Trivia: Dennis Haysbert looks good in a suit, and his imposing frame and commanding voice make him ideal for roles as respected, but generally liked, authority figures. Although he does indeed excel at these types of roles, that isn't to suggest that the talented actor is without humor or a certain alluring charm. With a kindly face that suggests a sympathetic nature fronted by a confident exterior, Haysbert has excelled at portraying everything from detectives to presidential candidates, all undeniably convincing and with the sort of complex emotional texture that makes them entirely three-dimensional.A San Mateo, CA, native and graduate of Pasadena's American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the burgeoning actor made his earliest appearances on such television classics as Laverne & Shirley, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and The Incredible Hulk. The made-for-television feature Code Red provided Haysbert with his first substantial role, and after reprising that part in the subsequent television series based on the feature, he would appear sporadically in numerous small-screen series and features throughout the remainder of the 1980s. In 1989, Haysbert garnered his most substantial role up to that time, playing the voodoo-worshiping baseball player Pedro Cerrano in the sports comedy hit Major League. His pitch-perfect comedic performance effectively launched his career into the 1990s, and Haysbert would later reprise the role in both of the film's sequels. By the time of his supporting role in 1990's Navy SEALS, Haysbert was a recognizable face onscreen, and though audiences may not have committed his name to memory yet, roles in Mr. Baseball (1992, again running the bases), Love Field (1992), and Heat (1995) proved he was a talent on the verge of stardom. Haysbert's memorable lead in the darkly comedic 1993 thriller Suture, though unseen by many as a result of poor distribution and advertising, proved once and for all that he was well capable of carrying a film. Though he was not given that particular opportunity in many of the movies that immediately followed Suture, the few in which he did lead found him remarkably effective and the remainder found him higher on the credits list than ever before. Haysbert's role in the short-lived Sci-Fi Channel series Now and Again may have drawn favorable reviews from critics and audiences (even earning the actor a Saturn award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films), but that wasn't enough to keep the series afloat. After one all-too-brief season on that show, the actor moved on to memorable roles in Random Hearts (1999) and Love and Basketball (2000). When the hit series 24 debuted in 2001, viewers discovered what the lucky few had been clued in to for years, and Haysbert's onscreen intensity proved an ideal match with the series' marked urgency. Haysbert's performance as presidential hopeful David Palmer proved so effective that he was not only nominated for a Golden Globe for the role in 2003, but an Image Award and a Screen Actor's Guild Award as well. Though an exhausting bi-coastal shuttle may have left Haysbert bleary-eyed as he maintained his role in 24 while also essaying a role in director Todd Haynes' acclaimed drama Far From Heaven, his flawless performances on both the big and small screens proved that he was no longer a talent to watch for, but one with which to contend. Haysbert would go on to appear in several films, like Breach and The Details. He would also enjoy notoriety in subsuquent years as the official spokesperson for Allstate Insurance, as well as a starring role on the TV series The Unit.

Trivia: After commencing minor on-camera appearances in the early '80s, multi-talented African-American actress Regina Taylor juggled careers as a character actress and playwright with great aplomb. As both a thespian and a scribe, Taylor often dealt with material that grappled with race relations and civil rights. This was hardly accidental, for she rose up out of a bitter and tumultuous youth in the Deep South that forced her to face racism head-on and thus marked her for life. After an appearance as Mrs. Carter in John G. Avildsen's uneven Joe Clark biopic Lean on Me (1989), Taylor first made members of the press sit up and take notice with her pivotal role on I'll Fly Away. This thoughtful and heartfelt series drama -- set in the apocryphal Southern town of Bryland in the late '50s -- starred the venerable Sam Waterston as D.A. Forrest Bedford, a conservative prosecuting attorney grappling with shifting attitudes about race relations as he took on a new black housekeeper, Lilly Harper (Taylor). The program's consistent inability to land an audience, in spite of across-the-board critical acclaim, marked one of the most unfortunate events to befall a prime-time series program during the early '90s. Taylor returned to similar themes -- albeit in a much earlier setting -- with the 1995 Children of the Dust, a telemovie starring Sidney Poitier, about the tensions between black and white homesteaders. The actress also graced the casts of such noteworthy theatrical features as Spike Lee's Clockers (1995), Ed Zwick's Courage Under Fire (1996), and F. Gary Gray's The Negotiator (1998) before hearkening back to television as military man Jonas Blane's (Dennis Haysbert) beleaguered wife, Molly, on the CBS drama The Unit. As a playwright, Taylor received her first significant break with the 1983 Watermelon Rinds, and spent the following decades authoring such critically acclaimed productions as Oo-Bla-Dee (2000) and Urban Zulu Mambo (2001). She debuted on Broadway in 2004 with her work Drowning Crow, a loose adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull posited in the Gullah Islands of South Carolina. At one point, she was reported to have been involved with the Broadway musical production of The Color Purple, but it was ultimately credited to other writers.

