Trivia: Born December 31, 1959, actor Val Kilmer's chameleon-like ability to plunge fully and breathlessly into his characters represents both the gift that catapulted him to fame in the mid eighties, and that which - by its very nature of anonymity - held him back from megastardom for some time. Such an ability - doubtless, the result of exhaustive, heavily-disciplined training and rehearsal - also explains Kilmer's alleged on-set reputation as a perfectionist (which caused a number of major directors to supposedly tag him as 'difficult'), but the results are typically so electric that Kilmer's influx of assignments has never stopped. He is also extraordinarily selective about projects. Trying valiantly to maintain a firm hold on his career, he turned down offers for box office blockbusters including Blue Velvet, Dirty Dancing, and Indecent Proposal for personal and artistic reasons. A Los Angeles native, Kilmer acted in high school with friend Kevin Spacey before attending the Hollywood Professional School and Juilliard. He appeared on the New York stage and in Shakespeare festivals before his cinematic debut as the rock idol Nick Rivers in the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker spy spoof Top Secret! (1984). An absurd role which Kilmer plays with complete sincerity, it reveals genuine musical talent and Kilmer achieves complete credibility as a rock star. Throughout the eighties, Kilmer played as diverse an assortment of roles as could be found: he was the goofy, playfully sarcastic, egghead roommate and mentor to Gabe Jarrett in Martha Coolidge's Real Genius, the cocky Ice Man in Top Gun, and warrior Madmartigan in the Ron Howard/George Lucas fantasy Willow (1988). Kilmer's cinematic breakthrough arrived in 1991, for his portrayal of rock icon Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors; some speculated that Stone hired Kilmer solely on the basis of the musical gifts showcased seven years prior in Top Secret!. As the philosophical, death-obsessed rocker (and druggie) Morrison, Kilmer performed a number of the Doors songs on the soundtrack, sans dubbing. Kilmer played other American icons in his next two films - gunslinger Doc Holliday in Tombstone and the spirit of Elvis in True Romance; both did remarkable business at the box office. Due to his persistent need for an on-set dialogue with his directors, Kilmer clashed with Michael Apted on the set of Thunderheart (1992) and Joel Schumacher on the set of Batman Forever. He openly refused to repeat the Bruce Wayne role for Batman and Robin (1997). Instead, Kilmer headlined Michael Mann's 1995 Heat with two legends, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. This time around, he met with a more accommodating (or at least more tolerant) director, Michael Mann. Working with another acting veteran, he co-starred with Michael Douglas for the hunting adventure The Ghost and the Darkness. Unfortunately, his next few films were disappointments, particularly The Saint and The Island of Dr. Moreau. He switched gears a few times with little success, turning to romantic drama in At First Sight and to science fiction in Red Planet, but neither fit his dramatic intensity. After lending his booming voice to the part of Moses in the Dreamworks animated film The Prince of Egypt (1998), Kilmer appeared in The Salton Sea (1991) as a tormented drug addict. In 2003, he lined up quite a few projects, including the crime thriller Mindhunters and the drama Blind Horizon. In the same year he earned a starring role as another aggressive American icon, John Holmes ("the John Wayne of porn"), for the thriller Wonderland (2003). That same fall, Kilmer re-teamed with Ron Howard for the director's lackluster Searchers retread, The Missing (2003). He also re-collaborated with Oliver Stone (for the first occasion since The Doors) in the director's disappointing historical epic Alexander (2004), opposite Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, and Colin Farrell. He returned to form (and a leading role) in 2005, with the comedy-thriller Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang. Kilmer (per his trademark ability) once again cut way against type, this time as a flagrantly (and aptly named) homosexual detective, Gay Perry, who lives and works in Tinseltown. When it opened in October 2005, the picture drew an avid response from critics and lay viewers alike, and brought in solid box office returns. The actor packed in an astonishingly full schedule throughout 2006, with no less than six onscreen appearances through the end of that year, in large and small-scaled productions - all extremely unique. Kilmer returned to his 1998 Dreamworks part with the lead role of Moses in Robert Iscove's stage musical The Ten Commandments, mounted at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Then, in a most unusual move that recalled Richard Gere's work for Akira Kurosawa and Burt Lancaster's work for Luchino Visconti, Kilmer went cross-cultural, by joining the cast of Polish director Piotr Uklanski's Summer Love (2006), screened at the Venice International Film Festival. It marked the first "Polish spaghetti western" and gracefully spoofed the genre; Kilmer appears as "The Wanted Man." The Disney studios sci-fi-action thriller Deja Vu teamed Kilmer and Denzel Washington (under the aegis of Kilmer's former Top Gun cohorts, Tony Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer) as feds who travel back in time to stop a terrorist's (Jim Caviezel) attempt to blow up a ferry. He also voiced the character of Bogardus in Marc F. Adler and Jason Maurer's family-friendly animated adventure Delgo. In 2008, NBC revived the classic series Knight Rider, and needed a distinct voice to play the super-intelligent car. Kilmer stepped in to play the iconic role, but he also signed on for numerous other simultaneous projects, including Werner Herzog's semi sequel Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (2009), Shane Dax Taylor's troubled, disappointing melodrama Bloodworth (2010), and Francis Ford Coppola's horror opus Twixt, which co-starred Bruce Dern, Elle Fanning and Ben Chaplin. Kilmer met British actress Joanne Whalley on the set of Willow in 1987; they married the following year and teamed up onscreen in John Dahl's Kill Me Again (1989). The couple had two children before the marriage ended in 1996.

