Sean Astin had starred in ten movies, directed a short film, and formed his own production company all before his 21st birthday. The elder son of actress Patty Duke and actor/director John Astin, he knew the hazards of Hollywood life: As a popular child star, Astin refrained from drinking, drugs, and narcissism. He juggled acting with attending classes at Crossroads High School for the Arts and Los Angeles Valley College, eventually graduating cum laude from the University of California at Los Angeles with dual degrees in History and American Literature and Culture. When his younger brother, fellow kid actor Mackenzie Astin, temporarily fled Los Angeles to pursue journalism, Astin doggedly remained in town -- he once half-heartedly considered a law career, but could never part with being an entertainer. Astin was born in Santa Monica, CA, on February 25, 1971. His famous parents actively supported his childhood ambition to become an actor, and Astin was cast in TV specials, movies, and even series until 1983. Barely a year later, screenwriter Steven Spielberg handpicked the 13-year-old Astin to star as Michael "Mikey" Walsh in Richard Donner's children's adventure film The Goonies (1985). Astin earned his first Young Artist Award for his work on the film and went on to act in a host of teen pictures. He headlined the Disney Channel television movie The B.R.A.T. Patrol (1986), joined Kevin Bacon for the wilderness adventure White Water Summer (1987), and appeared with Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron in the comedy Like Father, Like Son (1987).In 1988, Astin directed his first short film, a Vietnam picture about the unexpected relationship between an American GI and a Viet Cong soldier titled On My Honor. Astin's own production company, Lava Entertainment, financed the film. While continuing to develop projects through Lava Entertainment, Astin starred with Dermot Mulroney in 1989's Staying Together. He won his second Young Artist Award for his performance in the picture. Also in 1989, Astin portrayed the teenage son of feuding couple Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas in Danny DeVito's The War of the Roses. He finished off the '80s by enlisting in the all-star cast of Michael Caton-Jones' World War II drama Memphis Belle (1990). The film -- which also features Matthew Modine, Harry Connick Jr., Billy Zane, and Eric Stoltz -- followed the crew of the Memphis Belle bomber on their harrowing final run over Germany. Astin's stocky build and comic timing lent well to his incarnation as the group's tail gunner, Sergeant Richard "Rascal" Moore. When Astin initially lost the lead role in his next picture, Toy Soldiers (1991), to Wil Wheaton, he treated the film's director, Dan Petrie Jr., to a screening of Memphis Belle. Petrie was so impressed by his work that he relegated Wheaton to a supporting part and cast Astin as Toy Soldiers' hero, a rebellious student who saves his prep school from South American terrorists.In the spring of 1992, Astin starred with Pauly Shore and Brendan Fraser in Encino Man, a comedy about two California high school students who discover a caveman. He then reunited with Dermot Mulroney in the drama Where the Day Takes You (1992), which also stars Will Smith, Christian Slater, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Ricki Lake. 1993 saw Astin play the title character in Rudy, the memorable film about a tenacious boy determined to play football for Notre Dame despite the fact that he is too small. Football coaches around the United States still show the film before games to inspire their players, and, to this day, strangers still chant "Rudy! Rudy!" when they spot Astin on the street.After filming Safe Passage (1994) with Susan Sarandon and Sam Shepard, Astin appeared in the independent film The Low Life (1995), for which he won the Best Actor Award at the 1995 Fort Lauderdale Film Festival. That same year, he wrote, directed, and produced his second short film, Kangaroo Court. The picture tells the story of a police officer who is put on trial by an inner-city gang and stars Gregory Hines and Michael O'Keefe. It earned Astin an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Film (coincidently, John Astin was nominated in the same category for his film Prelude in 1969).Astin continued to work steadily throughout the '90s. In 1995, he starred in Showtime's adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s futuristic short story Harrison Bergeron. In 1996, he made a cameo as a doomed soldier in the first feature film to depict Desert Storm, Edward Zwick's Courage Under Fire. In 1997, he directed and starred in an episode of HBO's Perversions of Science called "Snap Ending" and was one of several narrators in the Academy Award-winning Holocaust documentary The Long Way Home. In 1998, Astin took a small role in Warren Beatty's Bulworth and began work on a string of independent films -- including Boy Meets Girl (1998), Dish Dogs (1998), Kimberly (1999), Deterrence (1999), and Icebreaker (1999). The decade also brought changes to Astin's personal life. On July 11, 1992, he married Christine Astin (born Harrell) at Patty Duke's Idaho farm. The couple met when she worked at Astin's talent agency and they co-founded Lava Entertainment together. Then, in 1994, Astin underwent DNA testing that revealed rock promoter Michael Tell to be his biological father (Patty Duke and Tell had been briefly married before her engagement to John Astin). Though the actor is friendly with Tell, he still considers those who raised him to be his parents. Two years later, Astin and his wife had their first child, Alexandra Louise, in November of 1996. In the summer of 1999, Astin landed the coveted part of portly hobbit Samwise "Sam" Gamgee in Peter Jackson's highly anticipated three-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Auditions for the role were held over several months in every English-speaking country in the world. Astin's father had appeared in Jackson's horror film The Frighteners, and the veteran actor's fondness for the director made Astin determined to get the part. When he found that his only competition was an overweight English thespian, Astin gained 30 pounds to secure the role. All three installments of the trilogy -- The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003) -- were filmed simultaneously over an 18-month period in New Zealand. Astin's wife and daughter accompanied him to the shoot and Alexandra made her acting debut as a young hobbit in Sam Gamgee's family. The couple had a second child, Elizabeth Louise, between the release of the first and second films.After the success of the Lord of the Rings franchise, Astin kept busy with a slew of projects throughout the 2000s, like 50 First Dates, Click, and an arc on the TV series 24. Astin would also do extensive voice acting in the 2000s and 2010s, on kids shows like Special Agent Oso and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Trivia: Rugged leading man Josh Brolin was raised on a horse ranch in California, a fact that would come to inform his persona as an actor in years to come. But when the 17 year old made his big-screen debut in 1985's The Goonies, most viewers knew him as the son of actor James Brolin. The younger Brolin didn't shy away from his Hollywood roots, and when he relocated to L.A. to pursue an acting career, he moved in with his dad while he studied the craft under the esteemed Stella Adler. He soon followed his appearance in The Goonies with a lead role in the series Private Eye, and though the show didn't last, Brolin decided to stay in TV, starring in the Western series Young Riders. The show ended its three-year run in 1992, when Brolin's marriage to Alice Adair ended as well, and Brolin seemed intent on flying under the radar for the next several years, pursuing mostly smaller, independent projects like My Brother's War and Mimic. In 2007, he caught on with a new core group of fans when he played the sinister Doc Block in Robert Rodriguez's instant cult favorite Planet Terror, one half of the Grindhouse double feature. Later that same year, however, he would be reintroduced to audiences on a much huger scale when he took the lead role in the Coen brothers' highly acclaimed No Country for Old Men. The sleeper film would become one of the biggest films of the year, winning the Oscar for Best Picture and making Brolin a household name for the first time in over a decade.Brolin next signed on to play the title role in W., Oliver Stone's satirical biopic about president George W. Bush. Buzz gathered around the project before so much as a trailer was released, praising the actor's complete transformation into what had originally seemed like a strange role for him to play. Although the buzz was that he would garner some awards for his role as the 43rd President, it turned out that a different political film from 2008 would bring him the biggest accolades of his career. His portrayal of Dan White, the man who assassinated Harvey Milk, in Gus Van Sant's Milk garnered Brolin his first Academy Award nomination, as well as a nod from the Screen Actors Guild.In 2010 he would play the title character in the adaptation of the comic book Jonah Hex, but he would find much greater success as the dastardly Tom Chaney in the Coen brothers remake of True Grit. He shares a very funny story in the 2011 documentary Woody Allen: A Documentary. In 2012 he stepped into the successful Men In Black franchise with MiB3, playing a younger version of Tommy Lee Jones's character. He next appeared in Gangster Squad, opposite Ryan Gosling, and took on the lead in the 2013 English language remake of Oldboy. Brolin joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing the villainous Thanos, first in Guardians of the Galaxy and later reprising his role in other films in the MCU. In 2014, he also appeared in the Sin City sequel A Dame to Kill For and Inherent Vice. He later took a role in the disaster film, Everest, based on the real-life disaster the occurred on the mountain in 1996.

