Trivia: Though Jason Gedrick is primarily a supporting actor, his first role was relatively impressive for a newbie; in 1983, he appeared as an extra in the cast of Bad Boys with Sean Penn, who encouraged Gedrick, then a Chicago high-school student, to further pursue acting. Penn's advice paid off fairly quickly, considering that by 1985, Gedrick had landed leading roles in Iron Eagle, The Zoo Gang, and The Heavenly Kid. In 1988, Gedrick starred as a washed-out basketball player-turned-police officer opposite Meg Ryan and Kiefer Sutherland in Promised Land, and went on to play small roles in Born on the Fourth of July and Backdraft. Between film roles, Gedrick kept busy with stage work, starring with Helen Hunt and Don Ameche in a Broadway production of Our Town, as well as an off-Broadway production of Mrs. Dally Has a Lover with Judith Ivey. Though Gedrick was less successful on the big screen during the mid-'90s, the actor was praised for his television work. In 1996 and 1997, Gedrick starred as a murder defendant in Steven Bochco's Murder One, and later starred opposite Ken Olin and Joe Pantoliano in CBS's critically acclaimed series EZ Streets. Gedrick was also recognized for his work with Danny Aiello and Joe Mantegna in The Last Don and The Last Don II, both six-hour CBS miniseries. Gedrick enjoyed similar success for his lead role in the CBS drama Falcone, which was based on the feature film Donnie Brasco, and would go on to land a lead role alongside Billy Baldwin and Chazz Palminteri in One Eyded King (2002). Gedrick could also be seen in NBC's Boomtown (2002) and the made-for-cable drama A Date With Darkness: The Trial and Capture of Andrew Luster.In 2006 he joined the cast of NBC's television series Windfall, which co-starred his former Boomtown alumni Lana Parilla. Though Windfall was short-lived, he would return to television for the A&E original movie Kings of South Beach (2007), in which he worked alongside Donnie Wahlberg. Gedrick appeared on seasons 3 and 4 of Desperate Housewives to play the love interest du jour, and joined the cast of HBO's drama Luck in 2012.

Trivia: Louis Gossett Jr. ranks as one of the most respected African-American actors of stage, screen, and television. Tall, lanky, and bald-pated, Gossett was a basketball player in high school until a leg injury benched him and his interest turned toward acting. In 1953, at the age of 17, Gossett made his Broadway debut in Take a Giant Step, and ended up with a Donaldson Award for the year's best newcomer. Though working steadily on stage and television, Gossett was still interested in basketball. The New York Knicks drafted him out of college in 1958 and he played with them briefly before returning to performing. In 1961, Gossett reprised on film the role he played in the theatrical production of A Raisin in the Sun. It was a well-regarded beginning, and he continued to appear on stage and television, and beginning in 1967, the occasional feature film or television movie. During this early period, he also occasionally sang in nightclubs. Gossett did not become a bona fide star until his Emmy-winning performance in the landmark television miniseries Roots (1977). His career picked up considerably after that. In 1982, Gossett earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing a deceptively heartless drill sergeant in An Officer and a Gentleman. That same year, he also starred in another television series as the wise mentor to an alien prince in The Powers of Matthew Star (1982-1983). After the success of An Officer and a Gentleman, Gossett reprised his roll as the tough sergeant, albeit using different character names, in several films, including the Iron Eagle series, The Punisher (1989), and others. But though he makes an excellent rough guy, Gossett has showed a willingness to let his softer side show through in such made-for-TV movies as Sudie and Simpson (1990).

