Trivia: Washington, D.C., native Taraji P. Henson didn't always know that her smoldering charisma and beautiful face would make her a professional actress. On the contrary, she originally studied electrical engineering when she enrolled at North Carolina Agric & Tech. She later transferred to Howard University, where she attended classes while working as a secretary at the Pentagon, and as a singer and dancer aboard a cruise ship. She eventually changed her academic focus to theater and graduated in 1995. Henson's career began with appearances on Homicide: Life on the Street and ER, but it really took off when she was cast in a major supporting role in 2001's Baby Boy and 2004's Hustle & Flow, in which she also showcased her vocal talents, singing on the track "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" for the movie's soundtrack, which took home the Best Song Oscar that year. Henson later moved on to take major roles in Smokin' Aces and Talk to Me. Henson made the most of her work as the mother of the backward-aging man in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and her performance garnered Best Supporting Actress nominations from both the Screen Actors Guild, and the Academy. She became an in-demand character actress after that success and appeared in a series of films including Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys, the remake of The Karate Kid, Date Night, and Larry Crowne. In 2012, she was part of the ensemble in the hit comedy Think Like a Man, and later reprised her role in the sequel, Think Like a Man Too. Henson returned to television on the CBS crime drama Person of Interest, playing an NYPD detective. Her character was dramatically killed off in the third season, with Henson claiming she wanted to focus on her film career. However, she quickly took a role on the FOX musical drama Empire, playing breakout character Cookie Lyon.

Trivia: Alabama native Octavia Spencer was working as part of the crew for the 1996 thriller A Time to Kill when she was handed the chance of a lifetime: Director Joel Schumacher thought she was right for a small role in the film, and Spencer's acting career was born. In addition to honing her craft on the professional stages of Los Angeles, Spencer continued to act on screen, appearing in a multitude of projects, including Never Been Kissed, Blue Streak, Big Momma's House, Dinner for Schmucks, and Peep World. Spencer also became a familiar TV face, with starring and recurring roles on LAX, Ugly Betty, Halfway Home, and Raising the Bar. A major boon for Spencer arrived in 2011 when, after 15 years in the industry, her performance in the critically acclaimed period movie The Help earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Trivia: Performed in musicals growing-up and was a singer at her Baptist church. Joined Kansas City's Coterie Theatre Young Playwrights' Round Table at the age of 12. Left college after one year and moved to Atlanta and released her self-produced demo, The Audition, in 2003. Discovered by Outkast's Big Boi at an open mic night. Has a musical alter-ego that is an android named Cindi Mayweather, who is the protagonist of the 2010 concept album The ArchAndroid. Wears a "uniform" of a black and white tuxedo for every performance, in honour of her working-class roots. A co-founder of the Wondaland Arts Society, which support young artists and musicians. Performed several times for President Obama and was named on his 2016 summer playlist.