Trivia: An eighth-generation Texan, actor Tommy Lee Jones, born September 15th, 1946, attended Harvard University, where he roomed with future U.S. Vice President Al Gore. Though several of his less-knowledgeable fans have tended to dismiss Jones as a roughhewn redneck, the actor was equally at home on the polo fields (he's a champion player) as the oil fields, where he made his living for many years.After graduating cum laude from Harvard in 1969, Jones made his stage debut that same year in A Patriot for Me; in 1970, he appeared in his first film, Love Story (listed way, way down the cast list as one of Ryan O'Neal's fraternity buddies). Interestingly enough, while Jones was at Harvard, he and roommate Gore provided the models for author Erich Segal while he was writing the character of Oliver, the book's (and film's) protagonist. After this supporting role, Jones got his first film lead in the obscure Canadian film Eliza's Horoscope (1975). Following a spell on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live, he gained national attention in 1977 when he was cast in the title role in the TV miniseries The Amazing Howard Hughes, his resemblance to the title character -- both vocally and visually -- positively uncanny. Five years later, Jones won further acclaim and an Emmy for his startling performance as murderer Gary Gilmore in The Executioner's Song. Jones spent the rest of the '80s working in both television and film, doing his most notable work on such TV miniseries as Lonesome Dove (1989), for which he earned another Emmy nomination. It was not until the early '90s that the actor became a substantial figure in Hollywood, a position catalyzed by a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role in Oliver Stone's JFK. In 1993, Jones won both that award and a Golden Globe for his driven, starkly funny portrayal of U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard in The Fugitive. His subsequent work during the decade was prolific and enormously varied. In 1994 alone, he could be seen as an insane prison warden in Natural Born Killers; titular baseball hero Ty Cobb in Cobb; a troubled army captain in Blue Sky; a wily federal attorney in The Client; and a psychotic bomber in Blown Away. Jones was also attached to a number of big-budget action movies, hamming it up as the crazed Two-Face in Batman Forever (1995); donning sunglasses and an attitude to play a special agent in Men in Black (1997); and reprising his Fugitive role for the film's 1998 sequel, U.S. Marshals. The following year, he continued this trend, playing Ashley Judd's parole officer in the psychological thriller Double Jeopardy. The late '90s and millennial turnover found Jones' popularity soaring, and the distinguished actor continued to develop a successful comic screen persona (Space Cowboys [2000] and Men in Black II [2002]), in addition to maintaining his dramatic clout with roles in such thrillers as The Rules of Engagement (2000) and The Hunted (2003).2005 brought a comedic turn for the actor, who starred in the madcap comedy Man of the House as a grizzled police officer in tasked to protect a house full of cheerleaders who witnessed a murder. Jones also took a stab at directing that year, helming and starring in the western crime drama The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. In 2006, Jones appeared in Robert Altman's film adaptation of A Prairie Home Companion, based on Garrison Keillor's long running radio show. The movie's legendary director, much loved source material and all-star cast made the film a safe bet for the actor, who hadn't done much in the way of musical comedy. Jones played the consumate corporate bad guy with his trademark grit.2007 brought two major roles for the actor. He headlined the Iraq war drama In the Valley of Elah for director Paul Haggis. His work as the veteran father of a son who died in the war earned him strong reviews and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. However more people saw Jones' other film from that year, the Coen brothers adaptation of No Country for Old Men. His work as a middle-aged Texas sheriff haunted by the acts of the evil man he hunts earned him a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The actor co-starred with Stanley Tucci and Neal McDonough for 2011's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger, and reprised his role as a secret agent in Men in Black 3 (2011). In 2012 he played a Congressman fighting to help Abraham Lincoln end slavery in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, a role that led to an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Trivia: Arguably the top screen comedian of the 1990s, Canadian-born entertainer Jim Carrey has combined equal parts of his idol Jerry Lewis, his spiritual ancestor Harry Ritz, and the loose-limbed Ray Bolger into a gleefully uninhibited screen image that is uniquely his own.Carrey's life wasn't always a barrel of laughs; he was born on January 17, 1962, into a peripatetic household that regularly ran the gamut from middle-class comfort to abject poverty. Not surprisingly, Carrey became a classic overachiever, excelling in academics while keeping his classmates in stitches with his wild improvisations and elastic facial expressions. His comedy club debut at age 16 was a dismal failure, but Carrey had already resolved not to be beaten down by life's disappointments (as his father, a frustrated musician, had been). By age 22, he was making a good living as a standup comic, and was starring on the short-lived sitcom The Duck Factory -- a series which curiously did little to take advantage of its star's uncanny physical dexterity. Throughout the 1980s, Carrey appeared in supporting roles in such films as Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and Earth Girls are Easy (1990). Full television stardom came Carrey's way in 1990 as the resident "white guy" on Keenan Ivory Wayans' Fox TV comedy In Living Color. The most popular of the comedian's many characterizations on the program was the grotesquely disfigured Fire Marshal Bill, whose dubious safety tips brought down the wrath of real-life fire prevention groups -- and also earned Carrey the ultimate accolade of being imitated by other comics. 1994 proved to be "The Year of Carrey," with the release of three top-grossing comedy films to his credit: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber. By the end of the year, Carrey was commanding seven to ten million dollars per picture. In 1995, the actor/comedian took over for Robin Williams as The Riddler in the blockbuster film Batman Forever, and, in 1996, he tried his hand at a darker and more menacing role as a maniacal cable repairman in The Cable Guy. The film, and Carrey's at-times frightening performance, received decidedly mixed reviews from critics and audiences. Despite the generally negative response to the film, Carrey still retained an interest in branching out into more dramatic roles. Following a return to all-out comedy in Liar, Liar (1997) as a chronically dishonest attorney, Carrey explored new territory with his lead role in the highly acclaimed The Truman Show (1998), Peter Weir's eerie comedy drama about the perils of all-consuming media manipulation. Critical respect in hand, Carrey returned to comedy of a different sort with the lead role in Milos Forman's Man on the Moon (1999), a much-anticipated biopic of the legendary comic Andy Kaufman. Although the film boasted a powerhouse performance from Carrey, it earned less than stellar reviews and did poor business at the box office. Such was the strength of the actor's portrayal, however, that his exclusion from the Best Actor nominations at that year's Academy Awards was a source of protest for a number of industry members. Carrey returned to straight comedy the following year with the Farrelly brothers' Me, Myself & Irene, in which he starred as a cop with a split personality, both of whom are in love with the same woman (Renée Zellweger). Though that film fared the least successful of the Farrellys' efforts to that point, Carrey's anarchic persona was given seemingly free range and the result was his most unhinged role since The Mask. That same year, he assumed the lead role in Ron Howard's Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, raking in the money at the box-office and receiving a Golden Globe nomination despite widespread critical-contempt for the film. Continuing to seek acceptance as a skilled dramatist, Carrey next appeared in the 2001 box-office bomb The Majestic.Undeterred by the failure of The Majestic, Carrey returned again to both comedy and box-office success with 2003's Bruce Almighty. After handily proving that his power as a big-screen star was very much intact, Carrey wasted no time switching gears once again as he embarked on his most ambitious project to date, the 2004 mind-bending romantic-dramedy Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Scripted by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Michel Gondry, the film garnered rave reviews and featured what was arguably Carrey's most subtly complex and subdued performance to date.Carrey's cartooney presence on screen would make him a natural fit for the kids' movie Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events in 2004, as well as other family films over the coming years like A Christmas Carol and Mr. Popper's Penguins. The actor would continue to explore dramatic roles, however, such as the dark thriller The Number 23 and the critically acclaimed I Love You, Phillip Morris.

