Trivia: Rocketing from obscure bit player to TV's resident über-sex god thanks to his role as FBI agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files, David Duchovny can claim to have had one of the 1990s' more remarkable career metamorphoses. Although his initial attempts to translate his TV stardom into celluloid success proved less than memorable, the tall, classically handsome actor has continued to enjoy a great deal of popularity, evidenced in particular by the countless estrogen-drenched internet shrines erected in his honor.Born in Manhattan on August 7, 1960, to a Jewish father and a Scottish mother, Duchovny did his undergraduate work at Princeton and then went on to pursue a Master's degree in English Literature at Yale. While working toward his degree, he began commuting to New York to study acting, and he was soon appearing in a few off-Broadway plays. His interest in acting ultimately eclipsed his dedication toward earning his degree, and Duchovny dropped out of Yale to pursue a career as a performer. He got his first break starring in a beer commercial, and in 1988, he made his film debut with a breathtakingly abbreviated appearance as a party guest in Mike Nichols's Working Girl. Work in a number of diverse and usually obscure films, including starring roles in Julia Has Two Lovers (1991), The Rapture (1991), and Kalifornia (1993), followed, but the actor was able to command a more steady paycheck from his TV work. Before The X-Files debuted in 1993, Duchovny was best-known to TV viewers as Dennis/Denise, Twin Peaks' resident transvestite detective. As The X-Files steadily grew from cult favorite to mainstream success, becoming recognized as one of the most groundbreaking shows of the decade, Duchovny also began to enjoy both industry respect and huge audience popularity. Dubbed as the latest in a long line of thinking women's sex symbols, he would also appear in films like Playing God and Return to Me.Duchovny would The X-Files during the show's seventh season, much to fans' dismay, returning only for the series finaly. Post X-files, Duchovny would continue to act on screen, most notably in films like Trust the Man and another X-Files movie, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, as well as on the debaucherous TV series Californication.

Trivia: When actress Gillian Anderson landed the role of Agent Scully for the Fox television series X-Files (1993- ) she could not have foreseen that within two years she would become an internationally known cult phenomenon. She was born in Chicago, but moved to London at age two and remained there until she was in her early teens. She and her family then moved to Grand Rapids, MI, where she rebelliously got heavily into the punk rock scene complete with spiky, brilliantly colored hair and body piercings with safety pins. When she was 14, she became romantically involved with a 20-year-old punk singer and occasionally sang in his band. Her punk period lasted through high school. Following graduation, she got involved in local theater and from there studied fine arts at the Goodman Theater School of Drama at Chicago's DePaul University. Following graduation, she moved to New York where she waited tables and appeared in off-Broadway plays, most notably in Absent Friends, in which she had a starring role that won her a Theater World Award. Anderson made her film debut in 1992 with the low-budget drama The Turning. She then appeared in a theatrical production of The Philanthropist and after that moved to Los Angeles. Though she was frequently courted for television roles, Anderson disdained the medium until the X-Files audition came along. Though the producers were looking for a brainy version of a Baywatch girl, the beautiful but more natural looking (having long passed her outrageous days) Anderson got the role thanks to the insistence of the show's creator Chris Carter. The show became a smash hit within two seasons and Anderson found herself an international star, as did her co-star David Duchovny, the subject of numerous pages on the Internet, and the recipient of such awards as a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In addition to continuing work on the X-Files, Anderson hosted a couple of television specials, including More Secrets of the X-Files and the BBC documentary series Future Fantastic. She also lent her voice as a documentary narrator on Spies Above and as animated characters on shows like The Simpsons and Reboot and films like the English version of Princess Mononoke.Anderson would spend the next several years working extensively in British television, starring in series like Bleak House, Any Human Heart, Moby Dick, and The Fall, as well as appearing in numerous UK films, like The Last King of Scotland and Shadow Dancer.

