Trivia: The youngest of four children born to Evelyn "Brandy" Foster, Jodie Foster entered the world on November 19, 1962, under the name Alicia, but earned her "proper" name when her siblings insisted upon Jodie. A stage-mother supreme, Brandy Foster dragged her kids from one audition to another, securing work for son Buddy in the role of Ken Berry's son on the popular sitcom Mayberry RFD. It was on Mayberry that Foster, already a professional thanks to her stint as the Coppertone girl (the little kid whose swimsuit was being pulled down by a dog on the ads for the suntan lotion), made her TV debut in a succession of minor roles. Buddy would become disenchanted with acting, but Jodie stayed at it, taking a mature, businesslike approach to the disciplines of line memorization and following directions that belied her years. Janet Waldo, a voice actress who worked on the 1970s cartoon series The Addams Family, would recall in later years that Foster, cast due to her raspy voice in the male role of Puggsley Addams, took her job more seriously and with more dedication than many adult actors.After her film debut in Disney's Napoleon and Samantha (1972), Foster was much in demand, though she was usually cast in "oddball" child roles by virtue of her un-starlike facial features. She was cast in the Tatum O'Neal part in the 1974 TV series based on the film Paper Moon -- perhaps the last time she would ever be required to pattern her performance after someone else's. In 1975, Foster was cast in what remains one of her most memorable roles, as preteen prostitute Iris in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Both the director and the on-set supervisors made certain that she would not be psychologically damaged by the sleaziness of her character's surroundings and lifestyle; alas, the film apparently did irreparable damage to the psyche of at least one of its viewers. In 1981, John Hinckley Jr. attempted to assassinate President Reagan, and when captured, insisted he'd done it to impress Foster -- a re-creation of a similar incident in Taxi Driver. The resultant negative publicity made Foster (who'd been previously stalked by Hinckley) extremely sensitive to the excesses of the media; through absolutely no fault of her own, she'd become the quarry of every tabloid and "investigative journalist" in the world. Thereafter, she would stop an interview cold whenever the subject of Hinckley was mentioned, and even ceased answering fan mail or giving out autographs. This (justifiable) shunning of "the public" had little if any effect on Foster's professional life; after graduating magna cum laude from Yale University (later she would also receive an honorary Doctorate), the actress appeared in a handful of "small" films of little commercial value just to recharge her acting batteries, and then came back stronger than ever with her Oscar-winning performance in The Accused (1988), in which she played a rape victim seeking justice. Foster followed up this triumph with another Oscar for her work as FBI investigator Clarice Starling (a role turned down by several prominent actresses) in the 1991 chiller The Silence of the Lambs.Not completely satisfied professionally, Foster went into directing with a worthwhile drama about the tribulations of a child genius, Little Man Tate (1991) -- a logical extension, according to some movie insiders, of Foster's tendency to wield a great deal of authority on the set. Foster would also balance the artistic integrity of her award-winning work with the more commercial considerations of such films as Maverick (1994). She made her debut as producer in 1994 with the acclaimed Nell, in which she also gave an Oscar-nominated performance as a backwoods wild child brought into the modern world. Foster would continue to to produce and direct, with 1995's Home for the Holidays and 2011's The Beaver.Foster would continue to chose a challenging variety of roles, playing scientist Ellie Arroway in Robert Zemeckis' 1997 adaptation of the Carl Sagan in Contact, and a widowed schoolteacher in Anna and the King (1999), and a mother defending her daughter during a home invasion in David Fincher's Panic Room. The 2000's would see Foster appear in several more films, like Inside Man, The Brave One, and the Roman Polanski directed domestic comedy Carnage. In 2013, Foster was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes, and later appeared in sci-fi thriller Elysium.