Trivia: Once relegated to decorative parts for years and long acknowledged as the wife of Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman spent the latter half of the 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium earning much-deserved critical respect. Standing a willowy 5'11" and sporting one of Hollywood's most distinctive heads of frizzy red hair, the Australian actress first entered the American mindset with her role opposite Cruise in Days of Thunder (1990), but it wasn't until she starred as a homicidal weather girl in Gus Van Sant's 1995 To Die For that she achieved recognition as a thespian of considerable range and talent. Though many assume that the heavily-accented Kidman hails from down under, she was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on June 20, 1967, to Australian parents. Her family, who lived on the island because of a research project that employed Kidman's biochemist father, then moved to Washington, D.C. for the next three years. After her father's project reached completion, Nicole and her family returned to Australia.Raised in the upper-middle-class Sydney suburb of Longueville for the remainder of the 1970s and well into the eighties, Kidman grew up infused with a love of the arts, particularly dance and theatre. Kidman took refuge in the theater, and landed her first professional role at the age of 14, when she starred in Bush Christmas (1983), a TV movie about a group of kids who band together with an Aborigine to find their stolen horse. Brian Trenchard-Smith's BMX Bandits (1983) -- an adventure film/teen movie -- followed , with Kidman as the lead character, Judy; it opened to solid reviews. Kidman then worked for the gifted John Duigan (The Winter of Our Dreams, Romero) twice, first as one of the two adolescent leads of the Duigan-directed "Room to Move" episode of the Australian TV series Winners (1985) and, more prestigiously, as the star of Duigan's acclaimed miniseries Vietnam (1987).In 1988, Kidman got another major break when she was tapped to star in Phillip Noyce's Dead Calm (1989). A psychological thriller about a couple (Kidman and Sam Neill) who are terrorized by a young man they rescue from a sinking ship (Billy Zane), the film helped to establish the then-21-year-old Kidman as an actress of considerable mettle. That same year, her starring performance in the made-for-TV Bangkok Hilton further bolstered her reputation. By now a rising star in Australia, Kidman began to earn recognition across the Pacific. In 1989, Tom Cruise picked her for a starring role in her first American feature, Tony Scott's Days of Thunder (1990). The film, a testosterone-saturated drama about a racecar driver (Cruise), cast Kidman as the neurologist who falls in love with him. A sizable hit, it had the added advantage of introducing Kidman to Cruise, whom she married in December of 1990.Following a role as Dustin Hoffman's moll in Robert Benton's Billy Bathgate (1991), and a supporting turn as a snotty boarding school senior in the masterful Flirting (1991), which teamed her with Duigan a third time, Kidman collaborated with Cruise on their second film together, Far and Away (1992). Despite their joint star quality, gorgeous cinematography, and adequate direction by Ron Howard, critics panned the lackluster film.Kidman's subsequent projects, My Life and Malice ( both 1993), were similarly disappointing, despite scattered favorable reviews. Batman Forever (1995), in which she played the hero's love interest, Dr. Chase Meridian, fared somewhat better, but did little in the way of establishing Kidman as a serious actress even as it raked in mile-high returns at the summer box office. Kidman finally broke out of her window-dressing typecasting when Gus Van Sant enlisted her to portray the ruthless protagonist of To Die For (1995). Directed from a Buck Henry script, this uber-dark comedy casts Kidman as Suzanne Stone, a television broadcaster ready and eager to commit one homicide after another to propel herself to the top. Displaying a gift for impeccable comic timing, she earned Golden Globe and National Broadcast Critics Circle Awards for Best Actress. Further critical praise greeted Kidman's performance as Isabel Archer in Jane Campion's 1996 adaptation of Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady. Now regarded as one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood, Kidman starred opposite George Clooney in the big-budget action extravaganza The Peacemaker (1997) and opposite Sandra Bullock in the frothy Practical Magic (1998). In 1999, Kidman starred in one of her most controversial films to date, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Adapted from Arthur Schnitzler's Traumnovelle and cloaked in secrecy from the beginning of its production, the film also stars Cruise as Kidman's physician husband. During the spring and summer of 1999, the media unsurprisingly hyped the couple's onscreen pairing as the two major selling points. However, despite an added measure of intrigue from Kubrick's death only weeks after shooting wrapped, Eyes Wide Shut repeated the performance of prior Kubrick efforts by opening to a radically mixed reaction.As the new millennium arrived, problems began to erupt between Kidman and Tom Cruise; divorce followed soon after, and the tabloids swirled with talk of new relationships for the both of them. She concurrently plunged into a string of daring, eccentric film roles much edgier than what she had done before. The trend began with a role in Jez Butterworth's Birthday Girl (2001) as a Russian mail order bride, and Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge (2001), which cast her, in the lead, as a courtesan in a 19th century Paris hopped up with late 20th century pop songs. The picture dazzled some and alienated others, but once again, journalists flocked to Kidman's side.Following this success (the picture gleaned a Best Picture nod but failed to win), Kidman gained even more positive notice for her turn as an icy mother after the key to a dark mystery in Alejandro Amenabar's spooky throwback, The Others. When the 59th Annual Golden Globe Awards finally arrived, Kidman received nominations for her memorable performances in both films. Though it couldn't have been any further from her flamboyant turn in Moulin Rouge, Kidman's camouflaged role as Virginia Woolf in the following year's The Hours (2002) (she wears little makeup and a prosthetic nose), for which she delivered a mesmerizing and haunting performance, kept the Oscar and Golden Globe nominations steadily flowing in for the acclaimed actress. The fair-haired beauty finally snagged the Best Actress Oscar that had been so elusive the year before. Post-Oscar, Kidman continued to take on challenging work. She played the lead role in Lars von Trier's Dogville, although she declined to continue in Von Trier's planned trilogy of films about that character. She swung for the Oscar fences again in 2003 as the female lead in Cold Mountain, but it was co-star Renee Zellweger who won the statuette that year. Kidman did solid work for Jonathan Glazer in the Jean-Claude Carriere-penned Birth, as a woman revisited by the incarnation of her dead husband in a small child's body, but stumbled with a pair of empty-headed comedies, Frank Oz's The Stepford Wives and Nora Ephron's Bewitched (both 2005), that her skills could not save. She worked with Sean Penn in the political thriller The Interpreter in 2005. For the most part, Kidman continued to stretch herself with increasingly demanding and arty roles throughout 2006. In Steven Shainberg's Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, Kidman plays controversial housewife-cum-photographer Diane Arbus. Meanwhile, Kidman returned to popcorn pictures by playing Mrs. Coulter in Chris Weitz's massive, $150-million fantasy adventure The Golden Compass (2007), adapted from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series of books. She also headlined the sci-fi thriller The Invasion, a loose remake of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Also in 2007, Kidman teamed up with Noah Baumbach for a starring role as a supremely dysfunctional mother in Margot at the Wedding (2007). The actress then set out to recapture her Moulin Rouge musical success with a turn in director Rob Marshall's 8 1/2 remake Nine (2009), teamed up with indie cause-célèbre John Cameron Mitchell and Aaron Eckhart for the psychologically-charged domestic drama Rabbit Hole (2010), and starred opposite Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler in the Dennis Dugan-helmed comedy Go With It (2011). Kidman would spend the next few years continuing her high level of activity, appearing in movies like Trespass and The Paperboy.

