Trivia: One of the first ladies of contemporary British stage and cinema, Emma Thompson has won equal acclaim for her work as an actress and a screenwriter. For a long time known as Kenneth Branagh's other half, Thompson was able to demonstrate her considerable talent to an international audience with Oscar-winning mid-1990s work in such films as Howards End and Sense and Sensibility. Born April 15, 1959 in Paddington, West London, Thompson grew up in a household well-suited for creative expression. Both of her parents were actors, her father, Eric Thompson, the creator of the popular TV series The Magic Roundabout, and her actress mother, Phyllida Law, a cast member of This Poisoned Earth (1961), Otley (1968) and several other films. Thompson and her sister, Sophie (who also became an actress), enjoyed a fairly colorful upbringing; as Emma later said, "I was brought up by people who tended to giggle at funerals." She excelled at school, was well liked, and went on to enroll at Cambridge University in 1978. It was at Cambridge that Thompson started performing as part of the legendary Footlights Group, once home to various members of Monty Python, who provided a huge inspiration to the fledgling comedienne. Unfortunately, Thompson's studies and her work with fellow Footlights members Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry were interrupted when her father had a debilitating stroke. Thompson went home for a few months, where she taught him how to speak again. After her return to Cambridge, she graduated in 1980 with a degree in English, and she got her first break working for a short-lived BBC radio show. Personal tragedy struck for Thompson in 1982 when her father died of a heart attack. Ironically, it was in the wake of this turmoil that her professional life began to move forward: she got a job touring with the popular satire Not the Nine O'Clock News and worked with co-conspirators Fry and Laurie on the popular BBC comedy sketch show Alfresco. This led to Thompson's biggest break to date when she was picked for the lead in a revised version of the musical Me and My Girl. Coincidentally featuring a script by Fry, the show proved popular and established Thompson as a respected performer. She stayed with the show for over a year, after which she got her next big break when she was cast as one of the leads in the miniseries Fortunes of War (1988). The other lead happened to be Kenneth Branagh, and the two were soon collaborating off-screen as well as on. Following Thompson's BAFTA Award for her work on the series (as well as a BAFTA for her role on the TV series Tutti Frutti), she helped Branagh form his own production company, Renaissance Films. In 1989, the same year that she starred in the nutty satire The Tall Guy (which teamed her with Black Adder stalwarts Rowan Atkinson, Richard Curtis and Mel Smith)and in a televised version of Look Back in Anger with Branagh, she appeared as the French queen in Branagh's acclaimed adaptation of Henry V. Following the success of Henry V, Thompson had a droll turn as a frivolous aristocrat in Impromptu (1990) and then collaborated with Branagh on the noirish suspense thriller Dead Again in 1991. The film proved a relative hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and it further established the now-married Branagh and Thompson as the First Darlings of contemporary British theatre. The following year, Thompson came into her own with her starring role in Merchant Ivory's Howards End. She won a number of awards, including an Oscar, BAFTA, and Golden Globe for her portrayal of Margaret Schlegel, and she found herself an international success almost overnight.After a turn in the ensemble comedy Peter's Friends that same year, Thompson starred as Beatrice opposite Branagh's Benedict in his adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing in 1993. That year proved an unqualified success for the actress, who was nominated for both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Oscars, the former for her portrayal of a repressed housekeeper in Merchant Ivory's The Remains of the Day and the latter for her role as Daniel Day-Lewis's lawyer in In the Name of the Father. Although she didn't win either award, Thompson continued her triumphant streak when -- after starring in Junior in 1994 -- she adapted and starred in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility in 1995. Directed by Ang Lee, the film proved popular with critics and audiences alike, and it won Thompson a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. She also earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination, a BAFTA Best Actress Award, and a Golden Globe for Best Adapted Screenplay.1995 also proved to be a turning point in Thompson's personal life, as, after a much-publicized separation, she and Branagh divorced. Just as well publicized was Thompson's subsequent relationship with Sense and Sensibility co-star Greg Wise. The somewhat tumultuous quality of her love life mirrored that of Dora Carrington, the character she played that year in Carrington. This story of the famed Bloomsbury painter was not nearly as successful as