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: Though perhaps best-known internationally for playing tough-guy roles in Romper Stomper (1993), L.A. Confidential (1997), and Gladiator (2000), New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe has proven himself equally capable of playing gentler roles in films such as Proof (1991) and The Sum of Us (1992). No matter what kind of characters he plays, Crowe's weather-beaten handsomeness and gruff charisma combine to make him constantly watchable: his one-time Hollywood mentor Sharon Stone has called him "the sexiest guy working in movies today."Born in Wellington, New Zealand, on April 7, 1964, Crowe was raised in Australia from the age of four. His parents made their living by catering movie shoots, and often brought Crowe with them to work; it was while hanging around the various sets that he developed a passion for acting. After making his professional debut in an episode of the television series Spyforce when he was six, Crowe took a 12-year break from professional acting, netting his next gig when he was 18. In film, he had his first major roles in such dramas as The Crossing (1990) and Jocelyn Moorhouse's widely praised Proof (1991) (for which he won an Australian Film Institute award). He then went on to gain international recognition for his intense, multi-layered portrayal of a Melbourne skinhead in Geoffrey Wright's controversial Romper Stomper (1992), winning another AFI award, as well as an Australian Film Critics award. It was Sharon Stone who helped bring Crowe to Hollywood to play a gunfighter-turned-preacher opposite her in Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead (1995). Though the film was not a huge box-office success, it did open Hollywood doors for Crowe, who subsequently split his time between the U.S. and Australia. In 1997, the actor had his largest success to date playing volatile cop Bud White in Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential (1997). Following the praise surrounding both the film and his performance in it, Crowe found himself working steadily in Hollywood, starring in two films released in 1999: Mystery, Alaska and The Insider. In the latter, he gave an Oscar-nominated lead performance as Jeffrey Wigand, a real-life tobacco industry employee whose personal life was dragged through the mud when he chose to blow the whistle on his former company's questionable business practices.In 2000, however, Crowe finally crossed over into the public's consciousness with, literally, a tour de force performance in Ridley Scott's glossy Roman epic Gladiator. The Dreamworks/Universal co-production was a major gamble from the outset, devoting more than 100 million dollars to an unfinished script (involving the efforts of at least half a dozen writers), an untested star (stepping into a role originally intended for Mel Gibson), and an all-but-dead genre (the sword-and-sandals adventure). Thanks to an aggressive marketing campaign and mostly positive notices, however, the public turned out in droves the first weekend of the film's release, and kept coming back long into the summer for Gladiator's potent blend of action, grandeur, and melodrama -- all anchored by Crowe's passionate man-of-few-words performance.Anticipation was high, then, for the actor's second 2000 showing, the hostage drama Proof of Life. Despite -- or perhaps because of -- the widely publicized affair between Crowe and his co-star Meg Ryan, the film failed to generate much heat during the holiday box-office season, and attention turned once again to the actor's star-making role some six months prior. In an Oscar year devoid of conventionally spectacular epics, Gladiator netted 12 nominations in February 2001, including one for its lead performer. While many wags viewed the film's eventual Best Picture victory as a fluke, the same could not be said for Crowe's Best Actor victory: nudging past such stiff competition as Tom Hanks and Ed Harris, Crowe finally nabbed a statue, affirming for Hollywood the talent that critics had first noticed almost ten years earlier.Crowe's 2001 role as real-life Nobel Prize-winning schizophrenic mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. brought the actor back into the Oscar arena. The film vaulted past the 100-million-dollar mark as it took home Golden Globes for Best Picture, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, and Actor and racked up eight Oscar nominations, including a Best Actor nod for Crowe. The film cemented Crowe as a top-tier leading man, and he would spend the following years proving this again and again, with landmark roles in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Cinderella Man, A Good Year, 3:10 to Yuma, Robin Hood, and State of Play.