Trivia: An actor who has demonstrated a fearless capacity for exploring the darker side of human nature, Peter Sarsgaard became synonymous with the term "edgy young performer." With looks that allow him to either play soft-skinned pretty boys or greasy-haired white trash refuse, Sarsgaard has used his malleable features and brooding charisma to great effect in such films as Kimberly Peirce's Boys Don't Cry.A graduate of St. Louis' Washington University, where he was a co-founder of the improvisational group Mama's Pot Roast, Sarsgaard studied at the Actors' Studio in New York. After he completed his studies, he was cast in the off-Broadway production of Horton Foote's Laura Dennis, and, as a member of Douglas Carter Beane's Drama Department, he appeared in John Cameron Mitchell's off-Broadway production of Kingdom of Earth.Sarsgaard made his screen debut in Tim Robbins' Dead Man Walking (1995) but had his first substantial role in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), which cast him as the ill-fated son of John Malkovich's dueling Muskateer. He then appeared in a series of largely unseen independent features, including Larry Clark's Another Day in Paradise and Morgan J. Freeman's Desert Blue (both 1998). In 1999, Sarsgaard broke out of obscurity with his role in Kimberly Peirce's Boys Don't Cry. Cast as a violent yet charismatic ex-con, the actor managed to stand out in a film saturated with strong performances, and the film's unanticipated success provided him with an introduction to a wide audience. His increased profile was reflected in the number of projects he was involved with the following year, including P.J. Hogan's Unconditional Love, a drama about a woman (Kathy Bates) who joins forces with the lover of a dead pop star to track down the star's murderer.Sarsgaard reached a new level of critical acclaim with his supporting performances in two little-seen but highly praised features: 2003's journalist drama Shattered Glass and 2004's biopic Kinsey. In the former, he played dedicated, soft-spoken New Republic editor Chuck Lane, who becomes increasingly more agitated as he catches hotshot reporter Steven Glass fabricating stories. Racking up scores of Best Supporting Actor nods from critics' groups and the Golden Globes, it seemed inevitable that the Academy would recognize Sarsgaard, but he was passed over. A similar fate occurred with Kinsey, in which the actor convincingly played the curious, bisexual assistant - and occasional lover - of the sex researcher.Though ignored by the Oscars, Sarsgaard found his profile rising with powerful casting directors, and in turn, the public. After memorably essaying the role of a stoner gravedigger in the popular 2004 indie Garden State, the actor broke through to mass audiences in 2005 with a trio supporting performances in big-budget genre films: the supernatural thriller The Skeleton Key, the blockbuster Flighplan, and the war memoir Jarhead. Bringing his distinctively low-key delivery to a range of parts that were by turns mystical, sinister and conflicted, Sarsgaard secured his place in the pantheon of great Hollywood character actors.Saarsgard delivered solid performances in Year of the Dog and Rendition (both 2007), and co-starred with Dennis Hopper and Patricia Clarkson for the psychological drama Elegy in 2008. The following year he played the role of a man who becomes increasingly concerned about the behavior of his adoptive daughter for The Orphan, and took on the part of the much-older boyfriend of a 16-year-old girl (Carey Mulligan) for the coming of age drama An Education. Saarsgard joined Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise for a supporting role in the action comedy Knight and Day (2010), and joined the cast of The Green Lantern in 2011.

