Trivia: Best-known to American TV audiences as Saffy, the frighteningly sensible daughter of Edina Monsoon on Absolutely Fabulous, Julia Sawalha has earned a reputation as one of Britain's more beloved comedic actresses.The daughter of respected Jordanian actor Nadim Sawalha (who immigrated to England in the 1960s) and an English mother, Sawalha was born in London on September 9, 1968. Raised in the company of two sisters, she became interested in acting at a young age, and landed her first break when she was chosen to star on the long-running TV series Press Gang. A show about a group of teens who run a youth newspaper, it was produced by Bob Spiers, who would later direct Sawalha in Absolutely Fabulous. Premiering in 1992, Absolutely Fabulous would become one of the most popular TV shows in British history, winning scores of fans on both sides of the Atlantic. For her part, Sawalha earned both respect and recognition for her portrayal of the hilariously uptight Saffy, and her work led to roles in a number of TV miniseries, including the BBC's acclaimed 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Although Sawalha made her film debut in 1990, she had her first major big-screen role in Kenneth Branagh's In the Bleak Midwinter (1995), a comedy about a group of actors putting on a production of Hamlet. Cast as the actress who plays Ophelia, the film allowed her to perform alongside Branagh, Richard Briers, Joan Collins, and Jennifer Saunders. The actress finally got a crack at the lead in a major film in 2000, lending her voice to the character of Ginger, the feathered heroine of Peter Lord and Nick Park's Chicken Run. A hugely successful all-poultry retelling of The Great Escape, the film also featured the vocal talents of Mel Gibson, Jane Horrocks, Miranda Richardson, and Imelda Staunton. In addition to her work in Chicken Run, Sawalha kept busy that year with a number of other film and TV projects, including The Final Curtain, a comedy about a rivalry between two British game show personalities.

Trivia: Born December 29, 1969, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the home of her novelist father John Ehle, Ehle was raised largely in nearby Asheville. She spent a great deal of her childhood following her mother's career engagements back and forth between the States and the U.K., attending over 18 schools in the process. Ehle eventually settled in London to study drama at the Central School, but dropped out in 1991 to take the part of Calypso in Peter Hall's lauded TV adaptation of The Chamomile Lawn. Further television and stage roles followed, and in 1993, Ehle made her screen debut with a small role in Iain Softley's Backbeat as Cynthia Powell, John Lennon's first wife. Ehle's career entered a new and more lucrative phase with her award-winning turn as Pride and Prejudice's heroine, Elizabeth Bennett; in addition to its success in Britain, the miniseries -- which also launched Colin Firth to international fame in his role as Mr. Darcy -- proved to be a runaway hit in the States. More film work duly came Ehle's way: she could be seen playing Oscar Wilde's wife, Constance, in Wilde (1997); a prisoner of war alongside Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Cate Blanchett, and Julianna Margulies in Paradise Road (1997); and a woman who finds herself becoming involved with her supposedly gay former boyfriend in Bedrooms & Hallways (1998). Ehle was cast in perhaps her most high-profile screen role to date in 1999, when she starred as the wife of a Hungarian lawyer (Ralph Fiennes) in István Szabó's epic Sunshine, a historical drama tracing the fortunes of three generations of a Hungarian Jewish family. However, the actress' involvement in the film, which also starred real-life mother Harris as the older version of her character, was overshadowed in theatrical circles by her work on the stage that same year. For her performance as Annie, the wife of a brilliant but emotionally evasive playwright (Stephen Dillane) in the Broadway production of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, Ehle found herself up against her mother, who starred in Waiting in the Wings, for a 2000 Best Actress Tony Award. Ehle ultimately won the award, the latest honor in what looked to be, like her mother's, a very long and vibrant career. Indeed, as the years rolled by, Ehle would continue to appear regularly on screen in films like The King's Speech, Contagion, The Adjustment Bureau, and on the series A Gifted Man.

Trivia: Walkden, England, native David Bamber nearly avoided the proscenium altogether, with early plans to enter a training program for special education instructors. At the last yawning moment, however, Bamber decided to jump ship and head into acting, courtesy of the dramatic arts program at Bristol University and -- later -- a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). As a student, the thespian distinguished himself from many of his colleagues by acquiring a marked preference for contemporary material over classicist plays. As a stage actor, Bamber (though openly heterosexual, with a wife and children) sustained a particularly fine reputation for convincing portrayals of (often repressed) gay characters in such plays as My Night with Reg and Pride and Prejudice. He also gained recognition for comic physicality deemed brilliant by many critics. In terms of on-camera work, Bamber's work (somewhat ironically) has leaned more toward period material than his stage efforts. Following an appearance in the all-star British seriocomedy Privates on Parade (1982), he signed for roles in such projects as the made-for-television outings The Merchant of Venice (2001) and Pollyanna (2002), and the HBO miniseries Rome (2005) as Marcus Tillius Cicero. In 2008, Bamber joined co-stars Tom Cruise, Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh, and others for the Cruise-produced Hitler assassination thriller Valkyrie with a frightening turn as Adolf Hitler.

