Trivia: Attended kindergarten with Peter Morgan, the British film writer and playwright. Had his first television role at 22. Featured in art duo Gilbert and George's photographic work The World. Enjoys driving camper-vans. Is close friends with Harry Enfield. Was awarded an honorary doctorate from Bournemouth University in 2007. Elected president of the British Horse Society in June 2011. Became patron of Animal Care in Egypt in 2011. Appointed an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II in her 2015 Birthday Honours. Owns a farm where cart horses are bred. Supports Weldmar Hospicecare Trust in Dorset and The Dog Resue Federation. Has been involved with the Comic Relief charity which funds Survival International and African Initiatives.

Trivia: Made her stage debut in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, at the age of 17. Won the 1992 Best TV Actress British Comedy Award for her role in Waiting for God. Reprised her debut role in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit in 2004, at the age of 63. Made an OBE in 2005, for services to Drama, Elderly People and to Mental Health Charities. Won the 2012 Best Comedy Performance British Soap Award for her role in Coronation Street. Is an ambassador for medical charity Overseas Plastic Surgery Appeal.

Trivia: British actress Lucy Punch began learning her craft with the National Youth Theatre in 1993, when she was 16. She would spend the next four years with the troupe, before briefly attending the University College London. Punch would cut her stint at the school short to pursue a professional career, and soon was cast in the 1998 British TV movie The New Adventures of Robin Hood. Steady work would follow over the coming years, with roles in films like Greenfingers, Ella Enchanted, and Hot Fuzz, as well as a regular part on the British TV series Doc Martin. After establishing herself as a familiar face in England, Punch would soon transition into American movies, as well, appearing in more and more stateside projects, like 2010's Dinner for Schmucks, and 2011's Bad Teacher.

Trivia: Made his professional debut in 1997 comedy movie Fierce Creatures. Between 2002 and 2004, appeared as PC Alan Allen in BBC sitcom Wild West. Between 2004 and 2019, starred as PC Mark Mylow in ITV Drama Doc Martin. In 2008, co-wrote and starred in BBC Radio 4 production Strangers on Trains, playing 28 characters. In 2018, wrote and starred in Award-winning short dramedy Knights of the Realm.

Trivia: After joining Equity, the trade union for actors in the United Kingdom, she found that somone had the same name as her and so changed to Caroline Catz. Decided on the name Catz after seeing a doodle of a cat. Is allergic to cats. Used to sing in a band called Monoland and a folk band called Sapphire. Appeared in Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' music video for More News From Nowhere.

Trivia: A member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, British actor Ian McNeice has found additional success playing supporting roles in feature films and on television. He made his first film appearances in 1983, and has subsequently specialized in comedies, ranging from the gentle The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain (1995) to the riotous Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995) to the surreal A Life Less Ordinary (1997). McNeice's television credits include performances in several PBS productions, including Edge of Darkness and Nicholas Nickelby.

Trivia: Met IT Crowd co-star Chris O'Dowd while they were attending the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Left the LAMDA to star in the play The Age Of Consent at the Bush Theatre in London in 2002. Won the British Comedy Best TV Actress Award in 2009 for her role in The IT Crowd. Received a second British Comedy Best TV Actress Award and a BAFTA TV Award in 2014 for her role in The IT Crowd. Was nominated for an Olivier Award in the Best Actress category for her role in Home, I'm Darling in 2019. In 2019, her debut work as a playwright Sitting had its London premiere, following a month-long run at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Trivia: English character actor John Woodvine could be seen in roles both sizeable and fleeting in several British films of the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Woodvine was in the casts of Darling (1965), The Devils (1971), Young Winston (1971), Tales of Beatrix Potter (1975), and An American Werewolf in London (1981) (fourth billed in the role of Dr. Hirsch). American Masterpiece Theatre devotees saw plenty of John Woodvine at the beginning of the 1989-1990 season. The actor was one of the four stars (Joan Plowright, Tom Watt, and Phyllis Logan were the other three) of the miniseries And a Nightingale Sang.

Trivia: While taking drama lessons at Badminton, Guildhall School, and the Central School of Speech and Drama, Claire Bloom began appearing on BBC radio, and made her stage debut at 15 with the Oxford Repertory. She made her London bow in 1947, and the following year was effusively praised for her performance as Ophelia in a Stratford-upon-Avon production of Hamlet. Also in 1948, she appeared in her first film, The Blind Goddess (1948). While gainfully employed at the Old Vic in 1952, Bloom was selected by Charlie Chaplin to portray the suicidal ballerina Terry in Chaplin's Limelight. Though the film was inadequately distributed due to Chaplin's "questionable" political beliefs, Limelight made Bloom an overnight star -- after only nine years in the business. Her next major film assignment was Lady Anne in Olivier's Richard III (1955), which led to a steady stream of costume roles in films like Alexander the Great (1956), The Brothers Karamazov (1959), The Buccaneer (1959), and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962). Of her "contemporary" film roles, several are standouts: the sexually unstable housewife in The Chapman Report, the lesbian psychic in The Haunting (1963), the compassionate psychiatrist in Charly (1968), and Martin Landau's Jewish-suburbanite wife in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Her TV work has included Edith Galt Wilson in Backstairs at the White House (1979) and Lady Marchman in Brideshead Revisited (1982). Whenever her schedule has allowed, Bloom has returned to her first love, the theater; her favorite stage role is Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Married three times, Bloom's first husband was actor Rod Steiger, with whom she co-starred in 3 Into 2 Won't Go (1969) and The Illustrated Man (1969); her second was producer Hillard Elkins, who packaged Bloom's 1973 film version of The Doll's House; and her third was novelist Philip Roth. In 1982, Claire Bloom published her autobiography, Limelight and After: The Education of an Actress.Bloom would remain active on screen in the decades to come, appearing most notably in movies like Crimes and Misdemeanors, The Age of Innocence, Mighty Aphrodite, and the King's Speech.

