Trivia: With his doe eyes and April-fresh skin, Freddie Prinze Jr. seemed a natural leader of the late-'90s Hollywood teen invasion. Noted as much for his looks as for his acting, Prinze has proven to have a natural appeal that has endured him to legions of fans.The beginning of Prinze's life was a turbulent one, as his father, the actor Freddie Prinze (best known for his starring role on NBC's Chico and the Man) committed suicide when the younger Prinze was only ten months old. Born in Los Angeles on March 8, 1976, Prinze moved with his mother to Albuquerque, NM, shortly after his father's death. Growing up in New Mexico, Prinze was a poor student who decided to follow in his father's celluloid footsteps. After his high-school graduation in 1994, Prinze took off for Los Angeles with little money and few prospects. However, he soon found work in Hollywood, first appearing in various television shows, including an episode of Family Matters and a few afterschool specials.The actor first broke into film as Claire Danes' boyfriend in To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1996). The part was a small one, but helped Prinze to secure his next and more sizeable role in The House of Yes (1997), a wicked little black comedy that starred Parker Posey as Prinze's deliciously unstable sister. The film's release was mainly limited to art houses, unlike Prinze's next film, I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). The film was a huge commercial, if not critical, success that propelled Prinze into, if not the limelight, then the hearts of many girls and more than a few boys everywhere. Following this triumph, Prinze went on to do a couple of forgettable films before the 1998 sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. The combined impact of that film and the success of Prinze's next major project, She's All That, gave the actor even greater fame and caused least one writer to dub him the next Leonardo Di Caprio. Unfortunately, Prinze's following endeavor, Wing Commander (1999), proved to be an unmitigated disappointment, serving to illustrate the extreme fluctuations of success in Hollywood. Prinze's growing popularity, however, seemed to survive relatively unscathed, judging by the slew of websites erected in his name.If there was any question that the actor's popularity was waning in the wake of Wing Commander's lackluster performance, that doubt would soon be confirmed with hard numbers, as a triple threat of romantic comedies unceremoniously removed the teen-crowd superstar crown from Prinze's head. The cookie-cutter offerings Down to You and Boys and Girls (the latter of which reteamed him with She's All That director Robert Iscove) attempted to posit Prinze as a collegiate heartthrob, but both films' mix of moony romance with gross-out gags did little to attract moviegoers of any age. Anticipation for his next starring role, alongside Jessica Biel and Matthew Lillard in 2001's Summer Catch, was understandably low; the film was even saddled with a late-August release, traditionally reserved by studios as a "dumping ground" for unpromising product. As it turned out, Summer Catch's mixed reviews proved more forgiving than its paltry $19 million take.Prinze's next project brought him out of the romantic comedy trend and into the doghouse, or at least the Mystery Machine. Re-teaming with his usual foil Lillard and starring -- yet again -- opposite his longtime love interest Sarah Michelle Gellar, Prinze took on the role of Fred in the live-action adaptation of Scooby-Doo in 2002. Though almost universally panned by critics, the film reversed Prinze's dwindling status as a box-office draw by appealing to a demographic he'd yet to conquer: preteens. Not one to look a gift franchise in the mouth, Prinze signed on for another installment, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, and took nearly two years off between the blockbusters as he tied the knot with Gellar.