Trivia: A familiar face to a nation of television viewers thanks to his role as the more-than-slightly demented father on the popular FOX sitcom Malcolm in the Middle, longtime stage and screen actor Bryan Cranston has had a rich and varied career, lending his talents to everything from anime voice work (Armitage III and Macross Plus) to daytime television (as an original cast member of Loving). His commanding but off-kilter presence and quirky charm have easily provided Cranston with the necessary range to essay such diverse roles, and the longtime actor can always be counted on to inject a healthy dose of personality into his performances, no matter how large or small the role may be. Though the San Fernando Valley native made his television debut as a commercial actor at the age of eight, it wasn't until college that Cranston truly realized his calling as an actor. Following college graduation, Cranston's passion eventually drew him to Daytona Beach, FL, where the burgeoning actor appeared in such community-theater productions as Barefoot in the Park and Death of a Salesman. In 1982, he joined the cast of the then-new soap opera Loving, and though he would only remain with the daytime drama for a short time, appearances in Airwolf and Hill Street Blues, among various other series, found the actor maintaining a notable presence on television. Following a series of supporting feature performances, Cranston moved back to the small screen with a regular role in the 1988 sitcom Raising Miranda. In the years that followed, he would frequently shift between film (Clean Slate) and television (The Louie Show) while supplementing his income with voice-over work for such popular anime series as Armitage III. Supporting performances in such high-profile features as That Thing You Do! and Saving Private Ryan helped to increase the busy actor's recognition factor, and in 1999, Cranston wrote, produced, directed, and starred in his first feature film, a low-key drama entitled Last Chance. Though the film failed to gain much attention, Cranston was soon receiving numerous positive notices for his Emmy-nominated role as the hapless father in the breakout television hit Malcolm in the Middle. His performance alternately eccentric and endearing, Cranston injected the role with the perfect balance of fatherly weirdness and down-to-earth charm, and the series embarked on a healthy run. In the years that followed, Cranston became an increasingly familiar face to television and film viewers, and in addition to offering vocal work for the short-lived animated television series Clerks, he would contribute to such family-friendly fare as 'Twas the Night and The Santa Claus Brothers. After taking the lead in the 2003 made-for-television feature Thanksgiving Family Reunion, Cranston could be spotted opposite screen legend Kirk Douglas in the 2004 drama The Illusion. He appeared in the 2006 miniseries Fallen, and had a bit part in the Oscar nominated Little Miss Sunshine.However, in 2008 his career entered a whole new phase when he began work on the AMC series Breaking Bad, playing a chemistry teacher who becomes a meth dealer. His work on the critically lauded program would earn him four Emmys for Best Actor in a Drama Series (plus another two as a producer on the series). It also made him an in-demand character actor for movies and he worked steadily appearing in projects as radically different as Drive, Larry Crowne, Red Tails, John Carter, and Rock of Ages among many others.In 2014, Cranston made his Broadway debut in the play All The Way, playing President Lyndon Baines Johnson. The role earned him a Tony Award, and he committed to reprising the role for a TV movie. The following year, he played blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in the film Trumbo (2015), nabbing Cranston his first Academy Award nomination.

Trivia: Thespian Michael O'Neill grew up in Montgomery, AL, and attended nearby Auburn University as an economics major, then took his first steps toward professional acting work with a move to New York and on-stage roles at Playwrights Horizons. During the '80s, '90s, and 2000s, O'Neill divided his time, more or less equally, between stage, screen, and television; in all of these venues, the actor specialized in portrayals of gently authoritative yet warm and genial everyman types, such as kind fathers, school psychologists, and small-town physicians. Features in which O'Neill appeared included Ghost Story (1981), The Sunchaser (1996), Traffic (2000), and Transformers (2007); memorable television roles include contributions to The West Wing (as the head of presidential detail), 24, and Boston Public.

Trivia: African-American character actor James Pickens Jr. sustains one of the longest and fullest Hollywood resumés in recent memory, just in terms of sheer volume of work. Soap opera devotees may remember Pickens for one of his earliest achievements -- his portrayal of Zack Edwards on the long-running daytime drama Another World, from 1986 through 1990. Pickens subsequently divided his time between characterizations on such prime-time programs as Roseanne and Murder, She Wrote, and small roles in A-list Hollywood features. At least in the early years, these films were often, though not always, action vehicles with predominantly black casts, such as the Ice-T and Ice Cube action thriller Trespass (1992), the Wesley Snipes and Dennis Hopper cop picture Boiling Point (1993), and the bullet-ridden Hughes Brothers pictures Menace II Society (1993) and Dead Presidents (1995). Back on the small screen, Pickens could be seen on such popular series as The X-Files, The Practice, NYPD Blue, Six Feet Under, and Philly. Also, in spring 1998, he joined episode writer Larry David and co. as the detective who threw Jerry and his cronies in the slammer on the much-anticipated series finale of Seinfeld; David and Pickens re-teamed several years later for two 2005 episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Pickens drew his greatest attention and acclaim, however, when he ascended from bit player to a prominent supporting role as Chief of Surgery Richard Webber on the blockbuster medical drama Grey's Anatomy. This series premiered in 2005 to sensational ratings and quickly became an American institution, thanks in no small part to Pickens's work.