Trivia: Winnetka, Illinois native Chris O'Donnell was planning to study for a career in finance when he was spotted by a talent agent, who was so taken by the young man's natural star quality that he advised him not to take acting lessons. After a handful of roles in such films as Men Don't Leave (1989) and Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), O'Donnell made the quantum leap to A-list performer in the 1992 film Scent of a Woman, in which he played the high school-age companion and general factotum to a blind, ornery retired military officer (Al Pacino). "Hunk hearthrob" status came O'Donnell's way with his appearance as D'Artagnan in the 1993 filmization of The Three Musketeers and 1994's Circle of Friends, in which he played an innocent young Irish lad dealing with burgeoning hormones and Catholic values in the 1950s. With 1995's Batman Forever, O'Donnell's star ascended into blockbuster heaven with his high-octane performance as Robin, the Boy Wonder; he reprised the role two years later, this time playing opposite George Clooney in Batman & Robin (1997). Subsequently turning away from action roles, O'Donnell could next be seen as a bumbling, small-town policeman in Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune (1999). That same year, he starred as the title character in The Bachelor, a commitment-phobe who must find a woman to marry in twenty-four hours so he can inherit a large fortune. Over the next decade O'Donnell gravitated increasingly toward television, essaying recurring roles on Grey's Anatomy, The Practice, and NCIS: Los Angeles and appearing in the Emmy-nominated mini-series The Company while occasionally returning to the big screen in such films as Max Payne and Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.