Sense, and Thompson was not seen again on the screen until 1997, when she starred in Alan Rickman's The Winter Guest. The film -- which featured the actress and her mother, Law, playing an estranged daughter and mother -- received fairly positive reviews. The following year, Thompson continued to win praise for her work with a starring role in Primary Colors and a guest spot on the sitcom Ellen, for which she won an Emmy. In 1999, Thompson announced her plans for semi-retirement: pregnant with Wise's child, she turned down a number of roles -- including that of God in Dogma -- in order to concentrate on her family. The two married in July 2003. In the years that followed Thompson would still remain fairly active onscreen, with roles as a frustrated wife in Love Actually (which found her BAFTA nominated for Best Supporting Actress) and a missing journalist whose husband (played by Antonio Bandaras) is looking for answers in Missing Argentina (which marked the second collaboration, after Carrington, between Thompson and director Christopher Hampton) serving to whet the appetites of longtime fans. For her role as a respected English professor who is forced to re-evaluate her life in Mike Nichols' made-for-television drama Wit (2001), the renowned veteran actress and screenwriter would earn Emmy nominations for both duties. Following an angelic turn in the HBO mini-series Angels in America, Thompson essayed a pair of magical roles in both Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Nanny McPhee - in which she potrayed a governess who utilizes supernatural powers to reign in her unruly young charges.Thompson then joined the cast of Marc Forster's fantasy comedy Stranger than Fiction, which Columbia slated for U.S. release in November of 2006. She plays Kay Eiffel, an author of thriller and espionage novels suffering from a massive writer's block. The central character in Eiffel's book (an IRS agent played by Will Ferrell) hears Kay's audible narration and - realizing that she's planning to kill him off - tries to find a way to stop her, with the help of Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman). She appeared opposite Dustin Hoffman in Last Chance Harvey, and in 2009 had a memorable turn as the head of the school in An Education. In 2010 she wrote and starred in the sequel Nanny McPhee Returns. In 2012 she had a hand in tow big hits, playing Agent O in the third Men In Black film, and voicing the mother in Pixar's Brave.

Trivia: A handful of actresses carry such a wellspring of inner grace and presence that they appear destined for celebrity from birth. Natalie Wood had it, as did Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly; many would doubtless place Kate Winslet among their ranks. A tender 11 when she commenced her formal dramatic training, 19 when she debuted cinematically, and 20 when she received her first Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, Winslet never "ascended" to stardom; she became a star overnight. The possessor of an hourglass-figured, full-lipped beauty that lends itself effortlessly to costume dramas, Winslet was roundly hailed by the press for standing in stark, proud contrast to her more conventional Hollywood peers. Born on October 5, 1975, and raised in Reading, England, as the daughter of stage actors and the granddaughter of a repertory theater manager, Winslet inherited the "drama bug" from her folks. After training exhaustively as a child and securing professional representation she went on the air as a spokesgirl for a popular British cereal, and later attended a performing-arts secondary school. Following an early graduation in 1991 (prior to the age of 16), Winslet launched her regional stage career, highlighted by roles in adaptations of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and Peter Pan. It would be difficult to imagine a more auspicious film bow than the role of Juliet Hulme in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures -- or a more difficult one. This characterization -- that of an extroverted adolescent who constructs an incestuously exclusive fantasy world with her best friend (Melanie Lynskey) -- put Winslet on the map, and opened the door for follow-ups in international megahits such as Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995), as the willful, passionate Marianne; and James Cameron's Titanic (1997), as the object of Leonardo Di Caprio's affections, Rose DeWitt Bukater. She received dual Oscar nominations for those roles, but, surprisingly, failed to net either one.Meanwhile, Winslet concurrently shied away from the high gloss of Cameron and unveiled her stage origins, traveling the arthouse circuit with such productions as Michael Winterbottom's Jude (1996), as Sue Bridehead; and Kenneth Branagh's disappointing, overbaked, four-hour Hamlet (1996), as Ophelia. Hideous Kinky embodied a turn on a much smaller scale. Directed by Scottish helmer Gillies MacKinnon (and scripted by his brother, Billy), the film casts Winslet as a freewheeling young hippie who takes her children to Morocco in order to pursue spiritual enlightenment. Beyond the positive reviews gleaned by