Trivia: Perhaps the best-known Shakespeare interpreter of the late 20th century, Kenneth Branagh began his career in a golden haze of critical exultation. First a star pupil at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (one of Britain's most prestigious drama schools), then a promising newcomer on the London stage, then hailed as "the next Olivier" for his 1989 screen adaptation of Henry V, Branagh could, for a long time, do no wrong. Unfortunately, a string of bad luck, catalyzed by his disastrous Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in 1994, began to tarnish the halo that had hovered above the actor/director's head. His lavish, four-hour Hamlet in 1996, however, did much to further his status as a man who knew his Bard, helping to alleviate some of the disappointments that both preceded and came after it.Although his accent suggests otherwise, Branagh originally hails from Northern Ireland, not England. Born in Belfast December 10, 1960, to a working-class family, he was raised in the strife-ridden section of the country until he was nine. Leaving Belfast to escape its troubles, his family relocated to Reading, England, where Branagh spent the remainder of his childhood and adolescence. By turns bookish and athletic -- and assuming an English accent at school while remaining Irish at home -- Branagh became interested in acting at the age of 15, after seeing Derek Jacobi perform Hamlet (the two would later collaborate numerous times both in film and on the stage). Immersing himself in all things theatrical, Branagh was accepted at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) in London when he was 18.For Branagh, RADA formed the beginning of a brilliant career. The young actor drew repeated acclaim, particularly for his titular performance in a production of Hamlet, and won the school's coveted Bancroft Award for his work. After graduation, he went on to further success on the West End stage, where he starred opposite Rupert Everett in a 1982 production of Another Country. For his portrayal of a conflicted schoolboy, the actor won the Society of West End Theatres' Most Promising Newcomer Award. The following year, he further ascended his adopted country's theatrical ranks, securing a coveted membership in the Royal Shakespeare Company. Branagh continued to enjoy almost consistent critical appreciation during his tenure with the company, garnering particular praise for his lead performance in a production of Henry V. He became increasingly unhappy, however, with the RSC's bureaucratic organization and stuffiness and, in 1987, quit to form the Renaissance Theatre Company with his friend David Parfitt. The idea for the company came to Branagh while he was making the acclaimed Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of Fortunes of War in 1987. That production was one of many he did for television during his time with the RSC, and it was during that period that he met Emma Thompson, whom he married in 1989 and cast in almost all his films until their 1995 divorce.Although Renaissance struggled at first -- its premiere effort, a production of Public Enemy, met with across-the-board disapproval -- it gained a reputation for quality work, and soon counted such vaunted performers as Judi Dench, Richard Briers, and Derek Jacobi among its ranks, many of whom were later cast in Branagh's directorial debut, Henry V. The 1989 film, a sober, mud-saturated affair that served as a stark contrast to Olivier's 1944 version (which was intended to boost England's national pride), brought Branagh international acclaim and recognition. He was soon being hailed by many a publication as "the next Olivier," a title which he repeatedly stated made him uncomfortable. The next Olivier or not, Branagh was nominated for Best Director and Best Actor Oscars for his work, and went on to win other honors, including British Academy and National Board of Review Best Director awards.Riding high on this success, Branagh rather cheekily published his autobiography, Beginning, at the advanced age of 28. Although it was labeled a little premature and more than a little ego-driven, the book further played into his mystique, which was heightened in 1991 with his Hollywood debut. That year, he directed and starred opposite Thompson in Dead Again, a stylish, Hitchcock-inspired romantic thriller. The film was both a critical and commercial success, and the two were soon being labeled "the royal couple of British cinema." Branagh's next effort, the 1992 ensemble comedy Peter's Friends, was of comparatively lackluster character. Starring Branagh, Thompson, co-writer Rita Rudner, and comedians Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, it received some positive reviews, but was largely regarded as a disappointment. Fortunately for Branagh, he had better luck that year with the Bard, turning out a sun-soaked, giddy adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, which found favor with audiences and critics alike. That same year, he garnered additional acclaim, directing the short film Swan Song and winning an Best Live Action Short Academy Award nomination for his work.Things began to go badly in 1994 with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which Branagh both directed and cast himself as the mad doctor. Winning a dubious honor as one of the year's worst movies, Frankenstein had many doubting the director's hitherto golden touch. An adaptation of Othello the following year, in which Branagh was cast as Iago in Oliver Parker's directorial debut, received a similarly lackluster reception. Branagh's other film that year, In the Bleak Midwinter, went largely unseen, though he bounced back to a degree the following year with his all-star, uncut, 1996 adaptation of Hamlet. Clocking in at four hours and featuring a peroxided Branagh as the Danish prince, Julie Christie as Gertrude, Kate Winslet as Ophelia, Derek Jacobi as Claudius, and such actors as Robin Williams, Charlton Heston, and Jack Lemmon in other roles, it was hardcore Shakespeare for the masses. Although many potential audience members were scared off by the film's length, it won a number of positive reviews, and Branagh garnered a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination.Unfortunately, Branagh's subsequent efforts met with either disdain or indifference. Falling into the latter category were The Proposition, The Theory of Flight, and Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man, which cast him as, respectively, a priest, an eccentric inventor, and a philandering Southern lawyer. Woody Allen's Celebrity settled thornily into the former category, with Branagh earning almost unanimous critical scorn for his portrayal of the film's neurotic, Allen-esque protagonist. Many critics noted that he seemed to be trying to out-Allen Allen, with unfortunate results. In 1999, Branagh embraced a dastardly, camp sensibility to play the villain in the big-budget Western fantasy Wild Wild West. He did manage to win some of the only positive comments that critics had for the film. Off the screen, he was still keeping busy with Shakespeare, adapting Love's Labour's Lost into a perplexing, '30s-style musical featuring the likes of Alicia Silverstone, Matthew Lillard, and Nathan Lane. A variety of leading roles in better-received features followed in 2002, however, including Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rabbit-Proof Fence, and the TV miniseries Shackleton.Branagh continued his highly-respected stage career, even though his movie work contained duds like the remake of Sleuth, though he did find success on the small screen playing a detective in the series Wallander.In 2011 Branagh enjoyed his biggest popular and critics success in quite some time, scoring a worldwide smash as the director of the Marvel Superhero movie Thor, and earned raves for his portrayal of Laurence Olivier in My Week With Marilyn, a part that garnered him Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild nominations for Best Supporting Actor.