Trivia: The 5' 3," sandy blonde-haired Gen-Y icon Sarah Michelle Gellar's life story reads like a preteen wish fulfillment fantasy. Born in Manhattan in 1977 and discovered by an agent in a Manhattan restaurant at the age of four, Gellar signed for her first role (in the 1983 telemovie An Invasion of Privacy) not one week later. A plethora of bit parts in television series (Spenser: For Hire) and theatrical films (Over the Brooklyn Bridge, 1984; Funny Farm, 1988; High Stakes, 1989) followed, before Gellar landed a recurring role, in the early '90s, on the decades-long daytime soap opera All My Children. Throughout the early years of her career, Gellar was managed and supervised by her mother, a former nursery school teacher who insisted on straight A's as a prerequisite of an acting career. Sarah Michelle delivered, time and again.Despite the apparent fairy tale-like quality of her rise, Gellar reportedly battled several decidedly unhappy experiences as a child, including a parental divorce, decades of estrangement from her father, and social struggles in a New York City high school, experiences parlayed into her first (and most infamous) lead: that of Buffy, a California valley girl high school student-turned-"exterminator of the undead" in the early-'90s syndicated cult fantasy series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Gellar inherited the role from Kristy Swanson, who fleshed it out in the (decidedly more comic) 1992 theatrical release of the same name. Under Gellar's aegis, the show lasted seven years, from 1996 through 2003, and it became a massive international hit, garnering legions of fans. The subject matter of the series required the young actress to engage in rigorous exercise and physical training off-camera throughout Buffy's run.Gellar (a compulsive shopper and brand aficionado off-camera) then signed as a Maybelline spokeswoman and prepared to move into the third phase of her acting career. As Buffy wrapped, it coincided with the resurgence of American teen horror films led by Wes Craven's Scream series, and although Gellar did not join the cast of the first installment, her popularity on Buffy the Vampire Slayer thematically paved the way for involvement in one Scream sequel and one emulator: Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer (both 1997). In 1999, Gellar teamed up with two other notables of the same generation, Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe, for the Dangerous Liaisons teen update Cruel Intentions. As Kathryn Merteuil -- the depraved schemer who coaxes her stepbrother (Phillippe) into deflowering the school headmaster's daughter (Witherspoon), and thus inadvertently sets in motion a chain of disasters that will destroy them all -- Gellar played off of her wholesome, "all-American girl" image and helped turn the picture into a minor hit. Meanwhile, Gellar met and fell in love with Hollywood heartthrob Freddie Prinze Jr. (the son of the ill-fated, late-'70s Hispanic comedian Freddie Prinze), and the two married in Mexico in 2002, the same year they co-starred as Fred and Daphne for director Raja Gosnell in the live-action summer blockbuster Scooby-Doo. Two years later, Gellar and Prinze took the wheel of the Mystery Machine to fight a mischievous specter in 2004's Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Gellar (long a student and admirer of Japanese culture) then traveled to Japan to do battle with some truly frightening entities in the 2004 J-horror remake The Grudge. In that effort, she plays an American student employed at a Japanese health center who uncovers a centuries-old curse that feeds off of anger and guides one victim after another into an unquenchable, violent rage.Subsequent vocal work on the animated cult hit Robot Chicken found the former vampire slayer having a bit of behind-the-scenes fun without the stress of appearing before the camera, and a role as an ambitious porn star teetering on the edge of the apocalypse in director Richard Kelly's eagerly anticipated Donnie Darko follow-up, Southland Tales, preceded a trip back into terror as a successful business woman haunted by a decades-old murder in the 2006 supernatural thriller The Return. In that picture, Gellar plays Joanna Mills, a thick-skinned, courageous Midwestern girl plagued by haunting supernatural visions, who attempts to uncover the origin of these specters. Unfortunately, that film opened to horrendous critical reviews and lackluster box office numbers in November 2006, appearing and disappearing quickly.Gellar would do plenty of voice acting in movies like the family-friendly CG-animated fairy tale Happily N'Ever After and the Weinstein-produced, CG-animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Gellar would ultimately find continued success in TV, however, lending her voice to the animated sketch comedy series Robot Chicken, and her role on the series Ringer.

Trivia: Making a career out of playing either sociopaths or the hyperkinetically weird, Matthew Lillard has established himself as one of the more promising, to say nothing of idiosyncratic, actors of his generation. Originally hailing from Lansing, MI, where he was born on January 24, 1970, Lillard was raised in California. His first break came in the form of Ghoulies 3: Ghoulies Go to College (1993), in which he was credited as Matthew Lynn. More auspicious work followed in John Waters' lovably warped Serial Mom (1994), which cast Lillard as the gore-obsessed son of the decidedly unhinged Kathleen Turner. The role was one of the first in which Lillard played the type of superficially normal yet profoundly wacked-out character that was to become his trademark. It was followed by a minor role in the Drew Barrymore/Chris O'Donnell doomed love vehicle Mad Love (directed by Antonia Bird in 1995) and a cyberpunk turn in Hackers (also 1995). Next up was the film that would make him famous, Wes Craven's Scream (1996). The film, in addition to simultaneously parodying and reviving the teen horror genre, helped to enhance the careers of more than a few of its actors, including David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Neve Campbell, and Skeet Ulrich.Lillard's next project of any acclaim (following such disappointments as Dish Dogs, The Curve, and Senseless, all made in 1998) was Robert Towne's Without Limits (1998), the critically lauded, if little-seen, story of the life of runner Steve Prefontaine (played by Billy Crudup, with Donald Sutherland as his coach). Lillard's subsequent film, SLC Punk! (1999), met with similarly good reviews, with praise being singled out for both Lillard's performance and that of his co-star, Michael Goorjian. The film told the story of two punks growing up in staid Salt Lake City during the Reagan years, and contained the type of small-budget charm lacking in Lillard's next two projects, Wing Commander and She's All That. Both films featured Lillard co-starring with Freddie Prinze Jr., as well as a score of bad reviews. However, while the former also succumbed to dismal box-office performance, the latter met with widespread success, virtually guaranteeing future work for Lillard and his young co-stars. Following the release of such efforts as Summer Catch and 13 Ghosts (both 2001), Lillard would take on the role of the fragile-nerved Shaggy in the live-action adaptation of the enduring cartoon Scooby-Doo in 2002. He appeared in The Baker and The Escapsit in 2008, and in 2011 he was cast in the well-reviewed made-for-cable series Homeland. That same year he appeared in the period pot comedy Your Highness.