Trivia: A professional actor from the age of three, Corey Feldman was kept busy early on with innumerable TV commercials and voice-overs. Feldman's first regular television work was a recurring role in Mork and Mindy (1978-1982), followed by the part of Regi Tower in the weekly sitcom version of The Bad News Bears (1979). He made his earliest film appearance as the inquisitive kid in the museum in Time After Time (1979). In the early '80s, Feldman showed up in several episodes of the syndicated Madame's Place (1982) and played precocious-brat roles in such fantasy flicks as Gremlins (1984) and The Goonies (1985). During this period, he also provided the voice of the Young Copper in the Disney animated feature The Fox and the Hound (1980). His breakthrough role, at age 14, was as the battered, bespectacled small-town hell-raiser Teddy Duchamp in Rob Reiner's Stand by Me (1986). Feldman's acting career then went into decline, leaving him with few professional choices outside of minor roles in features such as Maverick (1994) and leads in direct-to-video movies. His most successful post-Stand by Me venture was as the voice of Donatello in the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. In many of his latter-day efforts, Feldman co-starred with his offscreen best friend Corey Haim, another youthful performer.

Trivia: One of today's best character actors, the inexhaustible Joe Pantoliano boasts over 100 film, television, and stage credits. A favorite of directors Richard Donner, Steven Spielberg, Andrew Davis, and Andy and Larry Wachowski, he is also a dependable scene stealer with more than his share of memorable roles -- including killer pimp Guido in Risky Business (1983), bumbling criminal Francis Fratelli in The Goonies (1985), double-crossing bail bondsman Eddie Moscone in Midnight Run (1988), cynical U.S. Marshall Cosmo Renfro in The Fugitive (1993), turncoat Cypher in The Matrix (1999), and shady sidekick Teddy in Memento (2000). Born on September 12, 1951 in Hoboken, NJ, the actor is the only son of Dominic, a hearse driver, and Mary Pantoliano, a part-time seamstress/bookie. When he was 12, Pantoliano's mother left his father for her distant cousin Florio, though the couple never officially divorced. Pantoliano and his younger sister Maryann grew up throughout northern New Jersey with their mother and Florio, whom they eventually came to regard as their stepfather. Pantoliano suffered from severe dyslexia, and at age 17, he was still reading at the third-grade level. After seeing the youngster perform in his senior play, Up the Down Staircase, Florio convinced him to pursue acting professionally. Pantoliano moved to Manhattan, where he worked as a waiter while juggling acting classes and auditions. In 1972, he landed the coveted role of stuttering Billy Bibbit in the touring production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Four years later, Pantoliano moved west to try his luck in Hollywood. After making his television debut in the sitcom pilot McNamara's Band, he landed a recurring role in Rob Reiner's summer replacement series, Free Country. Reiner then tapped Pantoliano to co-star with him in James Burrows' television movie More Than Friends (1978). This led to the part of Angelo Maggio -- a role originated by fellow Hoboken-ite Frank Sinatra -- in NBC's miniseries adaptation of James Jones' From Here to Eternity (1979). After making his major feature-film debut in The Idolmaker (1980), Pantoliano guest starred on Hart to Hart, M*A*S*H, and Hardcastle and McCormick, as well as appeared on the Los Angeles stage in Orphans. He also landed a sizable part opposite a young Tom Cruise in the surprise hit Risky Business (1983). The comic ruthlessness with which Pantoliano's pimp tortures Cruise quickly earned the character actor a loyal cult following. He gave standout performances in Eddie and the Cruisers (1983) and the off-Broadway play Visions of Kerouac, before thrilling audiences again in the Spielberg-produced adventure The Goonies (1985). Scores of plum roles followed: Pantoliano joined Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines in Running Scared (1986), portrayed Lou Diamond Phillips' music producer in La Bamba (1987), re-teamed with Spielberg in Empire of the Sun (1987), and acted opposite Robert De Niro in Midnight Run (1988). He then topped these performances off with an unforgettable turn opposite Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford in The Fugitive (1993), delivering a funny, fiery tour de force that was pure Pantoliano right down to the name he chose for his character, Cosmo -- his grandfather's name. By the mid-'90s, Pantoliano had a recognizable name and a devoted fan base. While making numerous television guest appearances, he starred with Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon in directors Andy and Larry Wachowski's debut thriller, Bound (1996). Pantoliano's edgy performance as a doomed money launderer impressed the Wachowskis so much that they created the character of Cypher in The Matrix (1999) exclusively for him. Shortly afterward, his co-star in the sci-fi spectacular, Carrie-Anne Moss, insisted that director Christopher Nolan hire Pantoliano for the third lead in his sleeper-hit Memento (2000). In 2001, at the behest of producer David Chase, Pantoliano joined the cast of the landmark HBO series The Sopranos. While earning a well-deserved Emmy as psychopathic mobster Ralphie Cifaretto on the hit show, the actor published Who's Sorry Now: The True Story of a Stand-Up Guy, a bittersweet memoir about his New Jersey childhood. He also put the finishing touches on his directorial debut, Just Like Mona (2002), and began filming his role as reporter Ben Urich in the comic book adaptation Daredevil (2003). Over the course of the next decade, the versatile actor continued his trend of turning in memorable supporting performances on film and television, with turns in films like Bad Boys II and Pecy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief offering the most exposure. Meanwhile, in 2009, Pantoliano got personal with his fans as the director of No Kidding, Me Too!, a playful yet poignant documentary exploring the devastating effects of mental illness, and the steps being taken to eradicate it.

