Trivia: Australian actor Chris Hemsworth became a favorite face in his native country when he wasn't yet a teenager, appearing on Australian TV shows like Neighbours and Home and Away in the early 2000s. He would go on to cross the pond, appearing in American movies like 2009's Star Trek, in which he played George Kirk. His next big splash in Hollywood would come in the years to follow, as he was cast as Thor in the big screen adaptations of The Avengers and Thor. The Avengers turned out to be a mega-smash, lending even more luster to his other films from that year including Snow White and the Huntsman and the remake of Red Dawn. In 2013, he played British race car driver James Hunt in Rush, before picking up the hammer again in Thor: The Dark World.

Trivia: Born in Boston in October 1980, he began to realize his passion for acting after attending the Interlochen Theater Arts Summer Program. After writing, directing, and starring in his first play at the age of 12, it wasn't long before the venom of the acting bug had successfully worked its way into the budding thespian's blood. Devoting his life to acting, Foster dropped out of high school at 16 and prepared to face the challenges that accompany such a career. In 1999, Foster won his breakthrough role in Liberty Heights. Set in 1950s Baltimore, Foster starred as a Jewish high school student whose socially taboo relationship with an African-American classmate (Rebekah Johnson) finds him facing negative pressure from his family and friends. He would go on to appear in many other films, like The Laramie Project, Big Trouble, 30 Days of Night, Alpha Dog, 3:10 to Yuma, Pandorum, Rampart, and more. Foster would also have a succesful TV run, with a role on the popular HBO series Six Feet Under. He played William Burroughs in 2013's Kill Your Darlings and also appeared in Ain't Them Bodies Saints and Lone Survivor the same year. Foster also focused on his stage work, starring in A Streetcar Named Desire in London in 2014.

Trivia: Universally known as one of the sexiest women in Hollywood, Scarlett Johansson has actually been acting professionally since the age of eight. A native of New York City, where she was born on November 22, 1984, Johansson was raised -- along with her twin brother -- as the youngest of four children, and she developed an interest in acting at the age of three. After enrolling in classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute for Young People, she made her stage debut opposite Ethan Hawke in the off-Broadway production of Sophistry. Her film debut followed in 1994, when she had a supporting role in North, and she subsequently appeared in the little-seen Just Cause (1995) and If Lucy Fell (1996). Johansson had her first significant screen breakthrough with her role as one of two orphaned teenaged sisters in Manny & Lo (1996), a coming-of-age drama directed by Lisa Krueger. Johansson, who shared the screen with Aleksa Palladino and Mary Kay Place, earned an Independent Spirit Award Best Actress nomination for her work in the film, and she soon found herself being tapped by Robert Redford to star as Kristin Scott Thomas' daughter in The Horse Whisperer (1998). Although the film met with a very mixed reception, Johansson was widely praised for her portrayal of a girl who loses her leg and her best friend in a horrific accident.In 2000, the actress signed on to play one of the heroines (alongside Thora Birch) of Terry Zwigoff's screen adaptation of Ghost World, Daniel Clowes' celebrated comic about the adventures of two teen girls grappling with post-high school life. That same year, she starred in American Rhapsody, in which she portrayed a young girl who escapes communist Hungary in the 1950s and travels to the U.S.Though she would take a brief detour into camp with the 2002 giant spider fiasco Eight Legged Freaks, the respect Johansson had gained in the film industry as a result of her previous dramatic roles found the young actress in high demand among indie directors while quickly catching the eye of the Hollywood elite. With Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, Johansson's touching performance as a young girl who strikes a tentative friendship with a washed-up American actor (memorably portrayed by Bill Murray) left no doubts regarding her dramatic skills, and although a Best Actress Oscar nomination eluded her, she received a boatload of nods from critics' groups and the Golden Globes. The rising starlet was soon cast in the lead of such subsequent films as The Girl with the Pearl Earring (2003) and The Perfect Score (2003).After sticking to form in 2004 with roles in In Good Company and A Love Song for Bobby Long, Johansson took her first stab at a lead role in a big budget Hollywood flick, starring opposite Ewan MacGregor in Michael Bay's futuristic actioner The Island. While the picture was panned by critics and avoided by audiences, it did nothing to slow the young star down. She closed out the year by receiving virtually unanimous praise for her performance in Woody Allen's Match Point.She immediately reteamed with Allen, who was full of praise for the young actress after their first collaboration, for the supernatural comedy/murder mystery Scoop in 2006. Johansson would spend the next several years enjoying her status as an A-list actress, appearing in a wide range of projects, like The Nanny Diaries and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. In 2012, she joined The Avengers as Natasha Romanoff, playing the character in several more films in the series.