Trivia: Before enrolling in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Sean Bean was going to enter his father's Sheffield steel fabrication business as a welder. He changed his mind after he garnered praise for acting in a few roles in local theater while taking an art class at Rotherham College. Bean received a scholarship to the prestigious academy and graduated a few years later with the Silver Medal for his performance in Waiting for Godot. Shortly thereafter, Bean performed in several West End productions. He also appeared in Romeo and Juliet with the Glasgow Citizens Theatre and with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-upon-Avon. In the first he played Tybalt and in the second he played Romeo. Following more stage experience, Bean made his feature film debut in 1986 in Derek Jarman's Carvaggio. Two years later, after returning to the stage, Bean appeared in Mike Figgis' Stormy Monday and in another Jarman effort, War Requiem. In addition to his filmwork, Bean also has a thriving television career that began in the mid-'80s. Notable television work includes Clarissa (1992) and Sharpe (1993). It is as a "bad guy" in films such as Patriot Games and Golden Eye that Bean is best-known in the U.S., though in the 1997 remake of Anna Karenina, he plays the dashing and romantic Count Vronsky. After joining Robert De Niro and Jean Reno for some international espionage in John Frankenheimer's Ronin (1998), taking a psychotic turn in Essex Boys (2000) and kidnapping the daughter of a respected adolescent therapist in Don't Say a Word (2001), Bean made his way to New Zealand for a role in director Peter Jackson's highly-successful Lord of the Rings trilogy.Bean maintained his career working in diverse projects such as Equilibrium, the old fashioned sword and sandal epic Troy, and National Treasure.He scored a supporting part in 2005's drama North Country, as well as a major part in Michael Bay's sci-fi spectacle The Island. He returned to the role of Sharpe for 2006's Sharpe's Challenge as well as 2008's Sharpe's Peril, and in between took on the role of the serial killer made famous by Rutger Hauer in the remake of The Hitcher.The steadily working actor continued his hot streak in such projects as Percy Jackson & the Olympians and Death Race 2, and he found success on the small screen when he was cast in a pivotal part in the HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones.

Trivia: Hollywood's Australian import Kate Beahan first established herself by essaying two back-to-back A-list roles as a seemingly innocent young woman with satanically evil hidden agendas. She played the stewardess kidnapper Stephanie (Peter Sarsgaard's accomplice) in German helmer Robert Schwentke's thriller Flightplan (2005), and followed it up with the role of the former girlfriend, Willow, who uses the story of a "missing child" to lure Nicolas Cage's Edward Malus straight into a funeral pyre, in Neil LaBute's disappointing horror remake, The Wicker Man (2006). Born in the late 1970s in Perth, Australia, Beahan landed her first major cinematic role on her native soil, as Tanya the brothel keeper, in Chopper (2000), Andrew Dominik's biopic about the notorious, psychotically violent Aussie criminal Mark "Chopper" Read. When Beahan transitioned to Hollywood shortly thereafter -- using the Chopper role as her ticket to representation -- casting agents typed her as an "exotic," and thus frequently asked her to audition in competition with such actresses as Eva Mendes, perhaps because they were unsure how to "pigeonhole" her. Beahan landed her first bit part in an A-lister as The Coat Check Girl in 2003's The Matrix Revolutions, and appeared alongside Jodie Foster, Sean Bean, and Peter Sarsgaard in Flightplan. The role of Willow in The Wicker Man followed, as did an appearance in Asif Kapadia's supernatural thriller The Return, with Sarah Michelle Gellar as a Midwestern girl plagued by otherworldly visions. Beahan also appears in neophyte director Abe Levy's 2007 drama One of Our Own, a Baby M-like story about the struggle between an infertile couple and a surrogate mother (Beahan) who has agreed to birth their child.

Trivia: Hollywood supporting actor Michael Irby's mixed ethnicity enabled him to play characters from a broad array of cultural backgrounds -- from Obaid, one of the Middle Eastern men mistaken by Jodie Foster for a terrorist, in Robert Schwentke's ham-handed thriller Flightplan (2005), to Hispanic writer-in-training Reinaldo Povod (the brief recipient of Miguel Piñero's bisexual overtures) in the 2001 biopic Piñero. Irby's multiethnic quality also accounted for the malleability of his on-camera appearance (depending upon the dramatic situation); he was able to guest as multiple characters, for instance, on the series Law & Order. Irby culled the most widespread attention, however, for his series work on the prime-time military actioner The Unit, as special ops team member Charles Grey.