Trivia: Though sharp-eyed Game Show Channel fanatics may recall her from her fireplace-winning stint on The Price Is Right or her appearance on Family Feud, pretty actress Linda Cardellini may be most affectionately known among her fans for her memorable early role as conflicted high school student Lindsay Weir on the short-lived television series Freaks and Geeks. Born in June of 1975 in Redwood, CA, Cardellini became fascinated with acting when asked to sing in a school play at the age of ten. Soon dedicating all of her spare time to stage productions and acting classes during her tenure at Saint Francis High School in Mountain View, CA, the young actress received her first television role when she was cast as a student at the ominously named Edgar Allen Poe High School in the creepy kids show Bone Chillers (1996). Feature roles followed shortly thereafter, with Cardellini appearing in such films as Good Burger the following year, and alongside future Freaks and Geeks cast mate (and future love interest) Jason Segel in Dead Man on Campus (1998). Later turning up as a teen tormented by a sadistic Dee Snyder in Strangeland, Cardellini appeared in small roles in a few other small-screen productions before finding herself in the studious but free-thinking shoes of her Freaks and Geeks alter-ego. Examining the flip side of the Beverly Hills 90210 beautiful and privileged teen set, the smart show had a solid cast, insightful writing, and a dedicated following. Unfortunately, it was canceled after less than 20 episodes. Following with supporting roles in The Prince and the Surfer (1999), Legally Blonde, and The Unsaid (both 2001), Cardellini's rising popularity contributed to her largest feature, that of the brainy super sleuth Velma in the live-action adaptation of the beloved animated mainstay Scooby-Doo. She joined the cast of the long-running NBC medical drama E/R in2003, and had one of her most-high-profile successes in 2005 when she appeared in the Oscar-winning Brokeback Mountain. She lent her voice to the short-lived animated series The Goode Family in 2009, and the next year she acted in James Gunn's Super. In 2011 she appeared in Kill the Irishman, and was part of the voice cast of All-Star Superman.

Trivia: Best known to American audiences as the Black Adder and Mr. Bean, black-haired, bug-eyed, and weak-chinned comedian Rowan Atkinson is one of the most popular funnymen in England whose keen, often black humor and knack for physical comedy has earned him a huge international following. Born in Newcastle, Atkinson was educated at Newcastle University and Oxford. While at the latter, he teamed up with budding screenwriter Richard Curtis to write comedy reviews for the Oxford Playhouse. Shortly thereafter, the two created material for the Edinburgh Fringe. By 1978, Atkinson's humor had earned him a devoted fan base and he was offered leading roles in two British television comedies. Instead, Atkinson chose to get involved in the internationally acclaimed comedy series Not the Nine O'Clock News as a writer and a performer. His performances in the oft-distinguished show earned Atkinson a British Academy Award and got him designated "BBC Personality of the Year" in 1980. His stage performances also continued to significantly increase his popularity. In 1983, he and Curtis created the Black Adder, a cowardly and conniving Tudor Prince named Edmund who tries vainly to become King of England after inadvertently killing his father during a battle. Billed as a "situation tragedy" on the BBC, it ran three seasons and later spawned a couple of specials. Atkinson made his feature-film debut in the 1983 James Bond thriller Never Say Never Again. In the late '80s, he starred in a few films penned by Curtis. It was while they were filming The Tall Guy that Atkinson and Curtis created Mr. Bean, an average British Joe with a clumsy nature and a nasty streak and launched a series. Different from other shows in that it was largely silent, Atkinson's Bean demonstrated a rare gift for slapstick that has led to his being compared to Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. During its six year run, Mr. Bean became the most popular show in the U.K. and has since been shown in 89 countries where it has gained a cult following comparable to Monty Python and Fawlty Towers. Atkinson himself attributes his character's popularity to the fact that the socially awkward, middle-aged Bean's mundane adventures, largely due to his clumsy inability to cope with even the smallest of life's foibles, mirror the feelings and experiences of people the world over. In 1997, Atkinson brought the character to the big screen in Bean. Other notable Atkinson film performances include his voice characterization of Zazu in The Lion King and that of the hilariously inarticulate priest in Four Weddings and a Funeral.Atkinson oversaw an animated television series based on his beloved Mr. Bean character, and then took a cameo part in his longtime collaborator Richard Curtis' directorial debut Love Actually. In 2003 he starred in another international comedy hit, the spy spoof Johnny English, a movie so successful it spawned a sequel in 2011. In addition, Atkinson returned to the well yet again in 2007 with the feature length Mr. Bean's Holiday, which co-starred Willem Dafoe.