Trivia: Is distantly related to both Jane Austen and Lord Byron. Great-great grandfather was H.H. Asquith, former Prime Minister, making her a second cousin, once removed of Helena Bonham Carter. Left the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts when she became pregnant with her daughter Poppy. In 1988, shocked TV hosts Richard and Judy, the audience and ITV bosses when she said the 'f' word while being interviewed. Met cameraman ex-husband Nigel Willoughby while filming for a beer advert in 1993. Met husband Redha Debbah when he was working as a taxi driver and took her to the West End while she was performing in The Real Inspector Hound in 1998. While appearing in an off-Broadway production of Creditors in New York in 2010, became stricken with a case of viral meningitis and had to be rushed to the hospital by the play's director, Alan Rickman. In 2013, won a nomination for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress for her performance in Private Lives. Patron of the London childen's charity, Scene and Heard.

Trivia: As Mr. Darcy in the acclaimed 1995 television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Colin Firth induced record increases in estrogen levels on both sides of the Atlantic. Imbuing his role as one of literature's most obstinate lovers with surly, understated charisma, Firth caused many a viewer to wonder where he had been for so long, even though he had in fact been appearing in television and film for years.The son of two university lecturers, Firth was born in England's Hampshire county on September 10, 1960. Part of his early childhood was spent in Nigeria with missionary grandparents, but he returned for schooling in his native country and eventually enrolled in the Drama Centre in Chalk Farm. While playing Hamlet in a school production during his final term, the actor was discovered, and he went on to make his London stage debut in the West End production of Julian Mitchell's Another Country. Starring opposite Rupert Everett, Firth played Tommy Judd, a character based on spy-scandal figurehead Donald Maclean (Everett played Guy Bennett, based on real-life spy Guy Burgess). He went on to reprise his role for the play's 1984 film version, again playing opposite Everett. Despite such an auspicious beginning to his career, Firth spent the rest of the decade and half of the next working in relative obscurity; he starred in a number of television productions -- including the highly acclaimed 1993 Hostages -- and worked steadily in film. Some of his more notable work included A Month in the Country, in which he played a World War I veteran opposite Kenneth Branagh and Natasha Richardson, and Valmont, Milos Forman's 1989 adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, in which Firth starred in the title role. The film also provided him with an introduction to co-star Meg Tilly, with whom he had a son.However, it was not until he again donned breeches and a waistcoat that Firth started to emerge from the shadows of BBC programming. With his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the popular TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Firth was propelled into the media spotlight, touted in a number of articles as the latest in the long line of thinking women's crumpets; he was further rewarded for his work with a BAFTA award. The same year, he appeared as an amorous cad in the similarly popular Circle of Friends and went on the next year to appear as Kristin Scott Thomas' cuckolded husband in The English Patient. Firth garnered praise for his role in the film, which went on to win international acclaim and Academy Awards.After a turn as a morally ambiguous man who gets involved with both Jessica Lange and Michelle Pfeiffer in A Thousand Acres, Firth took a comically sinister turn as Gwyneth Paltrow's intended husband in the 1998 Shakespeare in Love. The following year, he starred in two very different movies: My Life So Far, a tale of family dysfunction in the Scottish Highlands, and Fever Pitch, initially released in the U.K. in 1997, in which Firth played a rabid English football fan forced to choose between his love of the sport and the woman in his life. Headlining the low-key comedy My Life So Far the following year, Firth's performance as the father of a family living in a post World War I British estate was only one of five roles that the busy actor would essay that particular year (including that of William Shakespeare in Blackadder Back and Forth). His finale of the year -- Donovan Quick -- offered a memorable updating of the legend of Don Quixote with Firth himself in the titular role. Firth's supporting role in the 2001 comedy Bridget Jones's Diary preceded a more weighty performance in the chilling drama Conspiracy, with the former earning him a BAFTA nomination and the latter an Emmy nod. Comic performances in Londinium (2001) and The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) found Firth continuing to maintain his reputation as one of England's most talented comic exports, and if his lead in 2003's Hope Springs failed to capitalize on his recent string of success, his role as teen starlet Amanda Bynes' celluloid father in What a Girl Wants (2003) at least endeared him to a new generation of moviegoers before the adult-oriented drama Girl With a Pearl Earring hit theaters later that same year. After rounding out the busy year with a return to romantic comedy in Love Actually, Firth kicked off 2004 with a turn as a haunted widower in Trauma while preparing to return to familiar territory in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.Firth continued to work steadily in projects ranging from the family friendly Nanny McPhee with Emma Thompson to the hit musical Mama Mia, playing one of the three men who might have fathered Meryl Streep's daughter. But it was his leading role in fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut, A Single Man, that garnered him awards attention like he had never received previously. For his work as a gay professor grieving the death of his lover, Firth scored nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, the Academy, and the Independent Spirit Awards.After appearing in the 2009 adaptation of A Christmas Carol, Firth would achieve further accolades for his role as the stuttering King George VI in director Tom Hooper's breathtaking historical drama The King's Speech (2010). In addition to taking home the Academy Award for Best Actor, Firth also took home awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the L.A. Film Critics Association, and the Screen Actors Guild. 2011 was no less exciting a year for the actor, who co-starred with Gary Oldman in Let the Right One In director Tomas Alfredson's award winning spy thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, an adaptation of John Le Carré's novel about an ex-British agent who comes out of retirement in hopes of solving a dangerous case. Firth is slated to star in Bridget Jone's Baby, Gambit, and The Railway Man in 2013.