the film and the praise that critics lavished onto Winslet's performance, one of the most alluring sidelights happened off camera, when Winslet dated and then married James Threapleton, the third assistant director on the MacKinnon film. The couple divorced in 2001.During 1999 and 2000, Winslet dove into two roles that required her to cut loose and break free of all inhibitions. First, she played another young woman in search of spiritual enlightenment, this time in Jane Campion's Holy Smoke. Starring as an Australian girl who joins a cult on a visit to India, and is then "deprogrammed" by Harvey Keitel, Winslet's role pushed her beyond the limits of propriety and embarrassment (one scene has her standing naked and urinating in front of Keitel). Unfortunately, one or two brave performances did not an unequivocal masterpiece make; the picture sharply divided critics, falling far short of the praise heaped onto Campion's The Piano six years earlier. Even gutsier (though more successful on a dramatic level) was Winslet's turn as a laundress who delivers the Marquis de Sade's manuscripts to the outside world in Phil Kaufman's Quills. Winslet reentered the Oscar limelight with yet another Academy-nommed performance as a youthful Iris Murdoch in director Richard Eyre's Iris, but the gold statuette eluded her a third time when Jennifer Connelly netted it for A Beautiful Mind. In early 2003, she hit a low point as Bitsey Bloom, opposite Kevin Spacey in The Life of David Gale. Based on the experience of a University of Texas professor -- an avid anti-death-penalty activist faced with execution after a false conviction -- Winslet portrayed the reporter who broke the story in a desperate attempt to discover the truth behind the mysterious and brutal crime for which Gale was convicted. As scripted by Charles Randolph and directed by Alan Parker, the picture opened and closed almost simultaneously, to devastating, brutal reviews. Winslet fared better in 2004, as the love interest opposite Jim Carrey in Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This humorous and poignant mindbender, with a tender romance at its core, scored on all fronts, as did Winslet's performance, earning her Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. She followed it up with a return to period film in Finding Neverland (2005), a movie about Victorian author J.M. Barrie, played by Johnny Depp. Playing the inspiration for the character of Wendy in the beloved novel Peter Pan seemed only natural for the charming actress, who had long since proven herself a similarly charismatic onscreen force. The next year, 2006, found Winslet in a quintet of back-to-back projects. In the CG-animated Flushed Away -- from Aardman and Dreamworks -- she voiced Rita, a scavenging sewer rat who helps Hugh Jackman's Roddy escape from the city of Ratropolis and return to his luxurious Kensington origins. That year, she also headlined the political drama All the King's Men, opposite Sean Penn. Written and directed by Schindler's List's Steven Zaillian, the picture cast Winslet as Jude Law's childhood sweetheart; while overflowing with talent, the long-gestating remake was a major misfire with critics and audiences. Perhaps more fortuitously, Winslet joined the cast of Todd Field's Little Children, an ensemble comedy drama about fear and loathing in an upper-class suburb in New England. The film would net her her fifth Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. More financially successful was her involvement in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy Holiday, as Iris, a British woman who temporarily "swaps homes," as part of a vacation ploy, with Cameron Diaz's Amanda, and has an affair with Jack Black. Meanwhile, Winslet and Johnny Depp reunited for the first occasion since Finding Neverland as narrators of the IMAX documentary Deep Sea 3D (2006), filmmaker Howard Hall's lavish exploration of the aquatic depths, designed for young viewers.After taking some time off in 2007, Winslet returned in 2008 with a pair of award-winning performances. Playing opposite her Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road earned her Best Actress nominations from both the Screen Actors Guild and the Hollywood Foreign Press, as well as a healthy number of year-end critics awards. But it was her work in Stephen Daldry's adaptation of The Reader that provided her with the sixth Academy nomination of her career, as well as Best Supporting Actress nods from the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes. The Hollywood Foreign Press made history that year selecting her the winner in both the Best Actress in a drama and the Best Supporting Actress categories at that year's Golden Globes.In 2011, Winslet would win an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild award for her performance in HBO's 5-part miniseries Mildred Pierce, and take on a lead role in Contagion, a disaster film directed by Steven Soderbergh. In 2013, she starred in Labor Day and joined the Divergent film series, returning for the film's sequel, Insurgent, in 2015. She also starred in Steve Jobs, and earned her seventh Oscar nomination.