Trivia: In the immediate aftermath of David Dobkin's Wedding Crashers (2005), many American filmgoers began to associate Isla Fisher largely (if not exclusively) with her vivacious turn in that blockbuster summer comedy as the feisty and slightly off-kilter Gloria, the sex-crazed daughter of treasury secretary William Cleary (Christopher Walken) and his wife (Jane Seymour). It was a testament not only to the memorable quality of the role but to Fisher's outstanding comic turn in it, as the seductress of gorilla Vince Vaughn. But this short, spunky actress had much more up her sleeve than simply the Gloria Cleary bit.Born in Oman but raised in Australia, Fisher published two teen romance novels in high school, then traveled to France and enrolled in a Parisian drama school, where she learned miming and juggling. Though Fisher's onscreen presence technically dates back to the late '80s, with a plum role in the small-screen Aussie soaper Home and Away, she took her Hollywood bow over a decade later, as Shaggy's girlfriend, Mary Jane, in the Raja Gosnell-directed Scooby-Doo (2002). Sandwiched in between forgettable features such as Dallas 362 (2003) and London (2005) came Fisher's portrayal of Heather in the David O. Russell "existential comedy" I Heart Huckabees (2005). The actress starred as the "unlikely" wife of Jason Biggs (American Pie) in the 2006 romantic comedy Wedding Daze, then geared up for choice parts in the sports comedy Hot Rod (2007) and the thriller The Lookout. She also signed to voice one of the characters in the 2008 animated feature Horton Hears a Who, adapted from the classic book by Dr. Seuss. Fisher joined the cast of the popcorn flick Confessions of a Shopaholic in 2009, and lent her voice to the cast of the animated children's feature Rango in 2011, as well as for director Peter A. Ramsey's Rise of the Guardians in 2012. Fisher co-stars with Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, and Tobey Maguire for Baz Luhrmann's 2012 3D adaptation of The Great Gatsby. She had a supporting role in Life of Crime (2013) and later had a guest spot on the revived season 4 of Arrested Development.

Trivia: Stage actor Andrew Prine was first seen on-screen as James Keller, older brother to Helen, in 1962's The Miracle Worker. The gangling, athletic Prine went on to specialize in frontier adventures and military dramas--sometimes a combination of both, as in the made-for-cable epic Gettysburg (1993). Prine's first starring TV role was as rodeo rider Andy Guthrie in the 1962 weekly Wide Country. Andrew Prine's subsequent TV-series assignments included homesteader Timothy Pride in The Road West (1966), bibulous network sales chief Dan Costello in W.E.B. (1978), and talk-show personality Reed Ellis in Room for Two (1992).