Trivia: Both exotic and classic, Wales-born actress Catherine Zeta-Jones began acting as a child. By ten she was part of the Catholic congregation's performing troupe, and by 18 she was performing professionally in the West End. It was in there that she caught the eye of French director Philippe de Broca, who offered her the lead in his film Les 1001 Nuits in 1989. After traveling to France to film the movie, she returned to Britain, where she landed a starring role in the Yorkshire Television comedy drama series The Darling Buds of May, based on a series of novels by H.E. Bates. The show was a huge hit, and made Zeta-Jones one of the U.K.'s most popular TV actresses. After the series ended in 1993, she steadily found work playing lead roles in TV movies and miniseries such as Catherine the Great and The Cinder Path. She also played supporting roles small films, including Christopher Columbus: The Discovery and Splitting Heirs. The big screen role that undoubtedly put Zeta-Jones on the map, however, came in 1998 when she was cast opposite Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas in 1998's The Mask of Zorro. America was enchanted by the dark-haired actress' charisma and beauty, and she began to be offered better and better roles in American film. She starred in films like Entrapment, The Haunting, and High Fidelity, before taking the prominent role of a white-collar drug kingpin's wife in 2000, in Steven Soderbergh's treatise on the drug war, Traffic. Her performance was impressive to critics and audiences, many of whom felt that she deserved an Oscar nomination.The actress had no time to quibble over awards, however, as she married actor Michael Douglas in November that year, and gave birth to their son Dylan Michael nine months later. Zeta-Jones' took it easy during the next year, appearing only in the romantic comedy America's Sweethearts, but her next project would be the one to cement her as Hollywood royalty: a starring role in the Broadway adaptation Chicago. Few fans were aware of the singing and dancing skills that she'd honed on the musical stage at the beginning of her career, much less that she had sometimes performed with the English National Opera. Her performance blew audiences away, and won her the 2002 Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Zeta-Jones lightened things up in 2003, making audiences laugh alongside George Clooney in the Coen Brothers' movie Intolerable Cruelty, then as an airport employee who falls for stranded immigrant Tom Hanks in The Terminal (2004).The actress' screen time, however, began to diminish at about that point, given her decision to shift priorities and hone in on raising a family with Douglas; her film appearances grew decidedly less frequent, and she thus found time to give birth to a baby girl named Carys Zeta Douglas in April of 2003. On the side, however, she continued to appear in occasional commercials, and the paparazzi often published candid photos of the actress in public, baby-in-arms, which held her in the limelight. The motion pictures in which Zeta-Jones appeared during this period took fewer chances by banking off of recent successes (gone, at least temporarily, were the challenges of such films as Chicago and Traffic). Efforts during this period included the blockbuster sequel Ocean's Twelve (with Clooney, 2004), the onscreen reunion with Antonio Banderas The Legend of Zorro and even the musical concert film Tony Bennett: An American Classic, which reunited Zeta-Jones and Chicago wunderkind Rob Marshall.In 2007, she teamed with Shine director Scott Hicks for an Americanized remake of the German-language comedy Mostly Martha, retitled No Reservations. She followed that up with Australian director Gillian Armstrong's period piece Death Defying Acts -- a cinematization of Harry Houdini's 1926 tour of Britain, co-starring Timothy Spall and Guy Pearce, and scripted by Brian Ward and Tony Grisoni. Zeta-Jones returned to the musical fold in Rock of Ages, a 2012 adaptation of the 2006 Broadway show. She next took on several supporting roles, in films like the sports rom-com Playing for Keeps, the psychological thriller Side Effects and the action sequel Red 2.

Trivia: Actor Jeffrey Wright has earned an estimable reputation as one of the most versatile character actors of his generation, both on-stage and onscreen. Jeffrey Wright was born in Washington, D.C., in late 1965. Wright's father died when he was only a year old, and his mother, a lawyer working with the United States Customs Department, raised him with the help of her sister, a nurse. A strong student, Wright attended the prestigious St. Alban's School for Boys in Washington, D.C., and went on to receive a B.A. in Political Science at Amherst College in 1987. While at Amherst, Wright developed an interest in acting, and decided to continue his studies in the Theater department at New York University. While Wright was good enough to win an acting scholarship at N.Y.U., after only two months he opted to strike out on his own as a professional. Roles in off-Broadway plays followed, and Wright scored his first film role in 1990 with a bit part in Presumed Innocent. After a number of television roles and much theater work, in 1994 Wright got his big break when he was cast as Belize, Roy Cohn's nurse, in the acclaimed Broadway drama Angels In America: Perestroika; his performance won him a Tony Award. In 1996, Wright scored a breakthrough film role when he was cast in the lead of Basquiat, delivering a strong performance alongside a veteran cast which included Gary Oldman, Willem Dafoe, Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken, and Benicio del Toro. A steady flow of character roles followed, including showy supporting work in Celebrity, Ride With the Devil, and Shaft, while Wright gave a compelling performance as Dr. Martin Luther King in the made-for-cable film Boycott. Wright continued to pursue his love of live theater as well, winning an Obie Award in 2002 for his performance (opposite Don Cheadle) in Suzan-Lori Parks' play Topdog/Underdog. Critically-acclaimed screen roles in Lackawanna Blues, Broken Flowers, and Syriana kept Wright on the short list for producers in search of quality supporting players, and by bridging the gap between stage and screen with his multi-tiered role in the acclaimed HBO miniseries Angels in America, the actor would would earn both an Emmy and a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. In 2006 Wright could be seen performing opposite Paul Giamatti and Bryce Dallas Howard in director M. NIght Shyamalan's modern fairytale Lady in the Water.

