Trivia: With lean hangdog looks that make him a natural for the criminals and fringe dwellers he usually plays, Tim Roth has the uncanny and incredibly effective ability to make sleaze look sexy, or at least raggedly photogenic. Since his debut in the made-for-TV Made in Britain at the age of 18, Roth has joined fellow Briton Gary Oldman as one of the leading interpreters of society's underbelly. His ability has been particularly appreciated by director Quentin Tarantino, who helped to propel Roth to international recognition with prominent roles in Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction in the early '90s. Since then, Roth has continued to portray a variety of gritty characters, occasionally making room for the odd sympathetic or lighthearted role.Born in London on May 14, 1961, to a journalist father and landscape painter mother, Roth initially wanted to become a sculptor. After an education at London's Camberwell School of Art, he decided to try his hand at acting, first appearing in a production of Jean Genet's The Screens. Roth's television debut in the 1981 film Made in Britain garnered critical raves for the actor, who portrayed a poverty-stricken juvenile delinquent with profanity-spewing gusto. The same year, he appeared with Gary Oldman in Mike Leigh's Meantime, a made-for-TV movie that was eventually released theatrically, but Roth's bona fide screen debut didn't come until 1984, when he played an apprentice hitman in Stephen Frears' The Hit. Co-starring Terence Stamp and John Hurt, the film did moderately well and earned Roth an Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Thanks to such positive notices, the young actor continued to find work throughout the rest of the decade, making appearances in a variety of films, including former Kinks frontman Ray Davies' 1985 musical Return to Waterloo. In 1990, Roth began to enjoy a limited amount of international attention, thanks to two starring roles, his acclaimed portrayal of Vincent Van Gogh in Robert Altman's Vincent and Theo and a title role in the critically lauded film adaptation of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Starring opposite Gary Oldman, Roth made an impression on many a filmgoer, including Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino cast Roth as undercover policeman Mr. Orange in his 1992 ensemble piece Resevoir Dogs, a film that allowed the actor to prove he could do an American accent and bleed to death convincingly. The success of Resevoir Dogs paved the way for more Hollywood work for Roth. In a drastic departure from his previous work, he next starred in the 1993 comedy Bodies, Rest & Motion alongside Bridget Fonda, Phoebe Cates, and Eric Stoltz. The following year, Roth returned to more familiar territory, as a hit man in Little Odessa and as one of the robbers who catalyzes the action of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. After the enormous success of the latter film, the actor appeared the same year in the psychologically terrifying TV adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness alongside John Malkovich, who played the unhinged Kurtz. After a disastrous third collaboration with Tarantino, the critically and commercially disemboweled Four Rooms (1995), Roth had significantly greater success portraying an ominously prissy English nobleman in Rob Roy, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his work, along with a Golden Globe nomination and a British Academy Award. Staying true to his habit of jumping from genre to genre, Roth next appeared as a convict with a jones for Drew Barrymore in Woody Allen's musical comedy Everyone Says I Love You (1996) before playing a mobster in 1930s Harlem in Hoodlum (1997). Roth remained in a down and dirty milieu for his next film, Vondie Curtis-Hall's Gridlock'd, which featured the actor, as well as Thandie Newton and Tupac Shakur, as modern-day heroin addicts. Although the film received critical praise, it failed to make a significant impression at the box office. Roth's subsequent films unfortunately suffered from similarly lackluster performances: 1998's Liar went straight to video and the actor's film with Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore, La Leggenda del Pianista Sull'Oceano, remained mired in obscurity. However, Roth continued to keep busy with other projects, appearing in the 1998 Sundance entry Animals (And the Tollkeeper) and making his directing debut the same year with The War Zone. Though it gained positive critical notice for its' downbeat story of a disfunctional family skidding towards oblivion, the subject matter found the film getting little exposure even though it won multiple film festival awards. Roth's next turn as the menacing General Thade in Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes (2001) would be arguably his most mainstream, prolific and scenery-chewing role to date. As the sinister simian on an obsessive quest to kill Mark Wahlberg's Capt. Leo Davis at any cost, Roth provided more than enough gusto to adequately fill the film's evil villian quota. While the film was a box-office hit, Roth opted to follow it up by returning to more obscure films. However, his visibility was raised considerably in 2004 by a pair of projects. First, he acted alongside the likes of Oscar-winners Chris Cooper and Richard Dreyfuss in director John Sayles' highly-anticipated political film Silver City and then showed up opposite Jennifer Connelly and John C. Reilly in Dark Water.He starred in the 2007 Francis Coppola film Youth Without Youth as well as the English-language remake of Funny Games. He was one of the main players in 2008's The Incredible Hulk, then enjoyed a well-regarded run on the FOX procedural show Lie To Me. In 2010 he played the title character in Pete Smalls Is Dead, and two years later he acted opposite Richard Gere in the drama Arbitrage.