Trivia: One of the first ladies of contemporary British stage and cinema, Emma Thompson has won equal acclaim for her work as an actress and a screenwriter. For a long time known as Kenneth Branagh's other half, Thompson was able to demonstrate her considerable talent to an international audience with Oscar-winning mid-1990s work in such films as Howards End and Sense and Sensibility. Born April 15, 1959 in Paddington, West London, Thompson grew up in a household well-suited for creative expression. Both of her parents were actors, her father, Eric Thompson, the creator of the popular TV series The Magic Roundabout, and her actress mother, Phyllida Law, a cast member of This Poisoned Earth (1961), Otley (1968) and several other films. Thompson and her sister, Sophie (who also became an actress), enjoyed a fairly colorful upbringing; as Emma later said, "I was brought up by people who tended to giggle at funerals." She excelled at school, was well liked, and went on to enroll at Cambridge University in 1978. It was at Cambridge that Thompson started performing as part of the legendary Footlights Group, once home to various members of Monty Python, who provided a huge inspiration to the fledgling comedienne. Unfortunately, Thompson's studies and her work with fellow Footlights members Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry were interrupted when her father had a debilitating stroke. Thompson went home for a few months, where she taught him how to speak again. After her return to Cambridge, she graduated in 1980 with a degree in English, and she got her first break working for a short-lived BBC radio show. Personal tragedy struck for Thompson in 1982 when her father died of a heart attack. Ironically, it was in the wake of this turmoil that her professional life began to move forward: she got a job touring with the popular satire Not the Nine O'Clock News and worked with co-conspirators Fry and Laurie on the popular BBC comedy sketch show Alfresco. This led to Thompson's biggest break to date when she was picked for the lead in a revised version of the musical Me and My Girl. Coincidentally featuring a script by Fry, the show proved popular and established Thompson as a respected performer. She stayed with the show for over a year, after which she got her next big break when she was cast as one of the leads in the miniseries Fortunes of War (1988). The other lead happened to be Kenneth Branagh, and the two were soon collaborating off-screen as well as on. Following Thompson's BAFTA Award for her work on the series (as well as a BAFTA for her role on the TV series Tutti Frutti), she helped Branagh form his own production company, Renaissance Films. In 1989, the same year that she starred in the nutty satire The Tall Guy (which teamed her with Black Adder stalwarts Rowan Atkinson, Richard Curtis and Mel Smith)and in a televised version of Look Back in Anger with Branagh, she appeared as the French queen in Branagh's acclaimed adaptation of Henry V. Following the success of Henry V, Thompson had a droll turn as a frivolous aristocrat in Impromptu (1990) and then collaborated with Branagh on the noirish suspense thriller Dead Again in 1991. The film proved a relative hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and it further established the now-married Branagh and Thompson as the First Darlings of contemporary British theatre. The following year, Thompson came into her own with her starring role in Merchant Ivory's Howards End. She won a number of awards, including an Oscar, BAFTA, and Golden Globe for her portrayal of Margaret Schlegel, and she found herself an international success almost overnight.After a turn in the ensemble comedy Peter's Friends that same year, Thompson starred as Beatrice opposite Branagh's Benedict in his adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing in 1993. That year proved an unqualified success for the actress, who was nominated for both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Oscars, the former for her portrayal of a repressed housekeeper in Merchant Ivory's The Remains of the Day and the latter for her role as Daniel Day-Lewis's lawyer in In the Name of the Father. Although she didn't win either award, Thompson continued her triumphant streak when -- after starring in Junior in 1994 -- she adapted and starred in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility in 1995. Directed by Ang Lee, the film proved popular with critics and audiences alike, and it won Thompson a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. She also earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination, a BAFTA Best Actress Award, and a Golden Globe for Best Adapted Screenplay.1995 also proved to be a turning point in Thompson's personal life, as, after a much-publicized separation, she and Branagh divorced. Just as well publicized was Thompson's subsequent relationship with Sense and Sensibility co-star Greg Wise. The somewhat tumultuous quality of her love life mirrored that of Dora Carrington, the character she played that year in Carrington. This story of the famed Bloomsbury painter was not nearly as successful as Sense, and Thompson was not seen again on the screen until 1997, when she starred in Alan Rickman's The Winter Guest. The film -- which featured the actress and her mother, Law, playing an estranged daughter and mother -- received fairly positive reviews. The following year, Thompson continued to win praise for her work with a starring role in Primary Colors and a guest spot on the sitcom Ellen, for which she won an Emmy. In 1999, Thompson announced her plans for semi-retirement: pregnant with Wise's child, she turned down a number of roles -- including that of God in Dogma -- in order to concentrate on her family. The two married in July 2003. In the years that followed Thompson would still remain fairly active onscreen, with roles as a frustrated wife in Love Actually (which found her BAFTA nominated for Best Supporting Actress) and a missing journalist whose husband (played by Antonio Bandaras) is looking for answers in Missing Argentina (which marked the second collaboration, after Carrington, between Thompson and director Christopher Hampton) serving to whet the appetites of longtime fans. For her role as a respected English professor who is forced to re-evaluate her life in Mike Nichols' made-for-television drama Wit (2001), the renowned veteran actress and screenwriter would earn Emmy nominations for both duties. Following an angelic turn in the HBO mini-series Angels in America, Thompson essayed a pair of magical roles in both Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Nanny McPhee - in which she potrayed a governess who utilizes supernatural powers to reign in her unruly young charges.Thompson then joined the cast of Marc Forster's fantasy comedy Stranger than Fiction, which Columbia slated for U.S. release in November of 2006. She plays Kay Eiffel, an author of thriller and espionage novels suffering from a massive writer's block. The central character in Eiffel's book (an IRS agent played by Will Ferrell) hears Kay's audible narration and - realizing that she's planning to kill him off - tries to find a way to stop her, with the help of Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman). She appeared opposite Dustin Hoffman in Last Chance Harvey, and in 2009 had a memorable turn as the head of the school in An Education. In 2010 she wrote and starred in the sequel Nanny McPhee Returns. In 2012 she had a hand in tow big hits, playing Agent O in the third Men In Black film, and voicing the mother in Pixar's Brave.