Trivia: With cool-eyed charisma and looks suggesting he had borrowed DNA from Paul Newman and Dennis Hopper, Barry Pepper first caught the attention of audiences and critics as the Bible-quoting Private Jackson in Saving Private Ryan. Before his role in the hit 1998 World War II epic, Pepper, a native of Canada, had been largely unheard of outside of his homeland. Born in Campbell River, British Columbia, on April 4, 1970, Pepper had what can only be described as a unique upbringing. When he was five years old, his parents built a boat and, setting sail with Pepper and his two older brothers, spent the next three years traveling around the world. Pepper was schooled in places as far-flung as Tahiti, Fiji, and New Zealand, and after returning to Canada, went to college to study graphic design. By his own account a poor student, Pepper dropped out of college and decided to give acting a try. He made his professional debut on the popular Vancouver TV series Madison and stayed with the show for four years. After parts in a couple of obscure films and a stint on the television series Titanic with George C. Scott, Pepper attracted the attention of director Steven Spielberg, who cast him in Saving Private Ryan. The critical and commercial success of the film put Pepper -- and several of his co-stars -- in the spotlight, and he soon had a coveted spot on the cover of Vanity Fair's 1999 Hollywood issue, alongside several other up-and-coming young actors. That same year, Pepper further enhanced his visibility with a role in the action thriller Enemy of the State. Hollywood hype being Hollywood hype, Pepper was soon being hailed as a Next Big Thing by any number of publications and his role as a prison guard in the hotly anticipated The Green Mile (1999) seemed to attest to this status. Whether the young actor really was a star in the making or not, his career had gotten off to an inarguably positive start.Over the next several years, Pepper would find success in movies like Flags of Our Fathers and True Grit, as well as the TV mini-series The Kennedys.

Trivia: Actor Kyle Chandler grew up in Georgia, where he helped take care of the family farm. He eventually went to college at the nearby University of Georgia, where he majored in drama. It was there that a scout from ABC noticed his charm and signed him to a contract with the network. Chandler traveled to L.A., where he started out doing odd jobs but eventually worked his way onto shows like Tour of Duty, Homefront, and What About Joan; TV movies like 1988's Quiet Victory; and feature films such as 1996's Mulholland Falls. The parts steadily became bigger and more numerous, eventually leading to the starring role of Gary Hobson on the TV drama series Early Edition and the role of Bruce Baxter in 2005's King Kong.Chandler also guest-starred in a memorable post-Super Bowl two-parter on the medical drama series Grey's Anatomy, playing a bomb squad leader who comes to the hospital when a patient is admitted who has unexploded munitions lodged in his chest, thanks to his attempt to make a homemade bazooka. Chandler's performance was so impressive that he was later nominated for an Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series Emmy. Following that, he landed the starring role of head coach Eric Taylor on Friday Night Lights, a show based on the movie of the same name, about a small town in Texas where high-school football is among the most important things in life. He would earn rave reviews for his work on the high-school football series, eventually garnering an Emmy nomination in 2010. On the big-screen he could be seen in the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, and he was cast as the father in J.J. Abrams Steven Spielberg-inspired sci-fi drama Super 8.

Trivia: Cuban-American model-turned-actress Natalie Martinez rode the crest of fame in the mid-2000s via the rise of My Network, a sixth national U.S. station dedicated to developing, producing and airing English-language telenovelas, modeled after those in Latin America. Two of the station's programs lifted Martinez into the public spotlight: the 2006 Fashion House and the 2007 Saints and Sinners. In the first, Martinez played Michelle Miller, a housewife who aspired to a career as a fashion designer after discovering her husband's infidelity, and subsequently bore witness to the battle of wills between two rival designers at war with each other -- Maria Gianni (Bo Derek) and Sophia Blakely (Morgan Fairchild). Saints and Sinners constituted an attempt to update William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to the contemporary setting of Miami Beach, FL.