Trivia: A suave, darkly handsome actor reminiscent of the young Sean Connery in looks and charisma, Clive Owen first came to international attention with his sinuous, understated portrayal of the amoral protagonist of Mike Hodges' Croupier (1998). A flop in Britain, where Owen had long been a staple of various BBC TV series, the film was a sleeper hit in the States, its success duly generating a flurry of interest in the relatively unknown actor who lent the film its seductive intensity. A product of Coventry, Warwickshire, Owen got a bumpy start in his chosen career, living on the dole for two years after he left school. Fortunately, respite arrived in the form of an acceptance to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1984, and following his graduation from RADA, the young actor joined the Young Vic Theatre Company, where he performed a number of the classics. Owen broke into TV in 1986 with a guest appearance on the series Boon, and subsequently made his film debut in Beeban Kidron's Vroom (1988), a road movie co-starring David Thewlis and Diana Quick. More television work followed in the form of Chancer, a popular miniseries that cast Owen as its heroic protagonist. The actor also found himself increasingly busy with big-screen performances, turning in a complex portrayal of a man involved in an obsessive and incestuous relationship with his sister (Saskia Reeves) in Close My Eyes (1991). Owen received one of his biggest roles to date in Sean Mathias' 1997 screen adaptation of Martin Sherman's Bent, a Holocaust drama in which Owen starred as a bisexual concentration camp inmate who falls in love with a fellow prisoner (Lothaire Bluteau). Although the film earned a substantial degree of critical acclaim and boasted the talents of such luminaries as Ian McKellen and Mick Jagger, it failed to garner much commercial notice. Owen finally broke through to an international audience with Hodges' Croupier, earning almost unanimous acclaim for his portrayal of a struggling writer who becomes caught up in an intricate scam after taking a job in a casino. He subsequently starred as a prisoner who takes up gardening in Greenfingers, a comedy that also starred Helen Mirren and had its premiere at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival. The actor also remained active on the stage, even as his screen work thrived, starring in the original 1997 London production of Patrick Marber's highly feted Closer, and performing alongside Rachel Weisz and Paul Rhys in Sean Mathias' acclaimed revival of Noël Coward's Design for Living at London's Donmar Warehouse.The new millennium saw Owen appearing in an eclectic range of projects. In 2001, he starred as the only recurring character in BMW's Hire series of ambitious short films by directors such as Ang Lee and Guy Ritchie and also appeared in Robert Altman's acclaimed Gosford Park. Following a memorable supporting performance opposite Matt Damon in 2002's popular The Bourne Identity, Owen moved up to a starring role as an international relief worker who has an affair with Angelina Jolie in 2003's Beyond Borders. The next year, he took on the title role in King Arthur, Antoine Fuqua's non-fantasy retelling of the legendary story, with then it-girl Keira Knightley as his Guinevere. Both Beyond Borders and King Arthur failed to garner much of an audience, with the latter especially disappointing in light of its 120-million-dollar budget. Despite buzz about the possibility of Owen taking over the James Bond role in the iconic series, his prospects as a Hollywood leading man seemed to be faltering. Also in 2004, Owen appeared stateside in a smaller-budget U.K. film from Croupier director Mike Hodges called I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, about a former gangster investigating