Trivia: One of Hollywood's sexiest and most magnetic leading men, Denzel Washington's poise and radiantly sane intelligence permeate whatever film he is in, be it a socially conscious drama, biopic, or suspense thriller. More importantly, Washington's efforts, alongside those of director Spike Lee, have done much to dramatically expand the range of dramatic roles given to African-American actors and actresses.The son of a Pentecostal minister and a hairdresser, Washington was born in Mount Vernon, NY, on December 28, 1954. His parents' professions shaped Washington's early ambition to launch himself into show business: from his minister father he learned the power of performance, while hours in his mother's salon (listening to stories) gave him a love of storytelling. Unfortunately, when Washington was 14, his folks' marriage took a turn for the worse, and he and his older sister were sent away to boarding school so that they would not be exposed to their parents' eventual divorce. Washington later attended Fordham University, where he attained a B.A. in Journalism in 1977. He still found time to pursue his interest in acting, however, and after graduation he moved to San Francisco, where he won a scholarship to the American Conservatory Theatre. Washington stayed with the ACT for a year, and, after his time there, he began acting in various television movies and made his film debut in the 1981 Carbon Copy. Although he had a starring role (as the illegitimate son of a rich white man), Washington didn't find real recognition until he joined the cast of John Falsey and Joshua Brand's long-running TV series St. Elsewhere in 1982. He won critical raves and audience adoration for his portrayal of Dr. Phillip Chandler, and he began to attract Hollywood notice. In 1987, he starred as anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko in Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom alongside Kevin Kline, and though the film itself alienated some critics (Pauline Kael called it "dumbfounding"), Washington's powerful performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.Two years later, Washington netted another Best Supporting Actor nod -- and won the award -- for his turn as an embittered yet courageous runaway slave in the Civil War drama Glory. The honor effectively put him on the Hollywood A-List. Some of his more notable work came from his collaboration with director Spike Lee; over the course of the 1990s, Washington starred in three of his films, playing a jazz trumpeter in Mo' Better Blues (1990), the title role in Lee's epic 1992 biopic Malcolm X (for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination), and the convict father of a high-school basketball star in He Got Game (1998).Washington also turned in powerful performances in a number of other films, such as Mississippi Masala (1991), as a man in love with an Indian woman; Philadelphia (1993), as a slightly homophobic lawyer who takes on the cause of an AIDS-stricken litigator (Tom Hanks); and Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), as a 1940s private detective, Easy Rawlins. Washington also reeled in large audiences in action roles, with the top box-office draw of such thrillers as The Pelican Brief (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), and The Siege (1998) attesting to his capabilities. In 1999, Washington starred in another thriller, The Bone Collector, playing a paralyzed forensics expert who joins forces with a young policewoman (Angelina Jolie) to track down a serial killer. That same year, he starred in the title role of Norman Jewison's The Hurricane. Based on the true story of a boxer wrongly accused of murdering three people in 1966, the film featured stellar work by Washington as the wronged man, further demonstrating his remarkable capacity for telling a good story. His performance earned him a number of honors, including a Best Actor Golden Globe and a Best Actor Oscar nomination.After another strong performance as a high-school football coach in Boaz Yakin's Remember the Titans, Washington cut dramatically against his "nice guy" typecast to play a corrupt policeman in Training Day, a gritty cop drama helmed by Antoine Fuqua. Washington surprised audiences and critics with his change of direction, but in the eyes of many, this change of direction made him a more compelling screen presence than ever before. (It also netted him an Oscar for Best Actor.) 