Trivia: One of the leading actors of her generation, Kirsten Dunst made her name in teen films without succumbing to entrapment in the teen film ghetto. Skinny, blonde, and possessing a charmingly crooked Pepsodent smile, she has repeatedly demonstrated her talent and charisma in projects ranging from kiddie comedies to high school romances to towering summer blockbusters.Born in Point Pleasant, NJ, on April 30, 1982, Dunst first appeared in front of a camera at the age of three, when she became a Ford model and commercial actor. She continued to model and do commercials until 1989, when she made her film debut in Woody Allen's New York Stories. Her uncredited role led to a part as Tom Hanks' daughter in the infamously troubled 1990 adaptation of Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities.Three years later, Dunst got her first big break when director Neil Jordan chose her over 5,000 hopefuls for the role of Claudia, the child vampire in his 1994 adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire. Dunst made a big impact on audiences and critics alike with her portrayal of a woman trapped eternally in the body of an 11-year-old, kissing co-star Brad Pitt, and gorging herself on human and animal blood. That same year, Dunst also appeared alongside Winona Ryder and Susan Sarandon in Gillian Armstrong's adaptation of Little Women; the combined success of these two movies propelled Dunst to the top of the child-actor hierarchy, in terms of both bankability and exposure.Dunst followed up with a lead role in the Robin Williams action-fantasy Jumanji (1995), and lent her voice to a few animated features, including Disney's Anastasia (1997). She also had a brief but memorable turn as a refugee from a war-torn country in Barry Levinson's highly praised satire Wag the Dog (1997).1999 marked a turning point in Dunst's career, as she began appearing in films that cast her as a young woman instead of a precocious child. She starred as a small-town beauty queen contestant in the satirical comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous and as one of two teenage girls (the other played by Michelle Williams) who unwittingly uncover the Watergate scandal in Dick, another satirical comedy. Dunst further lived up to her title as one of Teen People's 21 Hottest Stars Under 21 with her leading role as the sexually rebellious Lux in Sofia Coppola's acclaimed adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides' novel The Virgin Suicides (1999). Her work in the film proved to be a critical breakthrough for Dunst, whom critics praised for her portrayal of the conflicted, headstrong character.Dunst subsequently did her bit for the high school comedy-romance genre, starring as a cheerleader in Bring It On (2000), and as another teen queen in Get Over It (2001); she also forsake makeup and a hairdresser for her role as the archetypal poor little rich girl in crazy/beautiful (2001), a teen romantic drama.Subsequently cast as the actress Marion Davies in Peter Bogdanovich's The Cat's Meow, Dunst got her first shot at playing a grown woman. She garnered praise for her work in the period drama, but any notice she received was quickly eclipsed by the maelstrom of publicity surrounding her starring role as Mary Jane Watson, true love of Peter Parker in Sam Raimi's big-budget adaptation of Spider-Man. Playing opposite Tobey Maguire as the web-spinning superhero, Dunst spent a lot of the movie running around as a damsel in distress, but there was nothing distressing about the 110-million dollars the film grossed in its opening weekend, breaking new box-office records and catapulting both Dunst and Maguire into the rarefied realm of full-fledged movie stars. She would stick with the franchise as it became a trilogy, and she became a bigger star than ever before.Even though Spider-Man gave her a great deal of box-office clout, Dunst would continue to appear in more independent minded films as the years wore on as well. While appearing in films like Mona Lisa Smile and Elizabethtown, Dunst would also earn accolades for appearances in films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Marie Antoinette, and Melancholia. After spending a couple of years making small appearances in even smaller movies, Dunst resurged in a big way, playing the lead in season 2 of Fargo on FX. Dunst earned raved reviews for her work on the series and spent the next seasons on the awards circuit.

Trivia: First noticed by many viewers as Tim -- the Klingon-spouting "knight in training" involved with the mother of Mark (Peter Sarsgaard) in Zach Braff's gently observed comedy drama Garden State (2004) -- American actor Jim Parsons moved from this memorable debut into a sequence of periodic roles in U.S. features. These included Chris Terrio's urban ensemble drama Heights (2004), opposite Glenn Close and Elizabeth Banks, and Brad Silberling's comedy drama 10 Items or Less (2006), opposite Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega. His breakout success came when he was cast as uber-nerd Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory. His work on that show led to him scoring an Emmy win for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, and helped him earn small parts on the big screen in The Big Year and The Muppets.

Trivia: Attended St. Mary's College on a basketball scholarship. Was an apprentice for the California Shakespeare Festival after university. Made his television debut in 2002 as Trey Sanders on Crossing Jordan. Earned an NAACP Image Award nomination for his role in 2010's The Wronged Man.