Trivia: If early career praise is any indication of future success, singer/actress/dancer Erika Christensen may have a rewarding and fruitful career ahead of her. Refining her diverse talents in such early projects as Michael Jackson's "Childhood" video, as well as singing on Neil Diamond's The Christmas Album II, Christensen's demanding turn as the drug-addicted daughter of the drug czar in Steven Soderbergh's critically acclaimed Traffic has recently focused much attention on the young actress.Born in 1982 and training as an actress since childhood, Christensen began her career in live theater. With early television credits including Frasier and Third Rock From the Sun to her name, Christensen made her film debut in 1997's Leave It to Beaver as Wally Cleaver's girlfriend Karen. Christensen's early roles were of mostly light comedic substance, a trend she has recently countered by gravitating toward more dramatic roles in both television and film. Nominated for the 1998 Young Star Award for her performance in the television series Nothing Sacred, Christensen continued her dramatic turn in such television series as The Practice and Touched by an Angel.In addition to her television roles, Christensen's film credits have also progressed into the more dramatic. Following Leave It to Beaver with the Disney film Can of Worms, Christensen's next role would face her with the formidable challenge of sympathetically portraying a broken, drug-addicted teen in Traffic. The following years found Christensen leaning toward more dramatic roles, which worked to her advantage in terms of developing as a serious-minded young actress, and despite roles in such popcorn-munchers as Swimfan (2002), the actress continued to challenge herself with roles in such films as that same year's Home Room. An unflinching journey into the dark heart of post-Columbine high school America, Christensen's role as a once popular student thrust into despair after being wounded in a high school shooting proved she had not lost her dramatic edge. On the lighter side, Christensen would next turn up alongside actresses Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon in the comedy drama The Banger Sisters before conspiring to ace her SAT in a less-than-legal fashion in The Perfect Score (2003). In 2004 she played one of the daughters of Joan Allen in Mike Binder's comedy/drama The Upside of Anger. She continued to act steadily, though she found her next big success on the small screen when she became part of the ensemble in NBC's hour-long version of Parenthood that debuted in 2010, a role she stuck with through the show's end in 2015.

Trivia: Appeared in national commercials for Hasbro and Dell Computers. At age eleven, left her father and brother in Texas and moved with her mother to Los Angeles in order to pursue her dream of acting in Hollywood. An ambassador for the 2015 Los Angeles Autoimmune Walk to support her mother, who suffers from Relapsing Polychondritis. Is an ambassador for the Starlight Starpower Foundation for children.

Trivia: Played Lt. Schrank in a touring production of West Side Story for almost five years after college. A 2005 comedy he starred in, Full Disclosure, became the No. 1 downloaded short film on iTunes. Plays guitar.

Trivia: A talented stage actor who made a name for himself in Broadway and off-Broadway productions, John Benjamin Hickey has also appeared on such popular television shows as Sex and the City and Homicide: Life in the Streets. Simultaneously making a bid for the big screen with roles in The Ice Storm (1997) and Love! Valour! Compassion! (1997), Hickey began gaining momentum in such big budget efforts as The Bone Collector and The General's Daughter (both 1999). After leaning back toward his stage roots with television's Hamlet in 2000, Hickey appeared in Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh's searing showbiz satire The Wedding Party in 2001. He worked steadily in small parts in movies such as Changing Lanes, Flightplan, and Infamous, and landed a major role for Clint Eastwood in the 2006 World War II drama Flags of Our Fathers. He appeared in Freedom Writers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and the remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 before landing a major role in the Showtime series The Big C opposite Laura Linney.

Trivia: Lead actress Stephanie Faracy first appeared onscreen in the late '70s.

Trivia: British actress Amanda Brooks premiered onscreen as an ingenue in her early twenties, in films of extremely diverse content. These included the Jodie Foster thriller Flightplan (2005), actor-turned-director William Katt's gentle family-oriented drama River's End (2005), and Korean director Shim Hyung-rae's effects-heavy monster saga Dragon Wars (2007).