2002 marked an uneven year for Washington. He joined the cast of Nick Cassavetes' absurd melodrama John Q., as a father so desperate to get medical attention for his ailing son that he holds an entire hospital hostage and contemplates killing himself to donate his own heart to the boy. Critics didn't buy the film; it struck all but the least-discriminating as a desperate attempt by Washington to bring credulity and respectability to a series of ludicrous, manipulative Hollywood contrivances. John Q. nonetheless performed healthily at the box (it grossed over a million dollars worldwide from a 36-million-dollar budget). That same fall, Washington received hearty praise for his directorial and on-camera work in Antwone Fisher (2002), in which he played a concerned naval psychiatrist, and even more so for director Carl Franklin's 2003 crime thriller Out of Time. Somewhat reminiscent of his role in 1991's crime drama Ricochet, Out of Time casts Washington as an upstanding police officer framed for the murder of a prominent citizen. In 2004, Washington teamed up with Jonathan Demme for the first occasion since 1993's Philadelphia, to star in the controversial remake of 1962's The Manchurian Candidate. Washington stars in the picture as soldier Bennett Marco (the role originally performed by Frank Sinatra), who, along with his platoon, is kidnapped and brainwashed during the first Gulf War. Later that year, Washington worked alongside Christopher Walken and Dakota Fanning in another hellraiser, director Tony Scott's Man on Fire, as a bodyguard who carves a bloody swath of vengeance, attempting to rescue a little girl kidnapped under his watch. Washington made no major onscreen appearances in 2005 -- and indeed, kept his activity during 2006 and 2007 to an absolute minimum. In '06, he joined the cast of Spike Lee's thriller Inside Man as a detective assigned to thwart the machinations of a psychotically cunning burglar (Clive Owen). The film opened to spectacular reviews and box-office grosses in March 2006, keeping Washington on top of his game and bringing Lee (whose last major feature was the disappointing 2004 comedy She Hate Me) back to the pinnacle of success. That same year, Washington joined forces once again with Tony Scott in the sci-fi action hybrid Déjà Vu, as an ATF agent on the trail of a terrorist, who discovers a way to "bridge" the present to the past to view the details of a bomb plot that unfolded days earlier. The Scott film garnered a fair number of respectable reviews but ultimately divided critics. Déjà Vu bowed in the U.S. in late November 2006. Meanwhile, Washington signed on for another action thriller, entitled American Gangster -- this time under the aegis of Tony Scott's brother Ridley -- about a drug-dealing Mafioso who smuggles heroin into the U.S. in the corpses of deceased Vietnam veterans.Washington appeared as New York City subway security chief Walter Garber in the 2009 remake of the 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and begun filming the post-apocalyptic drama The Book of Eli in the same year. He earned a Best Actor nomination in 2012 for his work as an alcoholic pilot in Robert Zemeckis' drama Flight.

Trivia: In 1986, clean-cut American actor Robert Sean Leonard made his Broadway debut in Brighton Beach Memoirs and his film debut in The Manhattan Project. His first starring film role was as a high-school vampire in the '80s teen comedy My Best Friend Is a Vampire (1988). But Leonard's chiseled features and dark brown eyes made him perfect for the role of Neil Perry, the sensitive prep-school student whose acting aspirations are crushed by his wealthy father in the much-loved drama Dead Poets Society (1989). His next few films were period pieces: the Merchant-Ivory production Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (1990), Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing (1993), and Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence (also 1993). Leonard also earned a Young Artist award for his performance in the WWII-era musical Swing Kids in 1993 and earned his first Tony nomination that same year for a revival of Candida. Though he often chose the stage over the screen, his theatrical training directed him toward roles in the talky feature films Married to It (1993), Safe Passage (1994), and The Last Days of Disco (1998). He also fared well in television adaptations of stage productions (The Boys Next Door [1996], In the Gloaming [1997]) and based-on-a-true-story docudramas (Killer: A Journal of Murder [1995], A Glimpse of Hell [2001]).In 2001, Leonard reunited with Dead Poets Society co-star Ethan Hawke to appear in the independent drama Chelsea Walls, Hawke's directorial debut. He also co-starred with Hawke and Uma Thurman in Richard Linklater's intensely talky drama Tape. After spending most of his career on the stage, Leonard finally earned a Tony award for his portrayal of A.E. Houseman in Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love. Also on Broadway, he could be seen in A Long Day's Journey Into Night and The Violet Hour. Though Leonard's 2004 projects would include the feature film The I Inside, based on the play Point of Death, it would soon become apparent that television was his true calling when, later that same year, he donned a white coat as Dr. James Wilson on the phenominally successful series House.