Trivia: Born in Herzlia, Israel, on October 20, 1983, actress Alona Tal appeared on a pair of shows in her homeland before attempting to make a splash in the United States. After roles on CSI, Cold Case, and 7th Heaven, Tal was cast as Meg Manning in the cult hit Veronica Mars. She appeared in another recurring CW-series role on Supernatural, as Jo Harvelle, during the cult show's second season. In 2007, she landed a part opposite Daniella Monet in the teen comedy Taking 5, about two high-school friends who attempt to trick a popular boy band into playing a free concert in their hometown. Tal maintained her presence on the small screen by landing a regular part on the drama Cane that same year, opposite Jimmy Smits, but the show was canceled after just half a season.

Trivia: As both an actor and producer, Griffin Dunne was among the most notable figures in contemporary independent filmmaking. Born June 8, 1955, in New York City, he is the son of novelist Dominick Dunne and the nephew of author and screenwriter John Gregory Dunne. Dominique, his younger sister, was also an actress, appearing in the hit movie Poltergeist before her violent 1982 murder. Trained by Uta Hagen at the Neighborhood Playhouse, Dunne made his film debut in 1975's The Other Side of the Mountain, which he followed with work on-stage and in television. Small roles in the 1979 feature Chilly Scenes of Winter and 1981's The Fan marked his next film appearances, but the first of his roles to garner significant notice was in 1981's cult-classic An American Werewolf in London. With John Sayles' 1982 film Baby, It's You, Dunne made his debut as a producer, a venture he furthered by establishing his own company, Double Play Productions.After 1983's Cold Feet, Dunne co-produced and starred in Martin Scorsese's 1985 comedy After Hours, perhaps his best-known performance. His leading role in 1987's Me and Him, on the other hand, was arguably the most infamous turn of his career, as he portrayed an architect whose penis begins to speak. A role opposite Madonna in the disastrous 1987 comedy Who's That Girl? further dimmed Dunne's star, and after appearing in Luc Besson's 1988 epic Le Grand Bleu he spent the next two years away from the screen, instead producing work including the acclaimed Running on Empty. Supporting turns in 1991's My Girl and Once Around proved to foreshadow Dunne's move away from leading roles throughout the decade, and apart from starring in 1995's Search and Destroy the majority of his film appearances (including the acclaimed Quiz Show and I Like It Like That) were smaller character parts. Continuing his work behind the camera, in 1997 Dunne made his directorial debut with the hit romantic comedy Addicted to Love. He would go on to direct more romantic comedies, like Practical Magic and The Accidental Husband. Over the next several years, Dunne would also appear on many successful TV shows, like Trust Me and House of Lies,

Trivia: Played bass in metal band Early Man. Starred as Ziggy Sobotka in the second season of The Wire. Won the 2009 OFTA Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture or Miniseries, for his role in Generation Kill. Won the 2012 Robert Altman Award for Best Ensemble Cast as part of the ensemble for Starlet. As of 2018, stars as Nick Fletcher on The First.

Trivia: Trained at Juilliard, actor Michael Beach worked in regional theater and off-Broadway productions before moving to Los Angeles to work on television and film. His stage credits include Much Ado About Nothing and Ascension Day. Though he appeared on television a lot in the late '80s, his film breakthrough came in Carl Franklin's 1991 crime thriller One False Move. He played the ex-con Pluto opposite Billy Bob Thornton, who also co-wrote the script. Thornton later wrote the role of Virgil for Beach in the 1996 drama A Family Thing, starring James Earl Jones. In 1993, he was a part of the ensemble cast in Robert Altman's award-winning feature Short Cuts. After playing opposite Laurence Fishburne in the crime thriller Bad Company (1995), Beach went on to play several unfaithful husbands. He cheated on Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale (1995), Vanessa Williams in Soul Food (1997), and Gloria Reuben on ER. Fellow ER cast member Eriq La Salle cast Beach in his sports drama Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996) for HBO. Back on television, Beach earned an Image Award for his role of Monte 'Doc' Parker on the NBC dramatic series Third Watch. In 2002, he re-teamed with actor/director La Salle for the lead role of Dr. Ty Adams in the thriller Crazy as Hell.

Trivia: Lead actor, onscreen from the late '80s.

Trivia: Became accustomed to performing on stage by serving as an altar boy at church. Hired as a teenager by his insurance adjuster/private investigator father to deliver subpoenas during one summer vacation, but lost the job after his father discovered he was using it as a Method Acting opportunity to interact with strangers in character. Cast in his first union acting job as Frankenstein's Monster in the cult musical Have I Got A Girl For You. Honored with a caricature on the wall of Sardi's in 2005. After meeting and impressing Tom Selleck on the set of In & Out (1997), Selleck recommended him for a role on Blue Bloods.