Trivia: As the offspring of producer/writer Naomi Foner and director Stephen Gyllenhaal, it is not surprising that Jake Gyllenhaal has been acting since childhood. Raised in Los Angeles, Gyllenhaal acted in school plays and made his winsome screen debut when he was in the fifth grade, playing Billy Crystal's son in the blockbuster summer comedy City Slickers (1991). Keeping it in the family while acting with some of the industry's most notable talents, Gyllenhaal subsequently appeared in his parents' 1993 adaptation of the novel A Dangerous Woman with Debra Winger, and played Robin Williams' son in a 1994 episode of TV's Homicide that was directed by his father. Poised to make the transition from child to adult actor, Gyllenhaal earned rave reviews, heralding him as a star in the making, for his emotionally sincere performance as real-life rocket builder Homer Hickam in the warmly received drama October Sky (1999). Though he opted to stay in school and attend college at Columbia University, Gyllenhaal continued his creative pursuits, playing in a rock band and starring as the oddball title character alongside Drew Barrymore in the Barrymore-produced Sundance Film Festival entrant Donnie Darko (2001). Gyllenhaal could be seen later that same year as the titular character in the ill-fated Bubble Boy.After co-starring on the London stage in This Is Our Youth in spring 2002, Gyllenhaal was declared one half of Entertainment Weekly's "It Gene Pool" (with sister Maggie Gyllenhaal) for his aversion to taking the easy, teen flick route. In keeping with his preference for off-center work, Gyllenhaal coincidentally played the younger love object of choice in two consecutive indie comedies, appearing as Catherine Keener's sensitive boss in Nicole Holofcener's slyly witty Lovely & Amazing (2002) and Jennifer Aniston's enticing yet disturbed co-worker in Miguel Arteta's sardonic The Good Girl (2002). As further proof that he had the acting chops to go with his sad-eyed good looks, Gyllenhaal subsequently co-starred with Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon as a young man enmeshed in his dead fiancée's family in Moonlight Mile (2002).With his star on the rise and his status as a heartthrob all but cemented, it became impossible for Gyllenhaal to avoid the draw of a big summer blockbuster. In 2004, he starred alongside Dennis Quaid in the mega-budgeted The Day After Tomorrow, and the success of that film put him in another league altogether. What followed was an interesting, challenging mix of roles for the young actor. He could be seen in the fall of 2005 starring in no less than three high-profile prestige films, all of them adaptations: the delayed big-screen version of the Pulitzer-prize winning play Proof, with Gwyneth Paltrow; the Gulf War memoir Jarhead, directed by American Beauty wunderkind Sam Mendes; and Ang Lee's cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain. The first two films received an indifferent response by critics, even though Jarhead's opening-weekend gross confirmed Gyllenhaal's bankability. Lee's film, however, garnered the most acclaim of 2005, and offered him perhaps his riskiest, most rewarding role to date. Playing the closeted, romantically frustrated rancher Jack Twist, Gyllenhaal added heartbreaking shades of vulnerability to his usual frat-boy cockiness, and more than held his own opposite a memorably gruff, taciturn Heath Ledger. As praise was heaped out upon the film and its two male leads, Gyllenhaal found himself the recipient of a BAFTA award, a National Board of Review notice, and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Gyllenhaal would spend the next several years enjoying his status as a leading man, appearing in projects like Zodiac, Brothers, Love and Other Drugs, and Source Code.

Trivia: Canadian actor Taylor Kitsch began his career as a model, signing with the agency IMG and moving to New York at the age of 21. As his career in front of the camera slowly but surely developed, Kitsch became a certified trainer and nutritionist. In 2006, his acting career had a breakthrough, and he was cast in the movies John Tucker Must Die and The Covenant, as well as the popular NBC series Friday Night Lights, a show based on the movie of the same name, about a small town in Texas where high-school football is among the most important things in life. He appeared in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and had a major part in The Bang Bang Club in 2010. Two years later he would be the lead in a pair of big-budget action spectacles - the notorious misfire John Carter, and the board-game inspired Battleship. He also was in Oliver Stone's crime thriller Savages.