Trivia: Born in Malaya (now Malaysia) to British parents, Michael Gough attended Wye Agricultural College before realigning his career goals by taking classes at the Old Vic. Gough made his first theatrical appearance in 1936 and his first film in 1948. He listed King Lear as his favorite stage role, though one suspects that he was equally fond of the character he portrayed in the 1979 Broadway hit Bedroom Farce, for which he won the Tony Award. Movie historian Bill Warren has noted that Gough, by accident or design, adopted two distinct film-acting styles. In such "straight" roles as Montrose in Rob Roy (1954), Norfolk in Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972), Van der Luyden in The Age of Innocence (1993) and Bertrand Russell in Wittgenstein (1993), he was subtle and restrained; but when starring in such scarefests as Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) and Black Zoo (1962), his eye-bulging hamminess knew no bounds. Most contemporary filmgoers are familiar with Gough through his appearances as Alfred the Butler in the Batman theatrical features. Gough died at age 94 in the spring of 2011.

Trivia: Burly character actor Pat Hingle held down a variety of bread-and-butter jobs--mostly in the construction field--while studying at the University of Texas, the Hagen-Bergdorf studio, the Theatre Wing and the Actors Studio. Earning his Equity card in 1950, Hingle made his Broadway debut in 1953 as Harold Koble in End as a Man (he would repeat this role in the 1957 film adaptation, retitled The Strange One). One year later, he was cast as Gooper-aka "Brother Man"-in Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer-winning play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Also in 1954, he made his inaugural film appearance in On the Waterfront as a bartender. Though a familiar Broadway presence and a prolific TV actor, Hingle remained a relatively unknown film quantity, so much so that he was ballyhooed as one of the "eight new stars" in the 1957 release No Down Payment. As busy as he was before the cameras in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Hingle's first love was the theatre, where he starred in such productions as William Inge's Dark at the Top of the Stairs and Archibald MacLeish's JB, and later appeared in the one-man show Thomas Edison: Reflections of a Genius. His made-for-TV assignments include such historical personages as Colonel Tom Parker in Elvis (1979), Sam Rayburn in LBJ: The Early Years (1988), J. Edgar Hoover in Citizen Cohn (1992) and Earl Warren in Simple Justice (1993). Among his more recent big-screen assignments has been Commissioner Gordon in the Batman films. Amidst his hundreds of TV guest shots, Pat Hingle has played the regular roles of Chief Paulton in Stone (1980) and Henry Cobb in Blue Skies (1988), was briefly a replacement for Doc (Milburn Stone) on the vintage western Gunsmoke, and has shown up sporadically as the globe-trotting father of Tim Daly and Steven Weber on the evergreen sitcom Wings.