the mysterious death of his younger brother. Starring an impressive cast that included Charlotte Rampling, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, and Malcolm McDowell, the film was well-received by critics but relegated to only small arthouse exposure in the States. Later that year, Owen appeared in the big-screen adaptation of Closer, directed by Mike Nichols and co-starring such big names as Julia Roberts, Jude Law, and Natalie Portman. In 2005, Owen joined an even more star-studded cast with a role in Robert Rodriguez' adaptation of Frank Miller's comic Sin City, and he would also star opposite Julianne Moore in Savage Grace and Jennifer Aniston in Derailed.His biggest success to date came in early 2006, when he played the criminal mastermind behind a savvy bank heist in director Spike Lee's first blockbuster genre picture, The Inside Man. He would follow that with Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, a futuristic thriller where Owen plays a man protecting a pregnant woman at a time when no human beings have been born in nearly two decades. Owen also took a part in Shekar Kapur's Elizabeth: The Golden Age, a sequel to his Oscar nominated biopic Elizabeth.Owen would spend the following several years enjoying his leading man status with films like Killer Elite, Shadow Dancer, and Blood Ties.

Trivia: After making a memorable impression on audiences as Mel Gibson's doomed love in Braveheart, British actress Catherine McCormack emerged as one of the most promising of Britain's new wave of young actors. Born January 1, 1972, in Hampshire, England, McCormack trained at the Oxford School of Drama. Following some stage and television work, she made her film debut in Anna Campion's Loaded (1994), playing a member of a group of friends who go away for a fairly disastrous weekend retreat. After a turn in the obscure Tashunga (a 1995 film that was released a year later under the title of North Star), McCormack got her break in the epic Braveheart (1995). Although her role was secondary, the huge success of the film won McCormack widespread attention, paving the way for her lead role in the 1997 World War II drama The Land Girls (which also starred fellow up-and-comers Rachel Weisz and Anna Friel). The following year, the actress gained further prominence through the lead role in Dangerous Beauty, in which she played a Venetian courtesan. The same year, she also had a prominent part in Dancing at Lughnasa, a screen adaptation of Brian Friel's acclaimed play, starring Meryl Streep. In 1999, McCormack headlined yet another film, with her turn in the British comedy This Year's Love, in which she co-starred with fellow rising stars Dougray Scott, Jennifer Ehle, and Ian Hart. In the years to come, McCormack would remain active on screen, appearing in films like 28 Weeks Later, and starring on the series Lights Out.Her onscreen career subsequently stalled by a series of weighty roles in such high profile but only moderately successfuls films as Shadow of the Vampire, The Tailor of Panama, and Spy Game, McCormack nevertheless managed to make an impression on stage in such efforts as the SoHo Theater production of Kiss Me Like You Mean It and the West End production of Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind. Later making her directorial debut with a West End production of Anna Weiss, McCormack was nominated for as Best Supporting Actress at the 2001 Oliver Awards for her memorable performance in a British National Theater production of Arthur Miller's All My Sons. In 2005 McCormack would go hunting for the fearsome baboonasaurus in the notorious flop A Sound of Thunder, with voice work in the visually extravagant 2006 sci fi action entry Renaissance marking the actress' first foray into the world of animation.