Trivia: A hulking actor whose early performances in such efforts as Hudson Hawk (1991) and Street Fighter (1994) utilized his girth to maximum effect, actor Andrew Bryniarski has crafted an impressive career in action films while considerably honing his acting skills. Born in Philadelphia in 1969, it was on a summer vacation to Hollywood that Bryniarski stumbled into acting after being spotted by a talent scout and screen testing for legendary Hollywood director Joel Silver. Soon acting alongside Bruce Willis in the notorious Hollywood bomb Hudson Hawk (1991), roles in Batman Returns (1992) and Street Fighter (1994) proved Bryniarski was an onscreen talent to be reckoned with. Of course, he was a natural for sports films, and with such efforts as Necessary Roughness (1991), The Program (1993), and Any Given Sunday (1999), Bryniarski took to the gridiron with bone-crunching results. After smashing skulls in both Pearl Harbor (2001) and Rollerball (2002), Bryniarski teamed with legendary Hong Kong film director Tsui Hark for a villainous role in Black Mask 2: City of Masks (2002). After stepping into Gunnar Hansen's formidable shoes for the role of legendary screen villain Leatherface in the 2003 Hollywood horror remake The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it was back to the gridiron in the same year's The Playmakers of New Orleans.

Trivia: His band, Sugar Ray, formed in 1992, was originally called Shrinky Dinx. Their 1997 hit "Fly" brought fame to the band, and was particularly helpful for McGrath, whose video appearance helped make him a sex symbol. Asked to host Extra after a producer of the show saw his work hosting various MTV and VH1 shows. Has appeared on Celebrity Apprentice, hosted the Fox TV series Don't Forget the Lyrics!, and also hosted the World Music Awards and the Radio Music Awards.

Trivia: Of Russian, Polish and English descent.Her family moved to Logan City, Australia, when she was three.Worked as a tour guide at Warner Brothers Studios.Moved to Los Angeles in 2004.Played the first murder victim on the television series Castle.Is a member of the high IQ society MENSA.Author of the book The Hollywood Survival Guide For Actors.

Trivia: Bleached blonde, buxom, but slender bombshell Pamela Anderson stands out in any crowd as one of the sex symbols of the mid-'90s. Known first as a spokesmodel for Labatt beer, then as one of Playboy magazine's most popular models, Anderson gained international recognition after she was cast as C.J., the sweet but tough lifeguard in the impossibly tight red bathing suit in the phenomenally popular syndicated television series Baywatch. Her popularity has led to several film roles, notably that of the black leather bustier-wearing title heroine in the comic-book actioner Barb Wire (1996). The role was appropriate, for there is something indeed cartoonish about Anderson, who had enhanced her petite frame with big hairdos, surgically inflated lips, and silicon breast implants. Anderson made a splash on the day she was born, as she was the first centennial baby in her region of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. She first attracted media notice in 1989, when a roving camera caught a glimpse of her during a professional football game in Vancouver. The picture of the cheering Anderson, who was wearing a Labatt's tee shirt at the time, was simultaneously shown on the arena's Jumbotron screen. Though her body was, surgically speaking, still in its original condition, her attributes and beauty were enough to cause a sensation. Labatt's executives remembered the crowd's positive reaction and hired her to become the brewery's spokeswoman. She attracted the attention of Playboy and was hired to do a photo layout. She has since gone on to appear on the magazine's cover an unprecedented five times. Once in Hollywood, she changed her appearance and soon found work guest starring on television shows. Her first recurring role was on the ABC sitcom Home Improvement where she played Lisa, the Tool Time Girl. Anderson made her film debut playing a cheerleader in the low-budget actioner The Taking of Beverly Hills (1992). She has also appeared in a few television movies, including Come Die With Me: A Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer Mystery (1994). Although an attempt to translate her small-screen success to the silver screen in the comic-book Casablanca adaptation Barb Wire proved unsuccessful to say the least, Anderson continued to thrill television audiences in Baywatch and stirred up much controversy when an extremely intimate honeymoon video of herself and then-husband Tommy Lee began making the rounds in 1998. Though the couple parted ways that same year in a highly publicized divorce case, Anderson went on to marry another bad boy, Detroit musician Kid Rock after returning to television as a sexy secret agent on the series V.I.P. .Anderson shocked her fan base in early 2002 when she announced that she had contracted the Hepatitis C virus, but this wouldn't kept he bombshell down. She provided the voice for the sexy tongue-in-cheek star of the Spike TV animated series Striperella and made appearances on shows like Less Than Perfect and 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. In 2006, she starred in two seasons of the sitcom Stacked, before appearing in Sacha Baron Cohen's mockumentary Borat. The minor appearance resonated with audiences, and Anderson would continue her comedy streak with films like Blonde and Blonder, Superhero Movie, and Hollywood & Wine.Though Anderson continued acting in smaller projects, she became more well-known for her personal life and her passionate advocacy. She frequently works with PETA and other animal rights groups, and is a prominent vegan.