Trivia: As legend has it, Charlize Theron was discovered by an agent while fighting with a bank manager on Hollywood Boulevard. Eighteen and starving, Theron purportedly got into the argument after the manager refused to cash her check. The outburst caught the agent's attention, and eight months later Theron got her first acting job. She subsequently went on to become one of the hottest young actors in Hollywood, thanks to a fortuitous combination of talent and the blonde, statuesque good looks so fervently adored by the camera. Born August 7, 1975, Theron was raised on a farm in Benoni, South Africa. Trained as a ballet dancer, she was sent to Milan at 16 to become a model following the death of her father (which, it was later revealed, occurred after he was shot by Theron's mother, who was defending herself from his drunken abuse). After tiring of modeling, Theron returned to her first love, dancing, which resulted in a move to New York to dance with the Joffrey Ballet. Unfortunately, her career was halted by a knee injury, which led Theron -- at her mother's behest -- to travel to Los Angeles to try her luck with acting. After a long, unprofitable struggle, fate smiled upon Theron in the form of the aforementioned bank encounter. Following an inauspicious bit part in 1994's Children of the Corn III, Theron won her first dose of recognition with 2 Days in the Valley (1996). The film wasn't particularly successful, but it did give her both much-needed exposure and critical praise. The film also served as the stepping stone to her first leading role, that of Keanu Reeves' embattled wife in The Devil's Advocate (1997). The film drew poor reviews, but Theron managed to win widespread praise for her performance. Her next project, Trial and Error (1997), surfaced briefly before disappearing with nary a trace, but the subsequent Mighty Joe Young (1998) netted Theron more positive notices. Her ascent was confirmed with her casting in Celebrity, Woody Allen's 1998 cameo-fest that also featured turns from everyone from Kenneth Branagh to Winona Ryder to Leonardo DiCaprio to Isaac Mizrahi. In her portrayal of a perpetually aroused supermodel, Theron shone in a role seemingly designed to allow her to flaunt her natural attributes and little else. She was rewarded with more substantial -- not to mention multilayered -- work in The Cider House Rules (1999), Lasse Hallström's Oscar-winning adaptation of John Irving's novel. As a troubled young woman with secrets to hide, Theron received star billing alongside Michael Caine and Tobey Maguire.In the wake of The Cider House Rules came a few highly publicized but ultimately disappointing projects, including John Frankenheimer's Reindeer Games (2000), Robert Redford's The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), and Sweet November (2001), the last of which reunited her with erstwhile co-star Keanu Reeves. Theron was also reunited with Woody Allen in his The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001), another widely anticipated film that, despite a high-profile cast and stylish period design, was both a critical and commercial underachiever.None of this, however, nudged Theron from her A-list status, something that was confirmed by her casting in the flashy, star-studded 2003 remake of The Italian Job, a much-beloved 1969 comedy caper starring Michael Caine. The 2003 version featured Mark Wahlberg in the starring role, with Theron, Edward Norton, Seth Green, and Mos Def, among others, backing him up. That same year, Theron switched gears and dove headfirst into the "serious actress" category with her starring role in Monster, the crime drama based upon the real-life story of serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who, in the late '80s, murdered seven men in Florida. Co-starring Christina Ricci as Wuornos' lover, the film promised to show audiences a side of Theron that certainly hadn't been hinted at in her previous portrayals of models, girlfriends, and Southern debutantes. It was evidently successful as Theron was showered with more than a dozen awards including an Oscar following her first-ever Academy Award nomination.2005 would be a decidedly mixed year for Theron. She first appeared in the live-action adaptation of the cult animated series Aeon Flux, a film that was nearly unanimously maligned by critics and largely avoided by audiences. Luckily, she also starred in the well-received docudrama North Country. Playing a woman who successfully battled sexual harassment, Theron was honored with her second Oscar nomination for the performance.In 2007 Theron earned critical praise for her supporting role as a detective in In the Valley of Elah, and joined the star-studded cast of The Road in 2008. Theron took a lead role the following year in Young Adult (penned by Juno collaborators Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman) as a recently divorced author who returns to her hometown with her sights set on winning back her high school sweet heart. Young Adult was received well by both box office and critical standards. 2012's Snow White and the Huntsman featured Theron as the diabolical queen, while Prometheus (2012) found the actress playing the cold but complex character of corporate representative Meredith Vickers. In 2014, she took on a out-of-character comic role, playing the romantic lead in Seth Macfarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West, before returning to top form in Mad Max: Fury Road the following year.