Trivia: Known mostly for portraying Agatha Christie's Belgian detective Hercule Poirot for more than a decade, the short and stocky character actor David Suchet has also enjoyed a lengthy career on stage, screen, and television. Born in London, he studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and eventually joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. Throughout the 1970s, Suchet appeared in numerous stage productions and crime dramas on British television. His did his first film in 1980 with A Tale of Two Cities, but didn't play his first detective until the crime comedy Trenchcoat in 1983. For the rest of the '80s, the British actor played a Middle Eastern terrorist in The Little Drummer Girl, a Russian operative in The Falcon and the Snowman, and a French hunter in Harry and the Hendersons. He also occasionally portrayed real-life figures, including Sigmund Freud in the miniseries Freud, news reporter William L. Shirer in the HBO docudrama Murrow, and movie legend Louis B. Mayer in RKO 281. While the Poirot mysteries would dominate his career in the '90s, Suchet also played some other leading roles: double agent Verloc in miniseries The Secret Agent, based on the novel by Joseph Conrad; Aaron in the TNT television special Moses; and downsized New Yorker Oliver in the American independent film Sunday. Some standard Hollywood action thrillers followed with Executive Decision, Deadly Voyage, and A Perfect Murder being just a few. After 2000, he turned to costume dramas to play Napoleon in Sabotage!, Baron von Stockmar in Victoria & Albert, and upper-crust Augustus Melmotte in The Way We Live Now. He resumed the role of Poirot (after a short break from 1998-1999) just as he started up another detective character, DI John Borne of NCS: Manhunt and NCS 2. In 2003, he played gangster Leo Gillette in the action thriller Foolproof.

Trivia: Tall, deceptively distinguished-looking Tim Thomerson first gained attention as a comedian, and it was in this capacity that he was hired as an ensemble player for the 1976 Bill Cosby TV variety series Cos. That same year, Thomerson made his first film appearance as Ken in Car Wash (1976). He made several additional movies under the watchful eye of producer/director Robert Altman. Latter-day filmgoers will recognize Thomerson as the Bogartlike adventurer Jack Deth in the three Trancers movies, and also as Brick Bardo in the brief Doll Man cinema series. In the final analysis, Thomerson is probably best known for his prolific TV-series work. He played lascivious hairstylist Gianni in Angie (1979), horny mailboy Johnny Danko in The Associates (1979), egotistical Regis Philbin takeoff Reggie Cavanaugh in The Two of Us (1981), bumbling bandit Theodore Ogilvie in Gun Shy (1983), philosophical derelict Jerry in Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1987), and Sgt. James "Buddy" Zunder, confined to a desk job because of his irregular heartbeat, in the first two seasons of Sirens (1993-96). Video cultists are fondest of Tim Thomerson's fascinatingly funny portrayal of transmuted male-female Gene/Jean on the brief sci-fi spoof Quark (1978).

Trivia: Black supporting actor, former juvenile, onscreen from the '70s.

Trivia: A performer who achieved fame and recognition as a child star, Robbie Rist first gained audience identification thanks to two key television roles, held on a recurring (and occasionally seen) basis: Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch and David Baxter, the eight-year-old boy (actually, Rist was 12 at the time) adopted by Ted and Georgette Baxter in the final season of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. In subsequent years, Rist landed occasional roles in features with a marked emphasis on action, fantasy, and children's entertainment. Projects included Iron Eagle (1985), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie (1990) and its two sequels (where he voiced one of the turtles), and the animated adventure Balto (1996). Meanwhile, on the side, Rist remained extremely active as a musician and music producer, and played in numerous "indie" bands.

Trivia: Prolific and versatile, actor Michael Bowen joined the casts of some of the most critically respected and lucrative pictures of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, nearly always enlisted as an unremarkable everyman. Bowen launched his career with bit parts in such pictures as Valley Girl (1983), Iron Eagle (1985), and Less Than Zero (1987), then graduated to supporting roles by the late '90s. He was particularly memorable as cop Mark Dargus, the partner of ATF agent Ray Nicolette (Michael Keaton) in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction follow-up, Jackie Brown (1997), then turned in a haunting portrayal of Rick, the dysfunctional father of game show contestant Stanley (Jeremy Blackman) in Paul Thomas Anderson's mosaic of contemporary L.A. life, Magnolia (1999). In the following decade, Bowen re-teamed with Tarantino for the neo-martial arts opus Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) and delivered an intense performance as a cruel and vile counselor at a rehab center in first-time director Monty Lapica's psychodrama, Self-Medicated (2005). He also took on a recurring role on the hit TV drama Lost as Danny Pickett, a hotheaded, tough member of the Others, during the second and third seasons of the series (2006-2007).