Trivia: Actress Andrea Riseborough caused a veritable sensation in her native Britain during the 2000s, with a succession of remarkable portrayals (character and lead roles) that resisted typecasting through their stunning diversity. A native of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Riseborough left school at age 17 and resisted the idea of attending university at first, but ultimately enrolled at London's legendary Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), where she began to specialize in playing virginal innocents. The homogeneity of those assignments was reportedly frustrating for the blossoming thespian, though she had the epiphany that "all virgins are different," and began to excel by locating the psychological and dramatic uniqueness (the core) of each new character. The ability to do so helped the upstart secure a highly regarded agent by her third year at RADA. Following graduation, the then-ingenue spent time waitressing, directed a succession of short films, launched a greeting-card firm, and took Cantonese language lessons, but soon found herself magnetically drawn back to acting. In that sphere, two remarkable tendencies emerged: a chameleon-like ability to adapt her personality and behavior to suit the material at hand, and a proclivity for exhaustively researching parts prior to beginning work. Her research, for example, carried her to Croatia for a lengthy period (as preparation for The Pain and the Itch) and prompted her to read everything she could get her hands on about onetime prime minister Margaret Thatcher (as preparation for her portrayal of a young Thatcher in the English telemovie Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk to Finchley [2008]). Also in 2008, she teamed up with succès d'estime Mike Leigh for a small supporting role, as Dawn, in that director's seriocomedy Happy-Go-Lucky.Significantly, Riseborough remained equally active in other venues, particularly theater, with acclaimed performances in productions of Miss Julie, Dog Days, A Brief History of Helen of Troy, and other plays. She could also be seen on television, where she turned viewers' heads as the sexually voracious Kirsty on the series Party Animals.

Trivia: Appeared in Sun-Pat peanut butter adverts as a child. Made his acting debut in Antonia and Jane in 1991. Won the Best Actor Award at the British Soap Awards for his role as Matthew Rose on Eastenders in 2000. Appeared in the celebrity version of Total Wipeout in 2010 and won £10,000 for charity. Is a patron for the Hill Park Autistic Trust.

Trivia: One of England's most renowned stage actresses, Eileen Atkins has been a staple of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and London's West End since the 1960s. She has also popped up occasionally on film and television, and she has made numerous contributions to both mediums as a scriptwriter, most notably for the acclaimed series Upstairs Downstairs and House of Eliott and the well-received screen adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway.A product of London's East End, where she was born in the Clapton Salvation Army Home on June 16, 1934, Atkins grew up in a council home as the third child of a homemaker and a gas meter reader. She began performing as a tap dancer in working men's clubs at the age of seven, and she had done professional pantomime by the time she was 13. Under the encouragement of a school instructor -- who gave Atkins voice lessons to remove her Cockney accent and introduced her to Shakespeare -- she went on to attend the Guildhall School of Drama, where she did a teaching course and took drama classes.Atkins struggled to begin her professional career, finding it difficult to get stage roles of any substance, to say nothing of stage roles, period. She got her first break when she moved to Stratford with her then-husband, Julian Glover, who had found work with the RSC. Atkins got her start in Stratford as an usherette, and she gradually moved her way up until she was allowed into the company. She first performed on the Stratford stage as Audrey in As You Like It, chosen to fill in for the understudy of Dame Peggy Ashcroft after both had taken ill. Atkins spent several years with the RSC, performing in both classical and contemporary plays alongside the likes of Lawrence Olivier and Alec Guinness. On the London stage, she portrayed numerous characters, earning a Best Supporting Actress Olivier Award for her performance in Peter Hall's production of The Winter's Tale. Her one-woman show, A Room of One's Own, was an international success, earning Atkins a Drama Desk Award for Best Solo Performance and a special Citation from the New York Drama Critics Circle for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf.Although the international stage has been the centerpoint of Atkins' career, she has made many contributions to film and television. Aside from her work on the aforementioned Upstairs, Downstairs, The House of Elliot, and Mrs. Dalloway (the last of which earned her the Evening Standard British Film Best Screenplay award), she has appeared in such films as Let Him Have It (1991), Jack and Sarah (1995), and John Schlesinger's Cold Comfort Farm (1995). Among the endless honors Atkins holds is a Commander of the British Empire. Atkin would appear in several notable projects over the coming years, including Gosford Park, The Hours, Cold Mountain, and TV series like Doc Martin and Psychoville.