Trivia: The granddaughter of John Barrymore and grandniece of Ethel Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore, Drew Barrymore was born in Culver City, California on February 22, 1975. From there, she didn't waste much time getting in front of the cameras, making her first commercial at nine months and her first television movie, Suddenly Love, at the age of two. Two years later, she made her film debut, appearing as William Hurt's daughter in Altered States (1980). At the advanced age of seven, Barrymore became a true celebrity, thanks to her role as the cherubic Gertie in Steven Spielberg's E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. The huge success of that 1982 film endeared Barrymore to millions of audience members, but following leads in two more films, Irreconcilable Differences and Firestarter (both 1984), the young actress began to succumb to a destructive lifestyle defined by drugs, alcohol, and too much partying. A child expected to behave like an adult, Barrymore began drinking at the age of nine and started taking drugs a short while later.Unsurprisingly, observers began writing Barrymore off as just another failed child star when she was barely into her teens. She made a string of (largely forgettable) movies, many of which only reinforced her image as a has-been. However, in the middle of her teen years, Barrymore entered rehab, cleaned herself up, and wrote an autobiography, Little Girl Lost, which detailed her travails with drugs and alcohol. In the early 1990s, she entered another phase in her career, gaining notoriety for playing a series of vampy, trampy trailer-park Lolitas. In this capacity, she turned in memorable performances in Poison Ivy (1992), the 1993 made-for-TV The Amy Fisher Story, and Batman Forever (1995), all of which featured her pouting seductively and showing more thigh than all the Rockettes combined. Barrymore's on-screen antics were ably complemented by the off-screen reputation she was forming at the time: first she could be seen posing nude with then-boyfriend Jamie Walters on the cover of Interview magazine, then modeling for a series of racy Guess ads, flashing David Letterman during an appearance on The Late Show as a "birthday present" to the host, and finally posing nude for Playboy in 1995.In 1996, Barrymore's image underwent an abrupt and effective transformation from slut to sweetheart. With a brief but memorable role in Wes Craven's Scream and a lead in Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You that featured her as a Kelly Girl for the '90s, Barrymore's career received an adrenaline shot to the heart. She began working steadily again, and she reshaped her offscreen persona into that of a delightful and sweet-natured girl trying to mend her ways. This new image was supported by her screen work, much of which featured her as a chaste heroine. Her starring role as the "real" Cinderella in Ever After (1998) was a good example, and it had the added advantage of turning out to be a fairly solid hit. Barrymore's other major 1998 film, The Wedding Singer, was another hit, further enhancing her reputation as America's new sweetheart. The following year, the actress all but put the final nail in the coffin of her wild-child reputation of years past, starring as the nerdy, lovelorn twenty-something reporter who bears the titular condition of Never Been Kissed. That movie not only marked a notable transition in Barrymore's reputation, but an advancement in her cinematic career as well. Expanding her role from actress to producer, Barrymore would continue starring in and producing such efforts as Charlie's Angels (2000), Donnie Darko (2001).Though some may have suspected that her millennial transition from sweetheart to skull-cracker in Charlie's Angels may have signaled a shift towards more action oriented roles -- and despite her return to the role in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003) -- Barrymore once again charmed audiences with another emotional comedy, Riding in Cars With Boys in 2001, while Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) found Drew in the role of long-suffering girlfriend alongside Sam Rockwell's unlikely CIA operative. Though the film did not fare particularly well critically or otherwise, Barrymore took a nonetheless interesting turn as an apple-pie wife turned sinister in 2003's Duplex, and held her own against scene-chomper Ben Stiller. Barrymore teamed up with fellow Stiller-flick alumni Owen Wilson for 2004's Date School, and once again played Adam Sandler's sugar sweet girlfriend in director Peter Segal's romantic comedy Fifty-First Dates.2005 brought yet another openly fluffy romantic comedy with Fever Pitch, in which she played the straight-girl against Red Sox super-fan Jimmy Fallon, but she soon changed gears, signing on to appear in Lucky You, a gambling drama by Curtis Hanson. She was soon back to romcom terretory, with Music and Lyrics and He's Just Not That Into You, but also took on an extremly meaty character role in the 2009 HBO film Grey Gardens, in which she mimiced the particular speech and mannerisms of infamous shut-in "Little Edie" and met with major critical acclaim. Around this same time, Barrymore took on her first directorial effort, helming the modest, young-adult movie Whip It, which critics deemed a solid debut. Barrymore then took on a starring role alongside sometime boyfriend Justin Long in the 2010 comedy Going the Distance, before signing on to play an environmental activist in the feel-good period movie Big Miracle. She then took a career break in order to focus on her growing family before re-teaming with Adam Sandler in 2014 for the romcom Blended.

Trivia: Known for her feline eyes and brash New York attitude, Queens native Debi Mazar began her show business career behind the scenes as a makeup artist for a star-studded clientele, the most lucrative of the bunch being Madonna. Attracted by her unique features, the iconic pop singer cast Mazar in the music videos for "True Blue," "Deeper and Deeper," and "Papa Don't Preach." It wasn't until 1990, however, that Mazar made her film debut as the cokehead girlfriend of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) in Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas. After portraying a series of small but indelible characters in Oliver Stone's The Doors, Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, and Jodie Foster's Little Man Tate (all 1991), Mazar had developed a small but devoted following and a reputation solid enough to land her the tough-talking role of legal defense secretary Denise Iannello on ABC's legal drama Civil Wars (1991-1993), a role she would reprise for NBC's L.A. Law in 1994.After taking on several more tiny supporting parts throughout the early '90s, including one which would reunite her with Jungle Fever director Spike Lee (in the Oscar-winning Malcolm X [1992]), Mazar made her debut as a lead character in Money for Nothing (1993), a blue-collar crime comedy co-starring John Cusack, with whom she would work for a second time in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (1994). After a brief performance as a manicurist in television's Witch Hunt (1994), Mazar could be found in the role of a femme fatale alongside Drew Barrymore, Jim Carrey, and Val Kilmer in Batman Forever (1995), and would portray an idealistic HIV-positive thief in Red Ribbon Blues (1995). Red Ribbon Blues wasn't the last time Mazar would delve into the complex world of sex and gender-related prejudice -- in 1996's Girl 6, Mazar co-starred as an anonymous member of a phone sex business, while Things I Never Told You found her playing a transsexual. Shortly afterward, Mazar chewed a respectable amount of scenery as one of Long Island barfly Tommy's (Steve Buscemi) potential hook-ups in 1996's Trees Lounge. The actress continued to exhibit her versatility in a series of roles during 1997, including those of a sleazy television show producer in Meet Wally Sparks, an intergalactic waitress in Space Truckers, and two decidedly more serious performances in the gay & lesbian drama Nowhere and Nick Cassavetes' romantic drama She's So Lovely.With the notable exceptions of bleaching her trademark jet-black tresses for 1998's Frogs for Snakes with Robbie Coltrane, and her role as Debbie De Luca in Michael Mann's tobacco industry exposé The Insider (1999), Mazar spent much of the late '90s on the small screen. After the failure of CBS's sitcom Temporarily Yours (1997), Mazar played lead roles in David and Lisa (a psychological drama co-produced by Oprah Winfrey) and NBC's Witness to the Mob. Following another NBC sitcom appearance in the short-lived Working (1998), the actress starred in 2000's CBS drama That's Life as an advice-dispensing hairdresser. In 2002, Mazar played right-hand woman to multi-millionaire Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs) in Jackie Chan's The Tuxedo, and went on to offer a poignant monologue in Ten Tiny Love Stories the same year. In 2004, Mazar took on a supporting role in the crime comedy Be Cool with John Travolta and Uma Thurman, and starred in Dennis Brooks' independent film Goodnight, Joseph Parker.She had a major role in 2008's A Beautiful Life, and that same year had a small part in the ensemble of The Women. In 2012 she could be seen in the porn queen biopic Lovelace.