Trivia: A rough-cut British actor with a dark and slightly brooding presence, Dominic Cooper initially cut his chops on the London and Gotham stages, with two very different roles: adventurer Will Parry in the Royal National Theatre's epic production of Philip Pullman's iconoclastic fantasy His Dark Materials, and that of the womanizer Dakin in the Broadway run of Alan Bennett's The History Boys. Cooper earned favorable notices for each; the success of Boys prompted BBC Two Films and Fox Searchlight to launch a film adaptation in late 2006, also featuring Cooper. Though Boys scarcely represented Cooper's cinematic debut (he appeared in Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto a couple of years prior, among other films), it did prove a watershed, spurring the young actor on to additional film work. In subsequent years, the thespian played Willoughby in John Alexander's U.K. television miniseries Sense and Sensibility (2008), adapted from the novel by Jane Austen; cut against type as an imprisoned white-collar criminal in the Wyatt Brothers' thriller The Escapist (2008); and essayed a supporting role as Sky, Sophie's (Amanda Seyfried) fiancé, in Phyllida Lloyd's big-screen ABBA musical Mamma Mia! (2008).From there, Cooper's career took off. He played future British Prime Minister Charles Grey and Keira Knightley's lover in the costume-drama The Dutchess (2008), followed by a supporting role in the Oscar-nominated An Education (2009), for which he shared a Screen Actor's Guild nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. Cooper had a busy 2011, first playing Howard Stark (also known as Tony Stark's father) in Captain America: The First Avenger; followed by a commanding performance in the dual roles of Uday Hussein and his look-a-like in The Devil's Double; and finally, a smaller part as famed photographer Milton H. Greene in My Week With Marilyn. He next took a role in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012), playing Lincoln's mentor in vampire hunting.