Trivia: A graduate of Oxford, actor Hugh Grant would seem more a natural product of Cambridge University, breeding ground for such comic talents as Monty Python's Flying Circus. Grant's classic good looks make him a shoo-in for romantic leads, but his comic abilities -- marked by a nervous stutter, desperately fluttering eyelids, and an ability to capture a brand of distinctly English embarrassment -- have also marked him as a gifted comic performer. Born in London on September 9, 1960, Grant made his film debut under the very Oxbridge name of Hughie Grant in the Oxford-financed Privileged (1982). He then worked in repertory before forming his own comedy troupe, the Jockeys of Norfolk. Following some television roles, Grant made his first professional film appearance in 1987 with a blink-and-he's-gone part in White Mischief. The same year he did more substantial work, first as Lord Byron in Rowing With the Wind, and then as a sexually conflicted Edwardian in Ismail Merchant and James Ivory's adaptation of E.M. Forster's Maurice. The role won him a Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival, but despite such acclaim, Grant's next films were largely forgettable affairs. One exception -- albeit a dubious one -- was Ken Russell's The Lair of the White Worm, in which the actor attained some degree of cult status as a lord attempting to foil the murderous charms of a campy, trampy vampire (Amanda Donahoe).Following period work in Impromptu (in which he played a consumptive, bewigged Chopin) and another Merchant-Ivory outing, The Remains of the Day, Grant finally hit it big in 1994 with starring roles in two films, Sirens and Four Weddings and a Funeral. The latter film in particular gave the actor almost overnight transatlantic stardom, landing him on a number of magazine covers and TV talk shows. The following year, Grant gained fame of an entirely different sort when he was arrested for soliciting the services of an L.A. prostitute. The box-office take of his subsequent film, Nine Months, released on the heels of his arrest, was buoyed by his notoriety, as were the ratings of the episode of The Tonight Show which featured Grant's sheepish apology to his then-girlfriend, model/actress Elizabeth Hurley. The actor managed to recoup some of his professional dignity with a restrained performance as Emma Thompson's suitor in the acclaimed Sense and Sensibility, but his next feature, Extreme Measures, a thriller produced by his and Hurley's production company, Simian Films, proved a disappointment. Following this relative failure, Grant receded somewhat from the public consciousness, but reappeared in 1999 with Notting Hill. A commercial as well as relative critical success, the comedy helped to restore some of the actor's luster, further assisted by his roles in the comedies Mickey Blue Eyes (1999) and Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks (2000). After once again charming filmgoers while competing for the affections of Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary, Grant took on the role of a playful London lothario who forms a bond with one of his conquests' offspring in the romantic comedy About a Boy. Indeed, the romantic comedy seemed to be simply the most natural fit for the actor, and he found more success in new millennium with returns to this genre in Two Weeks Notice, Love Actually, and the sequel to Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.He played a fictionalized version of Simon Cowell in the comedy American Dreamz, and was solid as a washed-up 80's pop star opposite Drew Barrymore in the romantic comedy Music and Lyrics in 2007. His next film, 2009's Did You Hear About the Morgans?, was his last on-screen appearance for nearly three years, when he took on a small role (six small roles, actually) in the Wachowski's Cloud Atlas. In 2015, he had a supporting role in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., but made bigger waves for the role he didn't take: Grant would not appear in the third Bridget Jones films, shocking fans of the series.

Trivia: Although he made his name playing ruthless, genteel villains like Die Hard's Hans Gruber and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves' Sheriff of Nottingham, Alan Rickman proved himself equally remarkable in romantic, comic, and good-guy dramatic roles. An actor of brooding charisma who intones his lines in a deep, milky baritone, Rickman began his career on-stage, building up a sizable résumé before embarking on a film career.Of Irish and Welsh parentage, Rickman was born in London's Hammersmith district on February 21, 1946. His father, who was a painter and decorator, died of cancer when the actor was eight, leaving behind Rickman, his mother, and three siblings. After winning a scholarship to West London's Latymer Upper School, Rickman began acting at the encouragement of his teachers. He also developed an interest in art, and he went on to study graphic design at the Royal College of Art. He founded a Soho-based design company, but after deciding that his heart was in acting, he abandoned the company when he was 26 to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He spent three years there, serving as a dresser to such actors as Ralph Richardson and Nigel Hawthorne. After leaving RADA, Rickman began to make his name on the stage, first appearing in repertory and then landing lead roles in London productions. He gained particular acclaim for his portrayal of Valmont in a West End production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, eventually reprising his role for the Broadway production and winning a Tony nomination.In 1988, Rickman got his first dose of big-screen recognition with Die Hard. After the film's huge success, and praise for his delightfully nasty portrayal of the film's villain, he went on to make a couple of poorly received features, including 1989's The January Man and 1990s Quigley Down Under. Success greeted him again in 1991: playing Kevin Costner's nemesis, the vile and loathsome Sheriff of Nottingham, in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Rickman proved to audiences why being bad could be so much fun. The same year, he endeared himself as a markedly more sympathetic character in Truly, Madly, Deeply. As a deceased cellist who reappears to comfort his lover (Juliet Stevenson), Rickman proved himself adept at romantic comedy, and began to accrue a reputation as a thinking woman's sex symbol (something he vocally resented).The actor spent the remainder of the decade turning in solid performances in a number of diverse films: he could be seen as an actor with a troubled past in An Awfully Big Adventure (1994), a very sympathetic Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility (1995), Eamon de Valera in Michael Collins (1996), a has-been sci-fi television star in Galaxy Quest (1999), and a grumpy angel in Dogma (1999). In 1997, Rickman branched out into directing, making his debut with The Winter Guest. Starring real-life mother and daughter Phyllida Law and Emma Thompson as an estranged mother and daughter, the film won a number of positive notices, further establishing Rickman as a man of impressive versatility, both in front of and behind the camera. Though Rickman's voice would be featured on the animated television series King of the Hill in 2003, he wasn't truly absorbed into mainstream pop-culture among the kid circuit until after starring in the movie adaptations of author J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Rickman played the sinister Professor Snape in the films, one of the few post-pubescent constants in the franchise.In 2005, just months before the fourth installment in the Potter series, Rickman showed up in the first big-screen adaptation of another literary series with a rabid fan base, lending his voice to the character of Marvin the neurotic robot in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.He went on to appear in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, and in 2007 he played Judge Turpin in Tim Burton's adaptation of Sweeney Todd. E reteamed with the director for Alice in Wonderland in 2010, and the next year saw the final installment of the Harry Potter franchise hitting screens. In 2013, he played President Ronald Reagan in Lee Daniels' The Butler and club owner Hilly Kristal in CBGB. The following year, Rickman directed his second feature film, A Little Chaos, and also appeared in the film as King Louis XIV. Rickman died in 2016, at age 69.