Trivia: Twin brothers Albert and Allen Hughes sold their first screenplay by the time they turned 19. They co-directed a studio-backed feature film, presented it at Cannes, and founded their own production and record company by age 21. Yet, more than simply wunderkinds, they follow in the tradition of their idols -- Sergio Leone, Martin Scorsese, and Brian De Palma -- by creating stylized genre flicks that are characterized by both startling violence and incisive social commentary.The fraternal twins were born on April 1, 1972, in Detroit, MI, to an African-American father and an Armenian mother. Albert is nine minutes older than Allen. Their parents divorced when they were two, and they were raised by their mother, Aida Hughes. In 1981, she moved the family west to Pomona, CA, a suburb that is about an hour's drive from Hollywood. She worked at an In-N-Out Burger while taking care of the twins and putting herself through school. Three years later, she opened her own business, a vocational rehabilitation center for workers hurt on the job, and went on to become president of Pomona's chapter of the National Organization for Women.When the boys turned 12, their mother lent them her company's video camera as a way to keep them out of trouble. Albert and Allen instantly took to the camera, bringing it straight to their bedroom where they turned their closet into a mock spaceship. Using a boom box to generate sound effects, they staged their first movie, a violent crash landing. For the next couple years, the budding filmmakers spent all their free time making shorts. Editing at home on two VCRs, they re-created scenes from their favorite films, such as Enter the Dragon (1973) and Scarface (1983). They also made a documentary about the drug dealer who hustled crack cocaine outside their schoolyard.During their freshman year of high school, Allen enrolled in a television production course. After filming the short "How to Be a Burglar" for a class assignment, the boys started showing their work on the local cable station. They dropped out of school a year later. Albert eventually took filmmaking classes at Los Angeles City College, and then one of their public-access films, The Drive By, snagged them an agent. The pair went on to direct high-profile music videos for Tupac Shakur, Tone-Loc, KRS-One, and Digital Underground.While still teenagers, the twins conceived the idea for their first feature film, Menace II Society (1993), the story of a young African-American man's struggle to leave the Southern California projects. After writing an outline, they commissioned screenwriter Tyger Williams to draft the script, which was then picked up by New Line Cinema. Credited as the Hughes Brothers, they made their directing debut when Menace II Society premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Starring relative unknowns Larenz Tate and Tyrin Turner, the film included standout supporting work from Jada Pinkett Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, and Charles Dutton. It grossed nearly ten times its three-million-dollar budget and earned its directors an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature. Besides landing the Hughes Brothers a two-picture deal with Disney's Caravan Productions, Menace II Society's unprecedented success helped them establish their own production and record company, Underworld Entertainment. Made of two divisions, Underworld Productions and Underworld Records, the company produces the twins' films and soundtrack tie-ins, as well as represents rap and hip-hop recording artists.The Hughes Brothers developed their sophomore directing effort, Dead Presidents (1995), from a short story they found in Bloods, a compilation of works about African-American Vietnam veterans. After commissioning Michael Henry Brown to write the screenplay, they drafted Menace II Society's Larenz Tate to star in the project, along with Bokeem Woodbine, Keith David, and Chris Tucker. However, Disney wrongly marketed Dead Presidents, which chronicled the difficulties black veterans encountered when they returned to the States, as a heist picture. It opened to mixed reviews and mediocre box-office returns, but its soundtrack (which the Hughes Brothers executive produced) reached number one on the R&B chart and number 14 on the Billboard 200.Disappointed by audiences' reaction to Dead Presidents, the Hughes Brothers took almost four years to choose their next project. They had initially set out to adapt Iceberg Slim's autobiography, Pimp: The Story of My Life, for the big screen, but decided instead to direct a feature-length documentary about hustlers, titled American Pimp (1999). Featuring subjects from across the United States, the film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.After producing Doug Pray's documentary on DJs, Scratch (2001), the Hughes Brothers returned to fiction filmmaking with From Hell (2001). Based on Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's mammoth underground graphic novel of the same name, the film chronicled the hunt for the world's first documented serial killer, Jack the Ripper. Starring Johnny Depp, Heather Graham, and Ian Holm, the film's all-white cast and European setting were a distinct change for the directors. Yet its stylized look, heavy violence, and thoughtful narrative fit right into their growing oeuvre.While working on their film career, the Hughes Brothers still occasionally direct music videos, especially those for songs featured on their soundtracks. They also garnered four Clio Awards for their public service announcements on gun control, "Stray Bullets" and "These Walls Have No Prejudice."