Trivia: Morgan Freeman has enjoyed an impressive and varied career on stage, television, and screen. It is a career that began in the mid-'60s, when Freeman appeared in an off-Broadway production of The Niggerlovers and with Pearl Bailey in an all-African-American Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968. He went on to have a successful career both on and off-Broadway, showcasing his talents in everything from musicals to contemporary drama to Shakespeare. Before studying acting, the Memphis-born Freeman attended Los Angeles Community College and served a five-year stint with the Air Force from 1955 to 1959. After getting his start on the stage, he worked in television, playing Easy Reader on the PBS children's educational series The Electric Company from 1971 through 1976. During that period, Freeman also made his movie debut in the lighthearted children's movie Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow? (1971). Save for his work on the PBS show, Freeman's television and feature film appearances through the '70s were sporadic, but in 1980, he earned critical acclaim for his work in the prison drama Brubaker. He gained additional recognition for his work on the small screen with a regular role on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives from 1982 to 1984. Following Brubaker, Freeman's subsequent '80s film work was generally undistinguished until he played the dangerously emotional pimp in Street Smart (1987) and earned his first Oscar nomination. With the success of Street Smart, Freeman's film career duly took off and he appeared in a string of excellent films that began with the powerful Clean and Sober (1988) and continued with Driving Miss Daisy (1989), in which Freeman reprised his Obie-winning role of a dignified, patient Southern chauffeur and earned his second Oscar nomination for his efforts. In 1989, he also played a tough and cynical gravedigger who joins a newly formed regiment of black Union soldiers helmed by Matthew Broderick in Glory. The acclaim he won for that role was replicated with his portrayal of a high school principal in that same year's Lean on Me.Freeman constitutes one of the few African-American actors to play roles not specifically written for African-Americans, as evidenced by his work in such films as Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), in which he played Robin's sidekick, and Clint Eastwood's revisionist Western Unforgiven (1992). In 1993, Freeman demonstrated his skills on the other side of the camera, making his directorial debut with Bopha!, the story of a South African cop alienated from his son by apartheid. The following year, the actor received a third Oscar nomination as an aged lifer in the prison drama The Shawshank Redemption. He went on to do steady work throughout the rest of the decade, turning in memorable performances in films like Seven (1995), in which he played a world-weary detective; Amistad (1997), which featured him as a former slave; Kiss the Girls (1997), a thriller in which he played a police detective; and Deep Impact, a 1998 blockbuster that cast Freeman as the President of the United States. Following an appearance opposite Renee Zellweger in director Neil LaBute's Nurse Betty, Freeman would return to the role of detective Alex Cross in the Kiss the Girls sequel Along Came a Spider (2001). Freeman continued to keep a high profile moving into the new millennium with roles in such thrillers as The Sum of All Fears (2002) and Stephen King's Dreamcatcher, and the popular actor would average at least two films per year through 2004. 2003's Jim Carrey vehicle Bruce Almighty cast Freeman as God (a tall role indeed, and one he inherited from both George Burns and Gene Hackman). The story finds the Supreme Being appearing on Earth and giving Carrey temporary control over the universe - to outrageous comic effect. By the time Freeman appeared opposite Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood in Eastwood's acclaimed 2004 boxing drama Million Dollar Baby, his reputation as one of Hollywood's hardest-working, most-respected actors was cemented in place. When Freeman took home the Best Supporting Actor Oscar at the 77th Annual Academy Awards for his performance as the former boxer turned trainer who convinces his old friend to take a scrappy female fighter (Hilary Swank) under his wing, the award was considered overdue given Freeman's impressive body of work.The Oscar reception lifted Freeman to further heights. In summer 2005, Freeman was involved in three of the biggest blockbusters of the year, including War of the Worlds, Batman Begins and March of the Penguins. He joined the cast of the first picture as the foreboding narrator who tells of the destruction wrought by aliens upon the Earth. The Batman Begins role represented the first in a renewed franchise (the second being 2008's The Dark Knight), with the actor playing Lucius Fox, a technology expert who equips Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) with his vast assemblage of gadgetry. Freeman also provided narration for the most unpredictable smash of the year, the nature documentary March of the Penguins.That fall, Miramax's drama An Unfinished Life cast Freeman in a difficult role as Mitch, a bear attack victim reduced to near-paraplegia, living on a derelict western ranch. The picture was shelved for two years; it arrived in cinemas practically stillborn, and many critics turned their noses up at it. After a brutal turn as a sociopathic mob boss in Paul McGuigan's Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Freeman reprised his turn as God in the 2007 Bruce Almighty sequel Evan Almighty; the high-budgeted picture flopped, but Freeman emerged unscathed. Versatile as ever, he then opted for a much different genre and tone with a key role in the same year's detective thriller Gone, Baby, Gone. As written and directed by Ben Affleck (and adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane) the film wove the tale of two detectives searching for a missing four-year-old in Boston's underbelly. He returned to the Batman franchise in The Dark Knight, a film that broke box-office records, in 2008, and he would stick with the franchise for its final installment, The Dark Knight Rises, in 2012. Freeman would remain a top tier actor in years to come, appearing in such films as Red, Invictus (which saw him playing Nelson Mandela), Conan the Barbarian, and The Magic of Belle Isle.

Trivia: Not to be confused with the right-wing U.S. political commentator of the same name, the distinguished-looking Australian character actor Jason Clarke burst onto the scene in the early 2000s with a series of critically praised and somewhat edgy roles. He began down under, opposite Aussie superstar Bryan Brown, in the crime thiller Risk (2000), and was particularly memorable two years later as a slimy constable in the politically tinged period docudrama Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002). Clarke then took on a four-episode guest role the Sci-Fi Channel's Farscape (2003), playing Jenek. After that, he signed for a lead role -- local politician Tommy Caffee -- in the acclaimed Showtime series Brotherhood, opposite Jason Isaacs. Over the coming years, Clarke would remain an active force on screen, appearing in films like Public Enemies, Trust, and Texas Killing Fields.

Trivia: Began acting at 7 years old, but quit at 13 to concentrate on his education. Served in the Swedish military, but returned to acting as a career once he was out of his teens. Lent his support to the Tails for Whales campaign, a global initiative calling for stronger whale protection sponsored by the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The online petition features photos of people making whale tails with their upturned hands. With co-director Björne Larson, won Grand Prix and Press Awards at the 2003 Odense International Film Festival in Denmark for Att döda ett barn (To Kill a Child), a short film narrated by his father, Stellan Skarsgård. Appeared in Lady Gaga's music video for "Paparazzi." Is a fan of the Swedish soccer club Hammarby IF in Stockholm. Nominated for the Swedish Film Institute's Guldbagge ("Golden Beetle") Award for Best Supporting Actor for Hundtricket in 2002.