Trivia: The daughter of an English dancer and an Italian painter, Greta Scacchi was born in Milan, Italy, though she was primarily raised in London. Around the age of 15, Scacchi moved with her family to Australia, where she held a series of odd jobs; among the most unique were cowgirl and Italian interpreter. Two years later, Scacchi moved back to London in hopes of establishing an acting career for herself. Her first step was training at the prestigious Old Vic Theatre, to the displeasure of her father, who, by that point, had become estranged from the family. Before long, Scacchi began appearing in small stage productions and commercials, which were enough to snare the attention of filmmaker Dominik Graf, who cast her in the 1982 German thriller Das Zweite Gesicht. Scacchi learned to speak German strictly for the role.For nearly eight years, Scacchi performed almost exclusively for British stage and television productions, though, particularly after her 1984 portrayal of the title role in the TV-movie version of Camille, she was slowly building a fan following within the U.S. It was her role in a modernized Chekhov play, however, that would earn her attention from Hollywood. Her first American film was Presumed Innocent (1990), in which she portrayed the seductive attorney whose liaison with the married Harrison Ford precipitates her rather nasty murder. Two years later, Scacchi could be found at her seductive best opposite Tim Robbins in director Robert Altman's showbiz comedy The Player; she would star in a similarly themed film 11 years later (Henry Jaglom's Festival in Cannes).Despite her success on the big screen, Scacchi continued her work on television rather than pursuing a full-time film career, partly because it provided more opportunities to perform in classic roles -- in addition to co-starring in productions of Macbeth and The Odyssey, the young actress won an Emmy for her performance alongside Ian McKellen and Alan Rickman in Rasputin (1996). Her film roles were generally met with praise; in Emma (1996), Scacchi was held in very high esteem by both critics and co-star Gwyneth Paltrow, though her most significant role came in the film The Red Violin (1998). The Canadian-Italian production was a surprise success, and Scacchi's portrayal of a novelist embroiled in an affair with a British composer (Jason Flemyng) certainly contributed to film's numerous Genie awards (a highly prestigious Canadian film honor) and its Golden Globe win for Best Foreign Film. In 1999, Scacchi appeared in a unique film that took place entirely inside a women's bathroom (the aptly titled Ladies Room), which also featured Lorraine Bracco and John Malkovich. Scacchi continued her international acting career in 2004, when she starred in both Baltic Storm and Sotto Falso Nome.

Trivia: The star of Republic Pictures' notoriously bad Daughter of the Jungle (1949), and, she claims, a second cousin to both Charles Lindbergh and Gig Young, Lois Hall was discovered by an agent while performing with the famed Pasadena Playhouse. She had a walk-on in the Cary Grant comedy Every Girl Should be Married (1948) and then settled into a long stint as a leading lady to such B-Western stars as Charles Starrett, Johnny Mack Brown, and Whip Wilson. Hall also did the inevitable serials, The Adventures of Sir Galahad (1949) and Pirates of the High Seas (1950), and was frequently seen on television's The Range Rider series until semi-retiring in 1958 to care for her family. Widowed in 1995, Hall works as an ambassador for the Baha'i One World Faith but has returned to acting on such television shows as Profiler (2000) and in the feature films Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000) and Bad Boy (2002).

Trivia: Has British and Swiss-German ancestry. Attended high school with actor Lee Pace and remains good friends with him. Got his acting start in a Houston stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire while in high school. After graduating from college, moved to New York and landed recurring roles on daytime soaps All My Children and Guiding Light. Was tipped to star in Superman Returns (2006), until a change of directors led to Brandon Routh being cast as the titular superhero. Gained a higher profile with starring roles on the short-lived ABC drama Traveler and the acclaimed USA Network series White Collar. Named People magazine's Sexiest Rising Star in 2009. Was awarded a Golden Globe in 2015 for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in The Normal Heart. Supports 12 charities involving research into AIDS and cancer, as well as equal rights and family life.