Trivia: Her uncle is Hammer Horror legend Sir Christopher Lee. Was made an associate artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1987, and has worked with them consistently throughout her career. Is a patron of the charities Shakespeare Schools Festival and Prisoners Abroad. Is the great-great-great-granddaughter of John Walter, founder of The Times. Has published three books, including Other People's Shoes and Facing It. Was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2000, and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to drama in 2011. Her partner of eight years, actor Peter Blythe, died from lung cancer in 2004. Married American stage actor Guy Schuessler (stage name Guy Paul) in 2011. Dropped her trademark "cut glass" accent in favour of a grittier estuary English accent for her recurring role in Law And Order UK.

Trivia: Since 1963, Gemma Jones has been one of the most esteemed character actresses in British film and theater. Not until 1995, however, did she receive widespread recognition outside the U.K. That was the year she played the mother of two darlings of the modern cinema, Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, in their roles as the Dashwood sisters in director Ang Lee's Oscar-winning adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensibility. In 1997, Jones performed in another acclaimed film, Wilde, as Lady Queensbury, the woman who accused 19th century Irish author Oscar Wilde of corrupting her son, thereby setting in motion a notorious trial that ruined Wilde. Then good got better for Jones. Between 1999 and 2001, she played in three other popular productions that won numerous awards: first as Grace Winslow opposite Nigel Hawthorne in David Mamet's production of The Winslow Boy, then as Elizabeth Harrison in Charles Sturridge's production of Longitude, and finally as Mrs. Pam Jones in Sharon Maguire's production of Bridget Jones' Diary. By 2002, Gemma Jones was at work filming what promised to be one of the biggest box-office draws of the year, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, in which she portrays Madame Pomfrey, the maker of magical healing potions.The daughter of British actor Griffth Jones, Gemma Jones was born Jennifer Jones on December 4, 1942, in London. Because acting was in her blood, it was no surprise when she enrolled in the British Academy of Dramatic Art to be molded into an actress in the classic tradition. Shortly after graduation, she performed in Baal on the same stage with Peter O'Toole. After other stage and TV productions, she debuted on film in director Ken Russell's The Devils in 1971, then performed in several TV series, including The Duchess of Duke Street, a popular 1976 series in Britain that starred her as "London's best cook." Between film and TV roles, she also performed on the stage as a member of the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company in such Shakespeare plays as A Winter's Tale, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, King Lear, Twelfth Night, and Hamlet. She also acted in productions of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, Arthur Miller's The Ride Down Mount Morgan, and Henrik Ibsen's The Masterbuilder. When stardom arrived in 1995 with Sense and Sensibility, she continued to perform in lesser known but highly praised productions, including The Feast of July, Jane Eyre, The Theory of Flight, and Captain Jack. Her 2002 role in the Harry Potter film promises to make her a household name among children as well as adults -- perhaps for decades to come.