Trivia: From lamebrained teenage time traveler to metaphysical sci-fi Superman, Keanu Reeves has portrayed just about every character type imaginable in his sometimes wildly fluctuating career. Frequently lambasted by critics and often polarizing audiences suspicious of his talent's true extent, Reeves has nevertheless managed to maintain his lucrative career by balancing his lesser efforts with intermittent direct hits at the box office.Born Keanu Charles Reeves in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 2, 1964, and named for the Hawaiian word that means "cool breeze over the mountains," the future actor was a world traveler by the age of two, thanks to his father's career as a geologist. His mother, Patricia Taylor, worked as a showgirl and later a costume designer of film and stage, and after his parents divorced, Reeves followed his mother and sister to live in New York; the trio would later relocate to Toronto -- where Reeves' interest in ice hockey and acting took a substantial precedence over academics. His formidable presence in front of the goal eventually earned Reeves the nickname "The Wall," and it wasn't long before all interest in school waned and the talented goalie decided to pursue acting.Later working as a manager in a Toronto pasta shop, Reeves soon began turning up in small roles on various Canadian television programs, making his feature debut in the 1985 Canadian film One Step Away before American audiences got their first good look at him in the 1986 Rob Lowe drama Youngblood. Subsequently going back to television and garnering favorable notice for his role in 1986's Young Again, it was the release of Tim Hunter's The River's Edge later that year that would provide Reeves with his breakthrough role. A harrowing tale of teen apathy in small town America, The River's Edge provided Reeves with a perfect opportunity to display his dramatic range, and the film would eventually become a minor classic in teen angst cinema.Appearing in a series of sometimes quirky but ultimately forgettable efforts in the following few years, 1988 found Reeves drawing favorable nods for his role in director Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons. It was the following year's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, however, that would transform the actor into something of an '80s icon. Reeves' performance of a moronic, air guitar wielding wannabe rocker traveling through time in order to complete his history report and graduate from high school proved so endearingly silly that it spawned both a sequel (1991's Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey) and a Saturday morning cartoon. In an odd twist of fate, Reeves and co-star Alex Winter had initially auditioned for the opposite roles from those in which they were ultimately cast. Though he would later offer variations of the character type in such efforts as Parenthood (1989) and I Love You to Death (1990), it wasn't long before Reeves was looking to break away from the trend and take his career to the next level.After drawing favorable reviews for his turn as a rich kid turned street hustler opposite River Phoenix in Gus Van Sant's 1991 drama My Own Private Idaho, Reeves battled the undead in Francis Ford Coppola's lavish production of Dracula (1992). Showing his loyalty toward fellow Bill and Ted cohort Winter with a hilarious extended cameo in Freaked the following year, Reeves once again teamed with Van Sant for the critically eviscerated Even Cowgirls Get the Blues before surprising audiences with an unexpectedly complex performance as Siddhartha in Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Buddha (1993).Just as audiences were beginning to ask themselves if they may have underestimated Reeves talent as an actor, the mid-'90s found his career taking an unexpected turn toward action films with the release of Jan de Bont's 1994 mega-hit Speed (Reeves would ultimately decline to appear in the film's disastrous sequel). Balancing out such big-budgeted adrenaline rushes as Johnny Mnemonic (1995) and Chain Reaction (1996) with romantic efforts as A Walk in the Clouds (1995) and Feeling Minnesota (1996), Reeves spooked audiences as a moral attorney suffering from a major case of soul corrosion in the 1997 horror thriller The Devil's Advocate. The late '90s also found Reeves suffering a devastating personal loss when his expected baby girl with longtime girlfriend Jennifer Syme was stillborn, marking the beginning of the end for the couple's relationship. Tragedy stacked upon tragedy when Syme died two short years later in a tragic freeway accident. His career in fluctuation due to the lukewarm response to the majority of his mid-'90s efforts, it was the following year that would find Reeves entering into one of the most successful stages of his career thus far.As Neo, the computer hacker who discovers that he may be humankind's last hope in the forthcoming war against an oppressive mainframe of computers, Reeves' popularity once again reached feverish heights thanks to The Wachowski Brothers' wildly imaginative and strikingly visual sci-fi breakthrough, The Matrix. Followed by such moderately successful films as The Replacements (for which he deferred his salary so that Gene Hackman could also appear) and The Watcher (both 2000), Reeves took an unexpectedly convincing turn as an abusive husband in Sam Raimi's The Gift before returning to familiar territory with Sweet November and Hardball (both 2001). With the cultural phenomenon of The Matrix only growing as a comprehensive DVD release offered obsessive fans a closer look into the mythology of the film, it wasn't long before The Wachowski Brothers announced that the film had originally been conceived as the beginning of a trilogy and that two sequels were in the works. Filmed back to back, and with both scheduled to hit screens in 2003, excitement over The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions began to reach feverish heights in the months before release, virtually ensuring that the films would become two of the year's biggest box-office draws; they delivered on this promise despite mixed critical receptions.Reeves ensured his liberation from typecasting with a drastic turn away from The Matrix as the curtain fell on 2003, by appearing as heartthrob Dr. Julian Mercer in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy Something's Gotta Give. Although he played second fiddle to vets Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, Reeves scored a bullseye, especially with female viewers. In 2005, he joined the cast of the collegiate arthouse hit Thumbsucker as Perry Lyman and fought the denizens of hell in the occultic thriller Constantine. Reeves's 2006 roles included the animated Robert Arctor in Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly and Alex Burnham in Alejandro Aresti's romantic fantasy The Lake House (co-starring Sandra Bullock). In 2009, the actor was praised for his role as a bitter divorcee in the critically acclaimed comedy drama The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.Reeves soon pulled back from acting to focus more on behind-the-camera work, as a producer and director. He produced and starred in the limited release Henry's Crime (2010) and released his directorial debut, Man of Tai Chi, in 2013 (he also starred in the film). In 2014, Reeves executive produced and starred in John Wick, playing a retired hitman. He also produced a series of documentaries, Side by Side, about filmmaking in the digital and film world.Famously playing bass for the band Dogstar in his cinematic down time, Reeves' other personal interests include motorcycles, horseback riding, and surfing. When he's not filming, Reeves maintains an everpresent residence in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Trivia: Equally adept at sober drama and over-the-top comedy, Michael Keaton has a knack for giving ordinary guys an unexpected twist. This trait ultimately made him an ideal casting choice for Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, and it has allowed him to play characters ranging from Mr. Mom's discontented stay-at-home dad to Pacific Heights's raging psychopath.The youngest of seven children, Keaton was born Michael Douglas on September 5th, 1951 in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania on September 9, 1951. After two years of studying speech at Kent State University, he dropped out and moved to Pittsburgh. While working a number of odd