Trivia: British actress Emilia Fox attended Oxford University to study her craft, before setting out to begin her professional acting career in the late '90s. She most notably played the title role in the play Katherine Howard at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 1998, and played Clara Copperfield in a TV movie production of David Copperfield. As the new millennium began, Fox had wracked up enough roles on her resumé that she was ready for more substantial parts in projects like the 2003 TV biopic Henry VIII, and the 2005 comedy Keeping Mum. In 2004, she began playing pathologist Nikki Alexander on the TV series Silent Witness, and she stayed with the show for seasons to come. In 2006, she also garnered much praise for her role in the independent dramedy Cashback.

Trivia: Performed as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company between 1992 and 1995. Is perhaps best known for playing Wickham in the 1995 mini-series adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Played Dr. David Shearer in TV Medical Drama Peak Practice between 1997 and 1999. Between 1999 and 2000, acted in the Royal National Theatre Repertoire Season. In 2019, was nominated for the Best Actor in a Supporting Role Olivier Award for his role in The Price.

Trivia: Trained at the East 15 Acting School, British actress Alison Steadman worked as a secretary for the Liverpool Probation Service before making her professional stage bow in 1968. Five years later, Steadman made her London theatrical debut. She won a plethora of awards for her rendition of the title role in both the stage and film version of Abigail's Party. This and several subsequent productions were directed by Steadman's former husband, Mike Leigh. She has starred in the British TV series Wackers (1975) and Gone to Seed (1992), and has made a number of conspicuous film appearances since her 1982 screen debut in Kipperbang. American TV viewers will remember Steadman as Mrs. Marlowe in the wildly eccentric Dennis Potter miniseries The Singing Detective. More recently, Alison Steadman was seen as Mrs. Bennet in the 1995 British TV-miniseries production of Pride and Prejudice.

Trivia: Father went bankrupt when she was ten, leading the family to lose all their possessions. Won a scholarship to the Elmhurst Ballet School at 13, but failed to get into the Royal Ballet School years later. Danced on stage in The Ocean Revue with Roy Hudd in Clacton-on-Sea, inspiring her to enroll at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in the 1960's. Adopted the stage name David, taken from her mother's first name, Davida. Big break was the BBC's Sense and Sensibility in 1971, after which she worked prolifically in costume dramas. Played Francesca Annis's daughter in Lillie in 1978, although she is only eighteen months younger. Underwent brain surgery in 1993 to correct a congenital malformation. Acted with daughter Emilia in Pride and Prejudice in 1995. Married Edward Fox in 2004 after 33 years of living together. Is a patron of the Pancreatic Cancer Action charity. Is vice-president of the Theatrical Guild. Contracted Ménière's disease in 2008. Has been friends with Downton Abbey co-star Dame Maggie Smith for over four decades. Is a trustee of the National Brain Appeal, the charity dedicated to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London. Is a member of the RADA Council.

Trivia: Daughter of Jasper Carrott, a popular British comedian. One of her first jobs: packaging nuts and seeds at a health-food store. Appeared on the popular BBC radio drama The Archers for 10 years. Received a kidney transplant from her mother in 1997 after being diagnosed with kidney failure. Moved to L.A. in 2005, after the original BBC version of The Office went off the air. Appeared nude in a 2007 PETA advertisement against the bearskin hats worn by British royal guards. Volunteers with Camp Cocker, which rescues cocker spaniels from animal shelters with high kill rates in the L.A. area.

Trivia: British supporting actor, former juvenile, onscreen from the early '60s.

Trivia: While still a student at the Old Vic, Barbara Leigh-Hunt made her first professional stage appearance. Leigh-Hunt subsequently appeared in Shakespearean productions in England, Europe and the U.S. The first of her handful of films was Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972), in which she played the "praying" rape/murder victim. That same year, she played Catherine Parr in Henry VIII and His Six Wives, and was seen on TV as the wife of naturalist Sir Richard Burton in Search for the Nile. Twelve years later, she hosted a British TV weekly, Playing Shakespeare. Though she has essayed virtually all the classic female roles from Portia to Saint Joan, when asked her favorite role, Leigh-Hunt invariably replies "the next one." Barbara Leigh-Hunt is married to actor Richard Pasco.