Trivia: Best known for his portrayal of Willoughby, dashing cad-in-residence of Ang Lee's 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, Greg Wise is equally (if not more so) known for his real-life relationship with Sense co-star Emma Thompson, with whom he has a daughter. A fixture of BBC period pieces big and small, Wise has the kind of dark, classic features that make him perfect for roles requiring waistcoats but have unfortunately made it difficult for him to cross over into films set in contemporary times.Born May 15, 1966, Wise studied acting at Glasgow's Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, graduating in 1991. He got his first professional gigs on the stage, starring in Good Rockin' Tonight, a musical based on the life of TV producer Jack Good. He made his film debut in 1995 with two features, Lee's acclaimed adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and Feast of July, another period drama that also cast him as a reckless and irresponsible young man. His onscreen reputation as a heartbreaker in breeches thus established, Wise spent the next couple of years concentrating his efforts on television miniseries. The actor reemerged onscreen in 1998, starring alongside Thompson in the neo-noir-crime drama Judas Kiss. He also appeared in Mad Cows, a present-day comedy that had the dubious distinction of being regarded by most critics as the worst British film of the year. In 2000, he returned to TV period drama as Rodolphe Boulanger, another of literature's great bad lovers in a roundly praised adaptation of Madame Bovary.

Trivia: When Imogen Stubbs delighted worldwide audiences with her performance as Viola in a 1996 film production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Americans may have wondered who this talented newcomer was, when in fact Stubbs was no neophyte actress but a seasoned veteran well-known to British audiences. Highly regarded for her intelligence, versatility, and formidable acting skill, she had appeared previously, mostly in the U.K., in stage and radio plays, television series, and motion pictures. Among her credits were challenging roles in productions of Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, George Bernard Shaw, Anton Chekhov, and, for good measure, Monty Python.Stubbs was born on February 20, 1961, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in Northumberland, England. She and her family lived for a short time in Portsmouth, where her father served as a naval officer, then moved to London to an unusual address -- a barge on the River Thames. Her London environs and their rich theater heritage no doubt fed her acting fancies, and after graduating from Oxford, she received classical training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.When she was only 21, she launched her film career playing, coincidentally, the part of Imogen in Privileged, then appeared as Mrs. Gilbert in the TV series The Browning Version in 1985 and as Nanou in a film of the same name in 1986. As her talent matured, she took on a demanding schedule, making six more films -- including Erik the Viking -- between 1988 and 1991. While making these six films, she squeezed in stage performances, including a portrayal of Desdemona in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Othello under the supervision of acclaimed director Trevor Nunn, whom she later married. It was Nunn who directed her in the film version of Twelfth Night. In that film, she plays a young woman disguised as a man, who in her male garb, unwittingly attracts the attentions of another woman (Helena Bonham Carter). Stubbs' gender-bending role is a formidable test of her acting skill. On the one hand, she has to remain charming and feminine for filmgoers, who know she is really a woman, and bold and masculine for the characters in the play, who believe she is really a man. She passed the test, winning worldwide attention and the plaudits of critics.In fact, the 1990s were golden for Stubbs. Besides her triumph in Twelfth Night, she appeared in other popular films, including the 1995 film production of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, in which she played Lucy Steele. She also took to the stage as Stella Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, Yelena in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Joan in George Bernard Shaw's St. Joan, and Ellie Dunn in Shaw's Heartbreak House. In addition, she played a detective in a highly popular British television series, Anna Lee. During all this time, Stubbs managed to perform one other important role -- mother. She and Nunn have two children, Ellie and Jesse.

Trivia: Robert Hardy is legendary in his native England for his skill and versatility as an actor. As an interpreter of fictional characters and historical personages, Hardy has received critical acclaim for roles in scores of outstanding films, TV programs, and plays presented throughout the English-speaking world. British, North American, and Australian audiences may remember him best for his roles as Winston Churchill in War and Remembrance (1989), Siegfried Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small (1990), Arthur Brooke in Middlemarch (1994), Sir Toby Belch in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (1981), and the Earl of Leicester in the heralded Elizabeth R (1971). But Hardy has also distinguished himself in many motion pictures, including Mrs. Dalloway (1997), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), The Shooting Party (1984), Young Winston (1972), 10 Rillington Place (1971), and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Hardy brings to all of his roles an acting savvy honed to a fine edge by years of study and training at the best British institutions. Timothy Sydney Robert Hardy was born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, on October 29, 1925. At Oxford University, he studied under the great British author C.S. Lewis and graduated with honors, then joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1949. His experience there prepared him for roles in many Shakespeare productions, including A Midsummer Night's Dream (Royal Shakespeare Company, 1959), a live-TV production of Henry V (1960), and Coriolanus (BBC, 1963). The rhetorical skills he developed in those roles served him well as a narrator or host of documentary productions such as Castle Ghosts of Ireland, Horses in Our Blood, and The Picardy Affair, about the Battle of Agincourt. His classical training has also enabled him to wear the mantle of historical personages such as Pontius Pilate in The People's Passion (1999), Prince Albert in Edward the King (1975), and Nazi foreign minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop in The Gathering Storm (1974). Hardy has a special interest in medieval history -- in particular, in the use of the longbow. Regarded as one of Britain's leading experts on that weapon, he has written a book about it, serves as a consultant on the longbow for organizations involved in history projects, and handcrafts longbows himself. Hardy, who first performed in stage plays in the late '40s, has always maintained a busy schedule. For example, between 1998 and 2001, he performed in ten film and TV productions. He is married to Sally Pearson, a costume designer.