jobs--including a stint as an ice cream truck driver--Keaton attempted to build a career as a stand-up comedian, which proved less than successful. He ended up working as a cameraman for the Pittsburgh PBS station, a job that led him to realize he wanted to be in front of the camera, rather than behind it. Following this realization, Keaton duly moved out to Los Angeles, where he joined the L.A. Branch of Second City and began auditioning. When he started getting work he changed his last name to avoid being confused with the better-known actor of the same name, taking the name "Keaton" after seeing a newspaper article about Diane Keaton. He began acting on and writing for a number of television series, and he got his first big break co-starring with old friend Jim Belushi on the sitcom Working Stiffs (1979). Three years later, he made an auspicious film debut as the relentlessly cheerful owner of a morgue/brothel in Night Shift. The raves he won for his performance carried over to his work the following year in Mr. Mom, and it appeared as though Keaton was on a winning streak. Unfortunately, a series of such mediocre films as Johnny Dangerously (1984) and Gung Ho (1985) followed, and by the time Tim Burton cast him as the titular Beetlejuice in 1988, Keaton's career seemed to have betrayed its early promise. Beetlejuice proved Keaton's comeback: one of the year's most popular films, it allowed him to do some of his best work in years as the ghoulish, revolting title character. His all-out comic performance contrasted with his work in that same year's Clean and Sober, in which he played a recovering drug addict. The combined impact of these performances put Keaton back in the Hollywood spotlight, a position solidified in 1989 when he starred in Burton's Batman. Initially thought to be a risky casting choice for the title role, Keaton was ultimately embraced by audiences and critics alike, many of whom felt that his slightly skewed everyman appearance and capacity for dark humor made him perfect for the part. He reprised the role with similar success for the film's 1992 sequel, Batman Returns. Despite the acclaim and commercial profit surrounding Keaton's work in the Batman films, many of his subsequent films during the 1990s proved to be disappointments. My Life (1993), Speechless (1994), and The Paper (1994) were relative failures, despite star casting and name directors, while Multiplicity, a 1996 comedy featuring no less than four clones of the actor, further demonstrated that his name alone couldn't sell a movie. Some of Keaton's most successful work of the 1990s could be found in his roles in two Elmore Leonard adaptations, Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown (1997) and Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight (1998). An ATF agent in the former and Jennifer Lopez's morally questionable boyfriend in the latter, he turned in solid performances as part of a strong ensemble cast in both critically acclaimed films. In 1999, Keaton went back to his behind-the-camera roots, serving as the executive producer for Body Shots. Keaton continued to act throughout the early 2000s, and starred in Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005) alongside Lindsay Lohan. the actor took on another vehicle-oriented role when he agreed to voice the character of Chris Hicks in Pixar's Cars (2006). In 2010, Keaton voiced the Ken doll in Toy Story 3. Keaton enjoyed an unexpected career renaissance in 2014 playing the lead in Birdman, an older actor trying to stage a comeback by putting on a Broadway production. His work in the film was widely praised, and he earned his first Academy Award nomination when he was given a nod in the Best Actor category.

Trivia: First making an impression on international audiences with her role as the sweet, virginal Hero in Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing (1993), pale-skinned, fine-boned British actress Kate Beckinsale has since stepped beyond period pieces to prove that she is anything but a fragile English rose.The daughter of a BBC casting director and famed television actor Richard Beckinsale (known for roles on Porridge and Rising Damp), Beckinsale was born July 26, 1973. After her father's death from a heart attack in 1979, the actress was raised by her mother. By her own account, Beckinsale's childhood and adolescence were fairly troubled, marked by struggles with anorexia. She decided to follow in her father's acting footsteps while still a teenager and in 1991, had her major television debut in Once Against the Wind, a World War II drama in which she played Judy Davis' daughter. The same year, Beckinsale enrolled at Oxford, to study French and Russian Literature, and pursued her education until committing herself full-time to acting. In 1993, while still a student at Oxford, Beckinsale was cast in Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing. Her supporting role was a memorable one, winning the actress a limited amount of recognition amongst American audiences, but it was not until 1995, when she starred in John Schlesinger's adaptation of Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm, that her wattage began to increase, at least in art houses everywhere. The film, which was initially made for BBC television, proved to be a modest hit, bringing in respectable box office and glowing reviews. Beckinsale followed the film's success with another two years later, starring as an altruistic con artist in the quirky romantic comedy Shooting Fish. The film was an unqualified hit in its native country, becoming the third-highest grossing film in England for 1997. The same year, Beckinsale further increased her visibility with the title role in A&E's Emma.She next graced American movie screens in Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco (1998). She received good reviews for her portrayal of a cool and catty WASP college graduate (for which she assumed an American accent), although the movie itself met with a deeply mixed reaction. The following year, Beckinsale, in addition to giving birth to a daughter (fathered by longtime boyfriend Michael Sheen), starred in her first big-budget Hollywood feature. Playing opposite Claire Danes in Brokedown Palace, the actress portrayed an American girl who, while on vacation with best friend Danes in Thailand, gets caught with heroin and is sentenced to 33 years in a Thai prison.That mid-budgeted film, however, was nothing compared to her next major Hollywood production. After essaying roles in a television production of Alice Through the Looking Glass (1999) and the Merchant/Ivory production of Henry James' The Golden Bowl (2000), Beckinsale was plucked from relative obscurity by director Michael Bay for his lavish World War II epic, Pearl Harbor (2001). Boasting a record-setting, nine-digit price tag and one of the most aggressive marketing campaigns ever waged on the American public, the film featured the actress as Evelyn, a plucky nurse torn between the affections of two soldiers. Though a brief foray into Laurel Canyon found Beckinsale essaying the low-key role of a Harvard graduate gone astray after a taste of the wild side of life, she once again shifted into high gear for the big-budget vampire versus werewolf battle royal Underworld in 2003. Sporting the sort of gothic vinyl duds that had fanboys crooning, Beckinsale raised arms against a brutal breed of lycanthropes and few could argue that she didn't look good doing it. So good, in fact, that not only a sequel but a prequel followed.Soon thereafter the starlet was once again doing battle with the undead (opposite X-Men's Hugh Jackman) in the action horror adventure Van Helsing. At the end of 2004, Beckinsale turned in a solid performance as Ava Gardner in Martin Scorsese's multiple Oscar-winning Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator. While she would be out of theaters in 2005, Beckinsale returned in two very different projects the following year. In addition to starring in another Underworld, Beckinsale portrayed Adam Sandler's wife in the comedy Click. She would focus largely on action movies and thrillers for her next several projects, starring in Fragments in 2008, Whiteout in 2009, and Contraband in 2012, and also returned to the Underworld series and appeared in aTotal Recall remake. In 2015, she starred in Absolutely Anything, a British sci-fi comedy directed by Monty Pythoner Terry Jones, before jumping back to the Underworld for the fifth film in the series.