Trivia: While his name might suggest a birthplace somewhere in France -- or at the very least Quebec -- actor Rene Auberjonois was born in New York City. However, his well-to-do parents were of noble European blood, thus French was the language of choice in his household. Despite his first-born-American status, Auberjonois was shunned by many of his schoolmates as a foreigner, and teased for having a "girl's" name. As a defense mechanism, Auberjonois became the class clown, which somehow led naturally to amateur theatricals. The influence of such neighborhood family friends as Burgess Meredith and Lotte Lenya solidified Auberjonois' determination to make performing his life's work. He was cast in a production at Stratford (Ontario)'s Shakespeare company by John Houseman -- another neighbor of his parents' -- and after moving with his family to England, Auberjonois returned to complete his acting training at Carnegie-Mellon University. There he decided to specialize in character parts rather than leads -- a wise decision, in that he's still at it while some of his handsomer and more charismatic Carnegie-Mellon classmates have fallen by the wayside. Three years with the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. led Auberjonois to San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre, of which he was a founding member. Movie and TV work was not as easy to come by, so the actor returned to New York, where he won a Tony for his Broadway role in the musical Coco. An introduction to director Robert Altman led Auberjonois to his first film, M*A*S*H (1970), in which he introduced the character that would later be fleshed out on TV as Father Mulcahy (with William Christopher in the role). He worked in two more Altman films before he and the director began to grow in opposite directions. More stage work and films followed, then TV assignments; Auberjonois' characters ranged from arrogant dress designers to snooty aristocrats to schizophrenic killers on film, while the stage afforded him more richly textured roles in such plays as King Lear and The Good Doctor. In 1981, Auberjonois was cast as Clayton Endicott III, the terminally fussy chief of staff to Governor Gatling on Benson. Like so many other professional twits in so many other films, Auberjonois' job was to make life miserable for the more down-to-earth hero, in this case Robert "Benson" Guillaume. Blessed with one of the most flexible voiceboxes in show business, Auberjonois has spent much of his career providing voice-overs for cartoon characters in animated projects like the Disney's The Little Mermaid, The Legend of Tarzan, Justice League, and Pound Puppies. In 1993, Rene Auberjonois assured himself a permanent place in the hearts of "Trekkies" everywhere when he was cast as Odo (complete with understated but distinctive "alien" makeup) on the weekly syndicated TV show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which he appeared on until 1999.Auberjonois would remain extremely active on screen in the years to come, appearing in movies like The Patriot, and on shows like Boston Legal.

Trivia: Stage actor Joe Grifasi was 33 when he made his inaugural movie appearance during the lengthy opening wedding sequence in 1978's The Deer Hunter as the bandleader. The actor has since been seen in such films as Still of the Night (1982) and Presumed Innocent (1990), appearing in the latter as Tommy Molto. In 1990, Joe Grifasi was cast in the regular role of TV-station public relations man Tony Pro on the brief TV series WIOU. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Grifasi first gained professional experience on the New York stage. In addition to his acting credits, Grifasi frequently appears in television commercials.

Trivia: Made her television acting debut in 1988 as Megan Gordon Harrison on the soap opera One Life to Live. Was nominated for a Daytime Emmy for Best Actress in 1992 for her role on One Life to Live, but lost to costar Erika Slezak. Best known for her roles on Judging Amy (as Gillian Gray) and True Blood (as Nan Flanagan). Is a founding member of the Plymouth Theatre Company in Los Angeles. Cofounded environment-awareness Web site Inspire the Change in 2009.

Trivia: The son of character actor Ed Begley, Sr., he began acting while still a teenager, appearing on the TV series My Three Sons when he was 17. Begley performed as a stand-up comic at colleges and nightclubs and worked briefly as a TV cameraman before landing a string of guest appearances on TV series such as Happy Days and Columbo. He debuted onscreen in Now You See Him, Now You Don't (1972), going on to play small roles in a number of minor films; by the mid '70s he was getting somewhat better roles in better films. Begley became well-known in the '80s, portraying Dr. Erlich on the TV series St. Elsewhere; for his work he received an Emmy nomination. His success on TV led to much better film roles, but he has never broken through as a big-screen star.

Trivia: Raised in Richmond, CA. Decided to pursue acting while in college. Stage debut came in 1977's The Year of the Dragon with the San Francisco-based Asian American Theatre Company. Appeared in the 1981 off-Broadway production of Family Devotions. Played Data's father in the 1985 film The Goonies. His first TV series was the 1994 syndicated drama Valley of the Dolls. Provided the voice for Jimmy Ho on Fox's animated comedy The PJs. Likes to ride, build and restore single-speed bikes.