Trivia: With an expansive range that stretches from Shakespeare to Chicken Run and just about everything in between, actress Imelda Staunton has, not surprisingly, become one of the most highly respected actresses working in the U.K. If her penchant for playing what many would consider to be mundane, everyday characters found Staunton criminally overlooked in the early years of her career, it was her keen ability to inject those characters with a remarkable complexity that eventually made the stage mainstay-turned-small-screen powerhouse one of Britain's most sought-after talents.A London native and graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Staunton wasted no time launching her career following graduation, becoming associated with such prestigious venues as The Old Vic and the National Theatre. A trio of productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company gained her numerous critical accolades, and in 1986 Staunton made an impressive television debut in the legendary BBC production of Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective. Increasingly busy throughout the 1990s, Staunton continued to gain momentum on-stage while earning three Oliviers for her performances in the The Corn Is Green, A Chorus of Disapproval, and Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. As Staunton's numerous stage roles continued to earn her critical success, frequent television and film roles made her a familiar and endearing face to the general public. Though many of her U.K. television roles went unseen by stateside audiences, supporting roles in such features as Much Ado About Nothing, Sense and Sensibility, and Shakespeare in Love found Staunton slowly working her way into the conscience of U.S. film buffs as well. Moving into the new millennium, Staunton's roles in such films as Chicken Run (for which she provided the voice of Bunty), Crush, Bright Young Things, and I'll Be There found the established television actress actively distancing herself from the small screen in favor of feature films. Of course, every actor dreams of the breakthrough role that will make him or her an international star, and for Imelda Staunton that role was of a 1950s era abortionist caught in a downward spiral in director Mike Leigh's 2004 drama Vera Drake. Her undeniably affecting portrayal of the title role -- a selfless housewife and cleaning woman who makes a name for herself performing illegal abortions -- earned her near-universal praise. After earning accolades from both The Venice Film Festival and The New York Film Festival as well as the Los Angeles and Chicago film critic associations, Staunton had undeniably arrived when the role earned her a Best Actress nomination for the 77th Annual Academy Awards.Subsequent roles in the U.K. television comedy Little Britain as well as the features Nanny McPhee and Freedom Writers served well to introduce her to entirely new, often American, audiences. In 2007, just one year after appearing in a colorful Masterpiece Theatre production of the children's classic The Wind and the Willows, she remained in the world of fantasy for her role in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Staunton played Dolores Umbridge -- the latest in a long line of Defense Against the Dark Arts professors -- whose severe disposition drew the ire of Harry Potter himself. She was part of the cast of the well-respected television production Cranford, and appeared in the inspirational drama Freedom Writers. She teamed with Mike Leigh again for 2010's Another Year, and that same year she appeared in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. She continued to work in animated family films such as Arthur Christmas and The Pirates! Band of Misfits.

Trivia: British comedian Hugh Laurie could have easily taken another career track rather than that of well-known performer. As a secondary and college student, he was also a world-class oarsman. He wasn't the only one in the family to have a passion for the sport, however. His father won a gold medal at the 1948 London Olympics as part of the British national team. The youngest of four children, Laurie went to Eton College, perhaps Britain's best-known preparatory school. During his time there, he became involved in rowing. He quickly became one of the nation's best, and in 1977, he became one half of the national junior champion coxed pair. In the world junior championships held in Finland that year, he and his teammate finished fourth in the world.The following year, Laurie entered Cambridge University, with the intention of studying archeology and anthropology. He was also intent on joining the prestigious rowing team, which he had little problem doing. He reportedly became ill during his first year, however, and was forced to withdraw from the rowing competitions. While regaining his health, Laurie had his first experiences as a performer by getting involved with "the Footlights Club," a famed undergraduate comedy revue group. In his last year at Cambridge, Laurie was elected president of the club, with fellow Footlighter Emma Thompson acting as vice president.Traditionally, at the end of the year, the Footlights take their act on the road throughout the nation. While on these tours, Laurie met, via Thompson, a young playwright named Stephen Fry. They collaborated on a sketch called "The Cellar Tapes," which they entered in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1981. They were awarded "Pick of the Fringe," enabling the