Trivia: One of Hollywood's most prominent strong, silent types, Kevin Costner was for several years the celluloid personification of the baseball industry, given his indelible mark with baseball-themed hits like Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, and For Love of the Game. His epic Western Dances with Wolves marked the first break from this trend and established Costner as a formidable directing talent to boot. Although several flops in the late '90s diminished his bankability, for many, Costner remained one of the industry's most enduring and endearing icons.A native of California, Costner was born January 18, 1955, in Lynnwood. While a marketing student at California State University in Fullerton, he became involved with community theater. Upon graduation in 1978, Costner took a marketing job that lasted all of 30 days before deciding to take a crack at acting. After an inauspicious 1974 film debut in the ultra-cheapie Sizzle Beach USA, Costner decided to take a more serious approach to acting. Venturing down the usual theater-workshop, multiple-audition route, the actor impressed casting directors who weren't really certain of how to use him. That may be one reason why Costner's big-studio debut in Night Shift (1982) consisted of little more than background decoration, and the same year's Frances featured the hapless young actor as an off-stage voice.Director Lawrence Kasdan liked Costner enough to cast him in the important role of the suicide victim who motivated the plot of The Big Chill (1983). Unfortunately, his flashback scenes were edited out of the movie, leaving all that was visible of the actor -- who had turned down Matthew Broderick's role in WarGames to take the part -- to be his dress suit, along with a fleeting glimpse of his hairline and hands as the undertaker prepared him for burial during the opening credits. Two years later, a guilt-ridden Kasdan chose Costner for a major part as a hell-raising gunfighter in the "retro" Western Silverado (1985), this time putting him in front of the camera for virtually the entire film. He also gained notice for the Diner-ish buddy road movie Fandango. The actor's big break came two years later as he burst onto the screen in two major films, No Way Out and The Untouchables; his growing popularity was further amplified with a brace of baseball films, released within months of one another. In Bull Durham (1988), the actor was taciturn minor-league ballplayer Crash Davis, and in the following year's Field of Dreams he was Ray Kinsella, a farmer who constructs a baseball diamond in his Iowa cornfield at the repeated urging of a voice that intones "if you build it, he will come."Riding high on the combined box-office success of these films, Costner was able to make his directing debut. With a small budget of 18 million dollars, he went off to the Black Hills of South Dakota to film the first Western epic that Hollywood had seen in years, a revisionist look at American Indian-white relationships titled Dances With Wolves (1990). The supposedly doomed project, in addition to being one of '90s biggest moneymakers, also took home a slew of Academy Awards, including statues for Best Picture and Best Director (usurping Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas).Costner's luck continued with the 1991 costume epic Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; this, too, made money, though it seriously strained Costner's longtime friendship with the film's director, Kevin Reynolds. The same year, Costner had another hit -- and critical success -- on his hands with Oliver Stone's JFK. The next year's The Bodyguard, a film which teamed Costner with Whitney Houston, did so well at the box office that it seemed the actor could do no wrong. However, his next film, A Perfect World (1993), directed by Clint Eastwood and casting the actor against type as a half-psycho, half-benign prison escapee, was a major disappointment, even though Costner himself garnered some acclaim. Bad luck followed Perfect World in the form of another cast-against-type failure, the 1994 Western Wyatt Earp, which proved that Lawrence Kasdan could have his off days.Adding insult to injury, Costner's 1995 epic sci-fi adventure Waterworld received a whopping amount of negative publicity prior to opening due to its ballooning budget and bloated schedule; ultimately, its decent box office total in no way offset its cost. The following year, Costner was able to rebound somewhat with the romantic comedy Tin Cup, which was well-received by the critics and the public alike. Unfortunately, he opted to follow up this success with another large-scaled directorial effort, an epic filmization of author David Brin's The Postman. The 1997 film featured Costner as a Shakespeare-spouting drifter in a post-nuclear holocaust America whose efforts to reunite the country give him messianic qualities. Like Waterworld, The Postman received a critical drubbing and did poorly with audiences. Costner's reputation, now at an all-time low, received some resuscitation with the 1998 romantic drama Message in a Bottle, and later the same year he returned to the genre that loved him best with Sam Raimi's baseball drama For Love of the Game. A thoughtful reflection on the Cuban missile crisis provided the groundwork for the mid-level success Thirteen Days (2000), though Costner's next turn -- as a member of a group of Elvis impersonating casino bandits in 3000 Miles to Graceland -- drew harsh criticism, relegating it to a quick death at the box office. Though Costner's next effort was a more sentimental supernatural drama lamenting lost love, Dragonfly (2002) was dismissed by many as a cheap clone of The Sixth Sense and met an almost equally hasty fate.Costner fared better in 2003, and returned to directing, with Open Range, a Western co-starring himself and the iconic Robert Duvall -- while it was no Dances With Wolves in terms of mainstream popularity, it certainly received more positive feedback than The Postman or Waterworld. In 2004, Costner starred alongside Joan Allen in director Mike Binder's drama The Upside of Anger. That picture cast Allen as an unexpectedly single, upper-middle class woman who unexpectedly strikes up a romance with the boozy ex-baseball star who lives next door (Costner). Even if divided on the picture as a whole, critics unanimously praised the lead performances by Costner and Allen.After the thoroughly dispiriting (and critically drubbed) quasi-sequel to The Graduate, Rumor Has It..., Costner teamed up with Fugitive director Andrew Davis for the moderately successful 2006 Coast Guard thriller The Guardian, co-starring Ashton Kutcher and Hollywood ingenue Melissa Sagemiller.Costner then undertook another change-of-pace with one of his first psychological thrillers: 2007's Mr. Brooks, directed by Bruce A. Evans. Playing a psychotic criminal spurred on to macabre acts by his homicidal alter ego (William Hurt), Costner emerged from the critical- and box-office failure fairly unscathed. He came back swinging the following year with a starring role in the comedy Swing Vote, playing a small town slacker whose single vote is about to determine the outcome of a presidential election. Costner's usual everyman charm carried the movie, but soon he was back to his more somber side, starring in the recession-era drama The Company Men in 2010 alongside Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones. As the 2010's rolled on, Costner's name appeared often in conjunction with the Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained prior to filming, but scheduling conflicts would eventually prevent the actor from participating in the project. He instead signed on for the latest Superman reboot, playing Clark Kent's adoptive dad on Planet Earth in Man of Steel.