Trivia: An actor whose solid everyman quality has endeared him to audiences and critics alike, Jon Favreau first made his name with 1996's Swingers. The story of a group of rat pack-obsessed, out-of-work actors slumming amiably through life in L.A., the indie-comedy was one of the year's biggest sleeper hits and made a star out of Favreau, who also wrote the script.A native of Queens, NY, where he was born on October 19, 1966, Favreau was raised as the only child of two educators. After attending the Bronx High School of Science, he did an abbreviated stint at Queens College before heading to Chicago to pursue a comedy career. In Chicago, he studied improvisational comedy with Del Close and was a member of the ImrovOlympic troupe. Favreau's time in Chicago ended when he decided to head to L.A. to try and break into film; his experiences as a lovelorn, out-of-work actor would later provide the inspiration for Swingers.After years of false hopes and false starts that took the form of supporting roles in such disappointing films as Rudy and P.C.U., Favreau began channeling his experiences and those of his friends (who included fellow Swingers star Vince Vaughn) into a rudimentary script for Swingers. Encouraged to make his script into a film, the actor despaired of securing enough funding for the project until he met fledgling director Doug Liman, who convinced him that the film could be made for 250,000 dollars. Costs were cut by filming largely without permits and making use of inexpensive shooting locations such as Favreau's own apartment. The film's low-budget charm was sufficient enough to sway the powers-that-be at Miramax who picked it up for distribution. When Swingers was eventually released in 1996, it was hailed by critics as a funny and painfully accurate account of the L.A. scene and its various faux-hipster denizens, as well as the dynamics at work amongst a group of guys (Favreau, Vaughn, and company) and the women they try so desperately to impress. In the wake of the film's success, Favreau, who was being hailed as the latest in the long line of Hollywood "Next Big Things," chose to star in Very Bad Things (1998), a black comedy directed by actor-turned-director Peter Berg. The film, in which Favreau played a soon-to-be married man whose Las Vegas bachelor party goes disastrously wrong, received very mixed reviews, although most critics praised the actor's performance as a "suburban Joe" caught up in circumstances that rapidly spiral beyond his control. After playing the eponymous boxing legend in the made-for-TV Rocky Marciano in 1999, Favreau returned to the screen in 2000 to star as a football player in The Replacements, a sports comedy directed by Howard Deutch. That same year, he returned to the indie scene with Love & Sex, a take on urban romance. In 2001, Favreau re-teamed with Vaughn for Made, a crime comedy that cast the two actors as aspiring mobsters and marked Favreau's feature directorial debut. Also in 2001, Favreau made the jump to the small screen, producing and hosting IFC's Dinner for Five, a candid roundtable program featuring fellow actors and filmmakers. In 2003, not only did Favreau show up in supporting roles in the hits Daredevil and Something's Gotta Give, his sophomore directorial effort, the Will Ferrell holiday comedy Elf proved to be one of the season's biggest crowd-pleasers, grossing over 100 million dollars at the box office. He followed up that success by bringing Chris Van Allsburg's Zathura to the big screen, although it did not match Elf's box office success. After making a few cameos on TV shows like My Name Is Earl and Monk, Favreau re-teamed with Vince Vaughn once again for a supporting role in the 2006 comedy The Break-Up. He also lent his vocal talents to the animated film Open Season. That same year he announced he would be taking on directorial duties for the big screen adaptation of the comic book Iron Man. Though it wouldn't be released until 2008, Iron Man was a huge success, and helped further Favreau's already solid reputation as a director. Favreau went on to direct Iron Man 2 (2010), which enjoyed similar success.Favreau returned to the screen to play a role in the 2009 comedy Couples Retreat (which he also wrote), which follows a group of married adults who realize their inclusion in a tropical vacation depends on taking part in intense, mandatory therapy sessions. The same year, Favreau appeared in the buddy comedy I Love You, Man, and lent his voice to the cast of the animated children's adventure G-Force. In 2011, Favreau directed and produced the popular sci-fi Western Cowboys & Aliens, and worked as an Executive Producer for 2012's blockbuster hit Marvel's The Avengers.

Trivia: Though she graduated from the Cincinnati School of the Performing Arts, actress Rebecca Budig first went on to study zoology before switching back to her former passion, and trying her hand at a professional acting career. Her first big break came in 1995 when she landed the role of Michelle Bauer on Guiding Light, which she stuck with until 1998. The next year, she took up with another soap, playing rich girl Greenlee Smyth on All My Children. Budig would stay with the series for 10 years, occasionally taking on other gigs, like interviewing guests for the WWE's Sunday Night HEAT.

Trivia: American athlete Don "the Dragon" Wilson was the WKO world kickboxing champion for three consecutive years. He was also world light heavyweight kickboxing champ for 12 years straight, and holds ten other titles in three different weight divisions. In films since 1987, he has generally been seen in supporting roles in such major productions as Born on the Fourth of July (1990) and Batman Forever (1996). In addition, Don Wilson has starred in such violent action fare as Terminal Rush (1995), Virtual Combat (1996), and the long-running Blood Fist series, sometimes producing and writing as well.

Trivia: Of Chinese-American nationality. Trained in the martial art of Kung Fu. Has portrayed Chinese ambassadors in The West Wing and Lost. Has voiced characters for tv shows and video games. Best known for Rush Hour (1998), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and Starsky & Hutch (2004).

Trivia: U.S. senator Patrick Leahy made an auspicious acting debut when he made a cameo appearance in 1997's Batman & Robin. He reprised his role more than ten years later in another Batman iteration, The Dark Knight.