Trivia: Fans of American actress Melora Hardin who associate her exclusively with her characterization of Jan Levinson-Gould -- Michael Scott's stone-faced manager and sometimes lover, on the smash NBC series The Office -- may be surprised and delighted to discover several exciting facts about the history of her career. First, her work stretches back many decades, into her primary school years, encompassing everything from Disney movies to prime-time series dramas of the '80s, '90s, and 2000s to commercials to acclaimed feature films; she directs and edits films as well. Second, Hardin moonlights as an accomplished and gifted singer/songwriter -- a nightclub chanteuse known for sultry cabaret-style numbers, who has issued a number of acclaimed albums of her own material, including Meloradrama and Purr. And finally, this comedian's wit extends far beyond her crack-comic onscreen timing. A parodist who loves to play with her own image, Hardin runs her own website, with a series of funny-sexy (yet inexplicit) cheesecake photos that serve as throwbacks to the peek-a-boo erotica days of the mid-'50s while subtly parodying and calling attention to those setups.Given both of her parents' long tenures in film and television (her father is character actor Jerry Hardin and her mother is acting coach Diane Hill Hardin), drama came preternaturally for Hardin, and she commenced work as a child star at age six. One of her earliest assignments involved plugging Peak Toothpaste on a television commercial; she later joined the ensemble cast of a live-action children's program on NBC (circa 1977, at age ten) called Cliffwood Avenue Kids, which (as late-Gen X television babies may recall) typically aired during early weekday evenings after The Flintstones. A series of failed pilots ensued for Hardin, beginning with the late-'70s drama Thunder and encompassing over a dozen others over the next two decades.Hardin debuted cinematically at age 11, with a high-profile role in the goofball Disney comedy The North Avenue Irregulars, opposite Susan Clark and Cloris Leachman and directed by Hogan's Heroes vet Bruce Bilson. She followed this up with many additional roles in A- and B-list features throughout the '80s and '90s, but while her work shone, the films themselves often failed to catch fire; her resumé includes such forgettable fare as Iron Eagle (1985) and Soul Man (1986). A number of pictures, however, marked happy exceptions: Hardin contributed a small onscreen singing role to the fine Disney period adventure The Rocketeer (1991), and several of her songs highlighted the film's soundtrack. She also appeared in Clint Eastwood's enormously underrated, oft-humorous 1997 crime thriller Absolute Power (as Christy Sullivan, the homicide victim of Gene Hackman's lecherous president), and made a solid contribution to the satire Thank You for Smoking, opposite Aaron Eckhart.Hardin fared particularly well on television, with single- and dual-episode appearances over the years in such dramas as Little House on the Prairie, Quincy, M.E., and Murder, She Wrote. The Office, of course, represented a watershed moment for Hardin. Adapted skillfully by Greg Daniels from the British series of the same name by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the NBC sitcom follows the colorful employees of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company's Scranton branch -- led by one Michael Scott (Steve Carell), a sweet-natured but desperately lonely and outrageously uncouth manager. Low-key, iconoclastic, and unconventional, the program eschewed a laugh track and underplayed (to the nth degree) every one of its gags, relying on a bevy of character eccentricities to procure laughs. The episodes had Hardin (as Michael's manager) typically playing straight man to Carell's goofball, and saw the unlikeliest of employer-employee romances blossoming between them over the course of the first two seasons. Thanks to an extraordinary cast and crew, The Office instantly shot up to qualify as one of NBC's highest rated new series after its March 2005 debut; many proclaimed it as the funniest American sitcom since Seinfeld.Meanwhile, Hardin continued to hone her craft in other arenas. She first helmed the regional theatrical production of friend Adria Tennor's one-woman show Strip Search. Tagged as "Love and a 12-Foot Pole," and authored by and starring Tennor, this colorful yet surprisingly touching seriocomedy recounts the tale of a woman who undertakes a journey of self-discovery and ultimately finds her dying passion in strip dancing classes. Hardin then directed and edited an independent film entitled You that husband Gildart Jackson scripted. The motion picture stars Jackson and both of Hardin's parents, as well as Joely Fisher and The Office's Kate Flannery.In 2006, Hardin returned to big-screen work, signing with Fox Atomic and Tapestry Films to co-star in the Tom Brady-directed sports comedy The Comebacks. The film relays the story of a football coach (David Koechner) commissioned to whip a down-and-out football team into shape. In 2007, she joined the cast of The Dukes, which follows a group of down-and-out musicians attempting an ill-fated heist.

