Trivia: One of the crop of bright-eyed, dewy-skinned young actors to attain teen idoldom and a regular paycheck during the late 1990s, Jessica Alba closed out the century as one of Hollywood's more promising new talents. Born in Pomona, California, on April 28, 1981, Alba, whose father was in the Air Force, moved with her family to Biloxi, Mississippi, when she was an infant, but she eventually moved back to California nine years later. It was back in California that she embarked on an acting career; having been in love with the idea of acting since she was five, Alba took her first acting class at the age of 12, and nine months later, she landed her first agent. She got her start on television, making appearances on shows like Beverly Hills 90210, and she made her film debut in the 1994 kids comedy Camp Nowhere. Originally cast in a minor role in the film, she got her first big break when the principal actress dropped out and she was asked to take over. Following her debut, Alba did a great deal of work on television. She got her first substantial film role as the object of the protagonist's disastrous affection in the teen horror comedy Idle Hands in 1999; that same year, she played one of the nasty popular girls who terrorize Drew Barrymore in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed.The following year Alba made waves on the small screen when she was cast in the much hyped Fox series Dark Angel, executive produced by James Cameron. She was cast as a genetically-engineered woman who escapes from the lab and joins a cyberjournalist named Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly) in his neverending fight against crime in a post-apocalyptic future. Though the series was cancelled after two seasons, Alba continued to appear in such indie features as Paranoid (2000) and The Sleeping Dictionary (2002); the little-seen Glitter-esque dancer drama Honey similarly did little to enhance her profile.All that would change, however, when Alba became one of the core members of the quartet of the Fantastic Four franchise. Mostly reviled by critics but a solid success with audiences, her role as the spontaneously invisible Susan Storm endeared her to 10-year-old sci-fi geeks everywhere. Now a blockbuster actress, Alba attempted to balance this heightened profile with a wide variety of genre roles, appearing in thrillers (Into the Blue, The Killer Inside Me, The Eye), grindhouse fare and pulp noirs (Sin City, Machete) and comedies (Good Luck Chuck, Valentine's Day, A.C.O.D.). Alba even appeared in the 2010 Meet the Fockers sequel, Little Fockers, as well as the kids' adventure flick Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D.

Trivia: A character-oriented actor who specialized in playing American everymen, Chris Messina emerged in the mid-'90s, landing guest appearances on series programs such as Law & Order and mounting supporting parts in Hollywood features including You've Got Mail and Rounders (both 1998). Messina gained even more exposure when he joined the cast of the quirky HBO comedy drama Six Feet Under during that program's fifth and final season. On that series, Messina played Ted Fairwell, a Republican attorney smitten with Claire Fisher (Lauren Ambrose) who (as the program reveals) will eventually marry her. After Six Feet wrapped, Messina hearkened back to feature portrayals, this time as a lead, in director Jennifer Westfeldt's (Kissing Jessica Stein) critically praised sophomore effort Ira & Abby (2006). The actor proved he could hold his own with a multilayered turn as a neurotic therapist's son who rushes headlong into marriage only to watch his confidence fall to pieces when he learns of his new wife's two ex-husbands. In 2008, Messina took on a supporting role in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, opposite Penélope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson. In the years to come, Messina would enjoy continued success as an established actor, appearing in films like Ruby Sparks and Argo, as well as on TV series like The Mindy Project and The Newsroom.