Trivia: Perky, red-haired, freckled leading lady Kerri Green first appeared onscreen in Goonies (1985).

Trivia: A lead and former juvenile actress, with a strong, intelligent, almost abrasive screen presence, she is the daughter of actors Keith Carradine and Shelley Plimpton, who never married and, in fact, broke up before she was born. At age eight she began working in a film-acting workshop; she made a series of Calvin Klein commercials at age 11. She debuted onscreen at the age of 13 in River Rat (1984), playing adolecents and teenagers in a string of films. By the early '90s she had broken out of the juvenile mode and started to establish herself as a mature actress. She had a close relationship with the late actor River Phoenix, with whom she appeared in The Mosquito Coast (1986) and Running on Empty (1988).

Trivia: Supporting actor Jonathan Ke Quan (he originally billed himself by his birth name Quan Ke Huy) made his film debut playing the adorable and feisty street kid Short Round opposite Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). He then co-starred in Goonies (1985). He also was a regular in the TV series Together We Stand (1986) and between 1990 and 1991, he was a regular on the television sitcom Head of the Class. Quan's Hollywood film career ended in 1992 with the film Encino Man. Quan was born in Vietnam, but raised in the United States.

Trivia: During his first professional "life," Wisconsin-born John Matuszak was a football player. Actually, that's an understatement: as Houston's number one pick in the 1973 NFL draft, as a wildly unpredictable defensive lineman for the Raiders, and as a veteran of two Super Bowls, Matuszak was a FOOTBALL PLAYER. Like many of his calling, Matuszak decided to try the movies, beginning with a good part in the football-oriented North Dallas Forty (1979). In his case, acting "took," and Matuszak became a successful film and TV performer after his 1982 retirement from professional sports, playing character roles in fantasy films like Ice Pirates (1984) and Goonies (1986) and making regular appearances on the TV series Hollywood Beat and First and Ten. Sadly, John Matuszak died suddenly in 1989 at the age of 38.

Trivia: In the early 1970s, after completing college, moved to California and became a Los Angeles County social worker. Took drama class in 1973 at Hollywood High School in Los Angeles. After she won an acting competition held by the school, decided to pursue a career in acting. Made first TV appearance in the 1974 made-for-TV drama I Love You...Goodbye. Assisted in the creation of the Latino Theater Company in Los Angeles. Appeared in the stage and movie adaptations of Zoot Suit and Real Women Have Curves. Won a National Board of Review award and received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for her performance in the 2000 film Chuck & Buck. Provided voice of Abuela Elena in the PBS animated series Maya and Miguel. Narrated the 2005 Independent Lens PBS documentary Maid in America, which featured women who work as domestics. By her own account, she has portrayed a maid more than 150 times in her career. Recipient of the National Hispanic Media Coalition Lifetime Achievement Award.