Trivia: French-Cajun actor Lance LeGault broke into films as a stand-in for several male stars, foremost among them Elvis Presley. LeGault also worked as a stunt double, occasionally playing speaking roles in films like 1968's The Young Runaway. He has also been steadily employed as a nightclub and lounge singer. In the 1980s, he was busy on television in a variety of rough-hewn characterizations. Lance LeGault's regular TV-series roles include antagonistic Col. Roderick Decker in The A-Team (1983-86) and gonzo bounty hunter Alamo Joe in Werewolf (1987-88).

Trivia: Supporting actor Becker first appeared onscreen as a juvenile in the '70s.

Trivia: Thesp Shawnee Smith's name might not be a household word, but her face will register with thousands of sci-fi and horror aficionados thanks to her supporting turns in the big-screen remakes of The Blob (1988) and Carnival of Souls (1998). Smith's recurring role as Amanda, a young woman tormented by the clown-like serial killer Jigsaw, in the popular Saw series, broadened her exposure, even as it threatened to further typecast her as a woman in peril and fix her reputation as a horror queen. Yet the actress's resume demonstrates far greater versatility than this, and it may surprise fans to discover that she claims several decades of credits in multiple genres.Born on July 3, 1970, in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Smith debuted on the big screen at 11, as a dancer, in mogul Ray Stark's multimillion-dollar production of Annie (1982). A bit part in Michael Tuchner's acclaimed telemovie Not My Kid (1985) followed, at the age of fourteen; the picture drew solid Nielsen ratings and favorable critical responses, but Smith's only amounted to a bit part. She maintained greater visibility in the late eighties, with two significant roles: Rhonda Altobello in Carl Reiner's 1987 Mark Harmon-starrer Summer School. While most critics dismissed the film, it charmed a handful of others (such as Kevin Thomas and Rita Kempley) and did outstanding box office for a programmer, grossing several times its original budget. The very same could be said of Chuck Russell's 1988 remake The Blob, and then some: in addition to delighting nostalgia-hungry moviegoers (and some critics), it purportedly acquired a loyal following, becoming - in time - something of a cult film. Over the nineties and into the 2000s, Smith evinced a predilection for slightly deeper and more intelligent fare, but kept a somewhat low onscreen profile for several years, usually (though not always) with bit parts in lower budget indie dramas. Smith also appears in director Paul Quinn's Never Get Outta the Boat, which dramatizes the lives of several recovering addicts. She landed a regular role as Linda, a not-so-bright nurse's aide, on the 1998 CBS sitcom Becker, starring Ted Danson, and stuck with the series until it wrapped in 2004.When Smith's horror film quotient skyrocketed in the early 2000s (with the Saw role) it temporarily eclipsed her involvement in more substantial fare, even as her screen activity per se crescendoed. In the vein of earlier slasher film franchises, the initial Saw entry and its sequels did exemplary box office and obtained a rabid following; surprisingly, the pictures drew a favorable response in some critical quarters, as well.

Trivia: Moved to Canada with his family when he was 3-years-old.At the age of 10, he obtained his nickname thanks to a football coach at school.Worked as a carpenter and a bartender as well. Started as a stand-up comedian in a comedy club, where he was the manager.Decided to pursue a career as a comedian and then started touring.Was encouraged by a talent agent to pursue a career in acting after he saw him act on stage.Is skilled at harmonica.