Trivia: British leading man Richard Briers appeared in several TV adaptations of venerable stage plays in the 1960s. His interpretation of cross-dressing Lord Fancourt Babberly in Charley's Aunt managed to find a berth on American public television in 1968. The warm gust of applause greeting the actor's appearance indicated that he was already an audience favorite - as indeed he was, having appeared in such films as Girls at Sea (1962) and Fathom (1967). When American viewers next saw Briers, he was starring with Felicity Kendall on an agreeable BBC sitcom, Good Neighbors (Briers' second starring series). The series was a light, easy-going account of two city dwellers trying to make a go at country living; Richard Briers and his superb supporting cast made the slender material seem far funnier than it really was.

Trivia: Although mention of his name may not turn heads in the States, Brian Blessed's booming, authoritative voice will. A brute actor from Mexborough, Yorkshire, with the stature to back his vocal chords, Blessed's unique ability to inject his characters with a quick wit and cunning guile helped him thrive in both film and television since his small-screen debut in 1962. A lifelong adventurer who spent his childhood days enthralled by the wonders of BBC radio's The Lost World, Blessed was frequently tardy for classes due to his unyielding desire to learn the secrets of the farthest corners of the world. He endeared himself to British audiences with his role as PC "Fancy" Smith in the popular BBC crime series Z Cars, and followed that up a few years later as Porthos in the 1966 U.K. miniseries The Three Musketeers. Blessed progressed into feature films with a role in The Christmas Tree that same year, and though he frequently returned to television for roles in such hits as The Avengers and Doctor Who, impressive performances in The Trojan Women (1971) and Man of La Mancha (1972) showed his diversity and effectiveness on the big screen, as well. In 1976 alone, Blessed appeared in no less than six made-for-TV efforts, and, by the '80s, he began to attract attention overseas. Perhaps the actor's most widely seen performance was that of the heroic Prince Vultan in Mike Hodges' 1980 comic-book, sci-fi adventure Flash Gordon, and a subsequent performance as King Richard IV in the hit 1983 BBC comedy Black Adder reinforced his status in Britain. Blessed next stole the show as Long John Silver in the 1985 miniseries Return to Treasure Island. His Shakespearean skills took center stage for Kenneth Branagh's Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), and Hamlet (1996), and, in 1999, Blessed directed himself in a U.K. version of King Lear. That same year, he gained even more international exposure when he essayed a small role in Star Wars: Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace and provided vocal work for Disney's Tarzan. As video-game producers began courting actors to provide vocal work for their interactive adventures, they tapped Blessed to appear in such titles as Kingdom Hearts and Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior. After taking the lead in the 2003 horror film Devil's Harvest, Blessed once again traveled back in time for a role in Oliver Stone's Alexander (2004).

Trivia: Shakespeare fans in Britain and America generally are well acquainted with the work of Richard Clifford. After performing regularly in acclaimed productions of the Royal Shakespeare Company, he appeared in other Shakespeare productions on Broadway and in London's West End. In addition, he has acted in three of pal Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare films: Love's Labour's Lost (2000) as Boyet, a lord in the company of the Princess of France; Much Ado About Nothing (1993) as Conrade, a follower of the evil Don John; and Henry V (1989), as the Duke of Orleans, one of the leaders of the French army. Clifford has also performed in productions based on the works or the lives of other giants of literature, including Gulliver in Lilliput (1982), Cyrano de Bergerac (1985), Little Dorrit (1988), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), and The Infinite Worlds of H.G. Wells (2001). Clifford is also a highly regarded director. At the Folger Theater in Washington, he has staged his productions of Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer (2002) and John Milton's Comus (2001). In his production of August Strindberg's Playing the Wife, performed at England's Chichester Festival in 1995, he had the privilege of directing actor Derek Jacobi. Clifford also directed one of the most widely publicized events in Britain in 2000: A Salute to the Man of the Millennium, a London bash at which the likes of Judi Dench, Helena Bonham Carter, and Bob Hoskins paid tribute to Shakespeare and honored Branagh for his contributions to popularizing Shakespeare.

Trivia: Scottish composer and actor Patrick Doyle has written music for and appeared in several of Kenneth Branagh's films. Before coming to films, Doyle received his education at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. In 1981, he appeared in his debut feature, Chariots of Fire (1981). He began his association with Branagh in 1987 when he joined the Renaissance Theatre Company. There Doyle composed music, served as musical director and acted in Branagh's productions. He began composing film scores in 1989 with Henry V. He has since worked steadily in films, both as an actor and a composer.