Trivia: Played football and lacrosse early in life and saw acting as just a hobby. Appeared in his first major feature film The Great Debaters alongside Denzel Washington while still a senior in high school. Took dieting tips from Jason Statham while on the set of The Expendables 3. Although based in Hollywood, he frequently returns to his family's ranch outside of Dallas, Texas.

Trivia: When he initially surfaced as an on-camera presence during the 1990s and 2000s, supporting actor Aldis Hodge recalled a young Will Smith, with his looks, his relaxed charm, and easygoing manner; like Smith, Hodge made one of his first significant impressions on the small screen, yet he maintained a lower profile. Parts included guest starring appearances on such series programs as ER, CSI, NYPD Blue, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Around 2005, Hodge broke into big-screen features, first with small-scale roles, such as an appearance in the David Mamet-Stuart Gordon thriller Edmond, then in that same year's Snoop Dogg-headlined urban drama The Tenants. Hodge also provided one of the adorable penguins' voices in George Miller's animal picture Happy Feet (2006). One the small screen that year, Hodge could be seen in a recurring role on the critically acclaimed sports drama series Friday Night Lights as Ray "Voodoo" Tatum. He enjoyed a healthy run on the hit cable program Leverage as part of a group of criminals who take revenge against other scammers in order to help out those who have been victimized. Aldis Hodge is not to be confused with Al Hodge (Captain Video and His Video Rangers), a television actor from the '50s and '60s -- nor are they related.

Trivia: Began singing in public at the age of 13 when she joined her church's choir. Was a cheerleader in high school. Made her film debut in The Color Purple (1985), in which she performed a solo rendition of "God Is Tryin' to Tell You Something." Entered college intending to become a doctor, majoring in biology and minoring in chemistry. Shortly after graduation, however, she decided to pursue a career in show business. Lived in Okinawa, Japan, from 1995 to 2001 with her then-husband, who was in the Marines. During their stay, she carved out a successful singing career in the area and appeared in two Japanese TV commercials. Performed at Atlanta's Sambuca Jazz Café every week from 2002 until it closed in December 2010. Volunteers with BookPALS, which promotes literacy to young children through storytelling activities.

Trivia: Character actor Afemo Omilami built a career out of portraying gritty, urban types in Hollywood features, often with an aggressive edge, such as taxi drivers, longshoremen, barkeeps, drill sergeants, and angry spouses. Omilami debuted onscreen in the late '70s and evolved into an increasingly common screen presence as the years passed. The dozens of projects in which he appeared include the Tom Hanks-Shelley Long disaster comedy The Money Pit (1986), the Sydney Pollack-directed legal thriller The Firm (1993), Best Picture winner Forrest Gump (1994) (as a screaming drill sergeant), and the Ray Charles biopic Ray (2004). In 2007, Omilami joined the cast of director Deborah Kampmeier's rape-themed period drama Hounddog.

Trivia: Was born in Africa.Made her TV debut in the 2012 episode "See Dad Overreact" of the sitcom See Dad Run.First major TV role was Gracie Walker in the Nickelodeon sitcom WITS Academy.Appeared in print ads for Universal Studios' Wizardly World of Harry Potter, Disney Cruise Line, American Girl, Wal-Mart, Beaches Turks & Caicos, AT&T and Mad Science, among others.Volunteers packing relief meals for FEMA, and sponsors an orphan in Uganda.