duo, along with the other Footlight performers (including Thompson) to go on tour throughout England and, eventually, Australia. Soon thereafter, Laurie, Fry, Thompson, Robbie Coltrane, and Ben Elton formed the television sketch program Alfresco, eventually leading Laurie to the famous (in Britain, at least) Black Adder series, headed by Rowan Atkinson, and also to the Jeeves & Wooster series with Fry. It wasn't long after these successes that he began appearing in films. In 1992, he appeared alongside fellow comedians Fry and Thompson, as well as Kenneth Branagh and Rita Rudner, in the ensemble comedy Peter's Friends. He subsequently did outstanding work as a character actor in such films as Sense and Sensibility (1995) and 101 Dalmatians (1996). In 1999, he took the lead in the adaptation of E.B. White's Stuart Little, playing the adopted father to a walking, talking, fully dressed mouse, a role he'd reprise in the film's 2002 sequel Stuart Little 2.After a two-year absence from the big screen, Laurie returned to the multiplexes in 2004 with a supporting role in Flight of the Phoenix, a remake of the 1965 James Stewart action-adventure film about a group of plane-crash survivors who attempt to build a new plane from the wreckage. That same year, Laurie essayed the titular role as the cynical but brilliant Dr. Gregory House in the prime-time Fox medical drama House, for which he would win a number of Golden Globe Awards for Best Actor in a TV Series Drama.Laurie is also a musician of note, performing as a keyboardist with the rock band Poor White Trash. He added yet another profession to his lengthy list of accomplishments when, in 1996, he published his first novel, The Gun Seller. Married since 1989, he has three children with his wife, Jo.

Trivia: A popular British character actor, Tom Wilkinson specializes in playing men suffering from some sort of emotional repression and/or pretensions of societal grandeur. Active in film and television since the mid-'70s, Wilkinson became familiar to an international audience in 1997 with his role as of one of six unemployed workers who strip for cash in Peter Cattaneo's enormously successful comedy The Full Monty. That same year, he was featured in Gillian Armstrong's Oscar and Lucinda, and as the rabidly unpleasant father of Lord Alfred Douglas, Oscar Wilde's young lover in Wilde. Wilkinson was also shown to memorable effect as a theater financier with acting aspirations in Shakespeare in Love (1998); also in 1998, he acted in one of his few leading roles in The Governess, portraying a 19th century photographer with an eye for the film's title character (Minnie Driver). Though he would appear in such popular mainstream films as Rush Hour (1998) and The Patriot (2000) over the next few years, it was his role in director Todd Field's emotionally intense In the Bedroom that earned Wilkinson (as well as co-star Marisa Tomei) an Oscar nod. After that success, his career began to really take off, and in just the next few years, he would appear in over a dozen films in roles of varying size. In 2003, he starred in HBO movie Normal as a married, middle-aged man who decides to start living his life as a woman and eventually have a sex-change operation. Acting alongside Jessica Lange, Wilkinson earned both Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for his brave and moving performance. In addition, he would also play a menacing, licentious patron of the arts in Girl With a Pearl Earring (2003) and an experimental doctor erasing his patient's memories in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), written by Charlie Kaufman and starring Jim Carrey.Now an established star thanks to his impressive body of work, Wilkinson was called upon to appear in a number of high profile Hollywood hits, and could always be counted on to deliver in spades. Still, Wilkinson had the talent and foresight to always offset each blockbuster with at least one low-key, character-driven drama, and for every scenery-chewing Batman Begins villain, a serious-minded Separate Lies lawyer or Ripley Under Ground Scotland Yard detective would be quick to follow. After doing battle with Beelzebub in 2005's frightening, fact-based horror film The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Wilkinson would once again shift gears with impressive grace to portray the patriarch of a Texas family whose attempts to maintain order over his wildly dysfunctional family lead to a wild night on the town that ultimately helps him to restore his perspective in Night of the White Pants. Later that same year Wilkinson would pull back a bit for a supporting role in The Last Kiss - a romantic comedy drama starring Scrubs' Zach Braff and directed by Tony Goldwyn. 2007 brough WIlkinson yet another role that earned him uniformly strong reviews. His mentally unhinged lawyer in Michael Clayton garnered him a slew of year end accolades including Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor. That same year he became part of the Woddy Allen family with a starring role in Cassandra's Dream. In 2008 he appeared as Ben Franklin in the award-winning HBO miniseries John Adams, as well as Valkyrie and RocknRolla. He reteamed with Michael Clayton mastermind Tony Gilroy for 2009's Duplicity, playing the CEO of a multinational corporation, and appeared in The Ghost Writer for director Roman Polanski the next year. In 2012 he was part for the all-star British ensemble put together for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.