Trivia: With an expansive range that stretches from Shakespeare to Chicken Run and just about everything in between, actress Imelda Staunton has, not surprisingly, become one of the most highly respected actresses working in the U.K. If her penchant for playing what many would consider to be mundane, everyday characters found Staunton criminally overlooked in the early years of her career, it was her keen ability to inject those characters with a remarkable complexity that eventually made the stage mainstay-turned-small-screen powerhouse one of Britain's most sought-after talents.A London native and graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Staunton wasted no time launching her career following graduation, becoming associated with such prestigious venues as The Old Vic and the National Theatre. A trio of productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company gained her numerous critical accolades, and in 1986 Staunton made an impressive television debut in the legendary BBC production of Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective. Increasingly busy throughout the 1990s, Staunton continued to gain momentum on-stage while earning three Oliviers for her performances in the The Corn Is Green, A Chorus of Disapproval, and Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. As Staunton's numerous stage roles continued to earn her critical success, frequent television and film roles made her a familiar and endearing face to the general public. Though many of her U.K. television roles went unseen by stateside audiences, supporting roles in such features as Much Ado About Nothing, Sense and Sensibility, and Shakespeare in Love found Staunton slowly working her way into the conscience of U.S. film buffs as well. Moving into the new millennium, Staunton's roles in such films as Chicken Run (for which she provided the voice of Bunty), Crush, Bright Young Things, and I'll Be There found the established television actress actively distancing herself from the small screen in favor of feature films. Of course, every actor dreams of the breakthrough role that will make him or her an international star, and for Imelda Staunton that role was of a 1950s era abortionist caught in a downward spiral in director Mike Leigh's 2004 drama Vera Drake. Her undeniably affecting portrayal of the title role -- a selfless housewife and cleaning woman who makes a name for herself performing illegal abortions -- earned her near-universal praise. After earning accolades from both The Venice Film Festival and The New York Film Festival as well as the Los Angeles and Chicago film critic associations, Staunton had undeniably arrived when the role earned her a Best Actress nomination for the 77th Annual Academy Awards.Subsequent roles in the U.K. television comedy Little Britain as well as the features Nanny McPhee and Freedom Writers served well to introduce her to entirely new, often American, audiences. In 2007, just one year after appearing in a colorful Masterpiece Theatre production of the children's classic The Wind and the Willows, she remained in the world of fantasy for her role in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Staunton played Dolores Umbridge -- the latest in a long line of Defense Against the Dark Arts professors -- whose severe disposition drew the ire of Harry Potter himself. She was part of the cast of the well-respected television production Cranford, and appeared in the inspirational drama Freedom Writers. She teamed with Mike Leigh again for 2010's Another Year, and that same year she appeared in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. She continued to work in animated family films such as Arthur Christmas and The Pirates! Band of Misfits.

Trivia: An esteemed actress, known both for her portrayals of flinty, dry-witted women and her real-life role as the mother of actresses Emma and Sophie Thompson, Phyllida Law has been acting in her native Britain for over 40 years. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1932 and married to fellow actor Eric Thompson until his death in 1982, Law has spent much of her career working as a character actress both on television and in film. She has done particularly notable work in Douglas McGrath's 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, which cast her as the meddlesome Mrs. Bates (and daughter Sophie Thompson as her equally meddlesome daughter Miss Bates); Alan Rickman's acclaimed drama The Winter Guest, in which she and daughter Emma starred as an estranged mother and daughter; and Nigel Cole's Saving Grace (2000), a comedy in which she portrayed the busybody neighbor of a woman (Brenda Blethyn) who has taken to growing pot in her backyard. An accomplished performer on stage, screen, and even radio plays, Law also authored books in which she discussed her experiences caring for her mother, who suffered from dementia, with refreshing, light hearted humor and wit.

Trivia: Edward Jewesbury received only modest recognition from the public during his lifetime. However, directors and actors well appreciated his formidable acting skills. One of his colleagues, famed director and actor Kenneth Branagh, regularly worked with Jewesbury in major projects. Among the roles Jewesbury played in productions featuring Branagh as a star and/or director were Sir Thomas Erpingham in Henry V (1989), the solicitor in Peter's Friends (1992), the sexton in Much Ado About Nothing (1993), a city official in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), Colonel Redfern in Look Back in Anger (1989), and Polonius in Discovering Hamlet (1990). Jewesbury also appeared in other distinguished productions requiring great acting skill. One of his most important roles was that of Titus in I, Claudius, the 1976 drama acclaimed by many critics as the finest TV miniseries ever produced. Other demanding roles he performed over the years included those of Mr. Shepherd in Persuasion (TV, 1971), Neville Chamberlain in Churchill and the Generals (TV, 1979), Lord Dawson in Edward and Mrs. Simpson (TV, 1980), the brigadier in The Patricia Neal Story (TV, 1981), a chorus member in Oedipus at Colonus (TV, 1984), Dr. Kimble in Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (TV, 1985), Brisaille in Cyrano de Bergerac (TV, 1985), the magnate from the Lords in Little Dorritt (film, 1988), King Henry in Richard III (film, 1995), and Professor Brienhy in Mrs. Dalloway (film, 1997). Toward the end of his career Jewesbury attained a small measure of renown in films that capitalized on the popularity of medieval wizardry in video games and films. Among the roles he played were Ambrosius in The Mists of Avalon (TV, 2000), Vildan Vildir in Dungeons and Dragons (film, 2000), and the Old Retainer in 10th Kingdom (TV, 2000).