Trivia: Jonathan Kimble Simmons was originally a singer, with a degree in music from the University of Montana. He turned to theater in the late 1970s and appeared in many regional productions in the Pacific Northwest before moving to New York in 1983. He appeared in Broadway and off-Broadway shows and also did some television -- his early roles included the portrayal of a white supremacist responsible for multiple murders in an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street. In that same vein, Simmons first gained wide exposure as Vern Schillinger, the leader of an Aryan Brotherhood-type organization in prison in the HBO series Oz. Parlaying his small-screen notoriety into feature film opportunities, Simmons had a small part in the 1997 thriller The Jackal and played a leading role in Frank Todaro's low-budget comedy Above Freezing, a runner-up for the most popular film at the 1998 Seattle Film Festival. Also in 1997, Simmons increased his television prolificacy by taking on the role of Dr. Emil Skoda, the consulting psychiatrist to the Manhattan district attorney's office in the series Law and Order. By 1999, Simmons was showing up in such prominent films as The Cider House Rules and the baseball drama For Love of the Game, directed by Sam Raimi. The director again enlisted Simmons for his next film, 2000's The Gift. After a supporting turn in the disappointing comedy The Mexican, Simmons teamed with Raimi for the third time, bringing cigar-chomping comic-book newspaperman J. Jonah Jameson screaming to life in the 2002 summer blockbuster Spider-Man. In 2004, he would reprise the role in the highly anticipated sequel, Spider-Man 2. That same year, along with appearing alongside Tom Hanks in the Coen Brothers' The Ladykillers, Simmons continued to be a presence on the tube, costarring on ABC's midseason-replacement ensemble drama The D.A.His career subsequently kicking into overdrive, the popular character actor was in increasingly high demand in the next few years, enjoying a productive run as a voice performer in such animated television series' as Justice League, Kim Possible, The Legend of Korra, and Ultimate Spider-Man (the latter of which found him reprising his role as J. Jonah Jameson), as well as turning in memorable performances in Jason Reitman's Juno, Mike Judge's Extract, and as a hard-nosed captain in the 2012 crime thriller Contraband. Meanwhile, in 2005, he joined the cast of TNT's popular crime drama The Closer as Assistant Chief Will Pope -- a role which no doublt played a part in the cast earning five Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Best Ensemble Cast. Simmons continued to work steadily in movies, returning to the Spider-Man franchise in 2007. That same year he co-starred as the father of a pregnant teen in Juno, which led to him being cast regularly by that film's director Jason Reitman in many of his future projects including Up In the Air and Labor Day. It was Reitman who got Simmons the script for Whiplash, Damien Chazelle's directorial debut. The actor took the part of an abusive, but respected music teacher and the ensuing performance garnered Simmons multiple year-end awards including a Best Supporting Actor nomination from the Academy.

Trivia: Actor John Shea launched his career on-stage in 1975 and made his feature-film debut in Hussy (1980). He began his long involvement with television in The Nativity (1978) and later won an Emmy for his work in the miniseries Baby M (1988). Between 1993 and 1997, Shea appeared on the television series Lois and Clark as villain Lex Luthor.

Trivia: Appeared in commercials for Office Depot (at two-weeks-old), Cadillac, Disney and SeaWorld. National spokesperson for Alex's Lemonade Stand, a childhood-cancer charity, and is involved with the Starlight Children's Foundation. Voiced her first animated character in Monica, an animated short by her grade-school art teacher Rob Cabrera. On the set of 2012's Parental Guidance, costar Bette Midler introduced her to classic films like The Red Shoes and Mamma Mia!

Trivia: Born in Maringa, Brazil, Sonia Braga acted on the stage as a teenager. She quickly rose to stardom on Brazilian soap operas during the '60s, but it was not until Bruno Barreto's Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1977) that she gained international screen stardom. She played the title character, a remarried widow who is prone to erotic visits from her first husband's ghost. She worked with Barreto again for the 1983 erotic drama Gabriela, based on one of her TV roles.Her first mainstream Hollywood movie was Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), in the dual role of the mythical title character herself and the woman of Raul Julia's past. She then appeared with Julia in her next few films, including Paul Mazursky's Moon Over Parador (earning her a Golden Globe nomination), Clint Eastwood's The Rookie, and John Frankenheimer's The Burning Season (earning her an Emmy nomination). She hasn't always played a sexpot, however; she was firey garage owner Ruby in Robert Redford's The Milagro Beanfield War as well as the math teacher known as "the Dragon Lady" on The Cosby Show. After living in the U.S. for some time, she returned to Brazil in 1996 to star in the romantic comedy Tieta of Agreste, which she also co-produced. The role of Tieta was a self-reflexive one, that of a mature beautiful woman returning to Brazil after several years away. In the late '90s, she worked on the miniseries Streets of Laredo, A Will of Their Own, and Four Corners. In 2001 she joined the cast of Gregory Nava's PBS series American Family as matriarch Berta. She can also be seen as Jennifer Lopez's mother in Angel Eyes and as Kim Cattrall's lover Maria on Sex and the City.