Trivia: Born on July 15, 1972, in Kansas City, KS, Foley is the oldest of three sons. Thanks to his father's job as an international banker, Foley grew up all over the world, spending the most time in Sydney, Australia and Tokyo, Japan. He caught the acting bug at age six after his mother took him to see the children's musical Annie. Foley made his theatrical debut only a few years later, singing "I'll Do Anything" in his school's production of Oliver. When he was a teenager, his family settled in St. Louis, MO, where he participated in community and regional theater. Shortly after graduating high school, he bought a one-way plane ticket to Hollywood.Foley's big break came when he landed a role on the WB's teen drama Dawson's Creek, playing all-American high school quarterback Cliff Elliot, Dawson's (James Van Der Beek) romantic rival. Originally hired to guest star in the series' first three episodes, Foley hung around for five. With his popularity steadily increasing, WB executives cast Foley in Felicity, a one-hour drama about a college freshman who follows her lifelong crush from their California high school to a university in New York City. Originally hired to portray the object of Felicity's (Keri Russell) affection, Foley stepped in to play her resident advisor and confidante, Noel Crane, when producers could not find an actor for the role. The show, which first aired in the fall of 1998, became a critical favorite and earned a Golden Globe nomination in its first year.Foley would stick with Felicity for its four year run, cementing his position as a TV star. After the show wrapped, Foley would continue to find starring roles on a series of popular shows, like A.U.S.A., Scrubs, The Unit, Grey's Anatomy, and True Blood. Foley booked another series regular gig on the hit series Scandal, joining the show during the second season, playing Captain Jake Ballard.

Trivia: Ethereally beautiful Hollywood actress Audrey Marie Anderson first attained recognition for her work on the prime-time military drama The Unit, as Kim Brown, the wife of super-aggressive recruit Bob Brown (Scott Foley). Her resumé also includes small appearances in such features as Moonlight Mile (2002), Beerfest (2006, in which she was billed as "The Giddy Girl"), and Drop Dead Sexy (2006).

Trivia: Some actors and actresses establish their reputations in a single fell swoop with one career-defining role; certainly this was true for actor Gale Harold, whose multifaceted portrayal of the masculine and sexually driven yet openly gay Brian on Showtime's Queer as Folk helped shatter homosexual stereotypes on television and put Harold on the fast track to stardom. An Atlanta native raised by Pentecostal parents in an extremely devout suburban home, Harold rejected the belief system of his mother and father in his teens. During adolescence, Harold recognized his own heterosexuality, but projected a counterculture attitude and thus never quite fit in, in either the social cliques in his high school or the surrounding community. He attended Southwest DeKalb High School, then enrolled in Washington, D.C.'s American University on a soccer scholarship, but -- feeling dissatisfied -- dropped out after a year. As an alternative, Harold moved to San Francisco and enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute, while sustaining a motley series of low-paying jobs on the side. Then, in 1997, Harold responded to a friend's offer to appear in a movie by relocating to Los Angeles and enrolling in an acting workshop. That experience introduced him to a lifelong love of drama.The Queer as Folk turn marked Harold's breakthrough and put him on the Hollywood map. He subsequently appeared in a number of independently produced features, including Particles of Truth (2002), Rhinoceros Eyes (2003), and Wake (2004), before essaying a lead in director Fay Ann Lee's limited-run theatrical feature Falling for Grace (2007), as an attorney who falls into a romance with a Chinese-American immigrant, little realizing that she's hiding key information from him regarding her background. In 2007, Harold stepped behind the camera for the first time and entered the sphere of production, associate producing the music documentary Scott Walker: 30 Century Man (2007). In 2010 he was the lead in the supernatural horror film Fertile Ground.

Trivia: Rode dirt bikes growing up in Staten Island, N.Y. Studied acting at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York. Made TV debut in a 2001 episode of Boston Public. Appeared with Sons of Anarchy castmate Tory Kittles in the 2002 FX TV-movie Big Shot: Confessions of a Campus Bookie. Has had guest roles in such notable series as Malcolm in the Middle, NYPD Blue, Veronica Mars, Lost, Bones, Grey's Anatomy and CSI: Miami.