Trivia: An enormously popular British comedian known as much for his transvestitism as he is for his excoriating social observations, Eddie Izzard is one of the most gleefully unpredictable -- to say nothing of contradictory -- performers to have sabotaged the stage and screen during the late 20th century.Born in Yemen on February 7, 1962, Izzard grew up in Wales and Northern Ireland. Following his mother's death when he was six, Izzard found some degree of solace in comedy, particularly the works of Monty Python, Steve Martin, Richard Pryor, and the early Benny Hill. He began doing stand-up at college and, after being ingloriously kicked out of school, he took his act to the streets. Izzard refined his material -- which largely revolved around personal experiences, politics, and social issues -- over the next decade, and in the early '90s, he finally began earning some measure of recognition. His stand-up work brought him British Comedy Awards in 1993 and 1996, and with popular and critical approval thus in hand, Izzard began appearing in films.Izzard's supporting roles in The Avengers and Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine (both 1998) were concurrent with his first internationally acclaimed tour, Dress to Kill. The tour helped to establish him on both sides of the Atlantic, allowing the comedian to begin the new century on an exceptionally positive note. 2000 saw him co-starring in Shadow of the Vampire, a fictional depiction of the filming of the 1922 Nosferatu; the film's cast also included John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, and Stephen Fry.Izzard continued his highly successful stand-up appearances while maintaining a presence in movies. He played Charlie Chaplin in Peter Bogdanovich's The Cat's Meow, attempted to steal a couple of scenes from the crew in Ocean's Twelve, appeared in Ivan Reitman's My Super Ex-Girlfriend, and offered his vocal talents to the animated film The Wild.In 2007 he appeared as Mr. Kite in Julie Taymor's Across the Universe. The next year he voiced one of the main characters in the animated film Igor and appeared in the historical thriller Valkyrie. He went on to do two more comedy concert films before voicing the entrepreneur Miles Axlerod in Pixar's Cars 2. In 2012 he appeared in Snow White and the Huntsman.

Trivia: Born in a German refugee camp, actor Saul Rubinek was raised in Canada, where he began his career. After several years of activity with the Toronto Free Theater, the versatile Rubinek headed for New York, where he worked in repertory and on Broadway. Rubinek's performance as the best friend of religious cult member Nick Mancuso in the little-seen Ticket to Heaven (1981) was a critical coup for the actor. A reliable presence in such meaty supporting roles as the Ned Buntline-ish dime novelist in The Unforgiven (1994), and Hollywood producer Lee Donowitz in True Romance, Rubinek would spend the coming decades working steadily in films like I Love Trouble and Nixon, as well as on TV shows like A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Frasier, Blind Justice, and Warehouse 13.

Trivia: Family is Jewish.Father is a British restaurateur and mother is an American film and theatre producer.Has dual citizenship in the United Kingdom and the United States.Made his West End debut in The Entertainer opposite Kenneth Branagh, playing his son.The Evening Standard featured him in their Progress 1000: London's Most Influential People in 2016, 2017, and 2018.

Trivia: Julian Wadham understands what it was like for boy actors to play female roles in the Shakespeare era. When he was attending Ampleforth College Junior School -- a Catholic academy in Yorkshire for boys eight to 13 -- he portrayed Queen Elizabeth I in a school play. The experience not only taught him a lesson in stage history, but it also trained him in the rudiments of acting and whet his appetite for theater. Today, critics recognize him as one of Britain's better actors. His roles in Our Country's Good, Serious Money, and Another Country helped those dramas win Best Play Laurence Olivier Awards in the 1980s. He also won Royal Television Society Awards for Goodbye Cruel World in 1992 and Blind Justice in 1989. If one may gauge an actor -- in part, at least -- by the reputation of his co-stars, then Wadham measures up. Among the actors with whom he has exchanged dialogue are Bob Hoskins, John Hurt, Gérard Depardieu, Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Ian Holm, Ben Kingsley, and Wendy Hiller.Wadham was born in England on August 7, 1958. After graduating from London's Central School of Speech and Drama in 1980, he performed in various television and stage productions over the next decade, earning a 1983 nomination as Most Promising Newcomer from the London Theatre Critics for his role in Falkland South. In the 1990s, he achieved worldwide recognition for roles as Sir James Chettam in the acclaimed TV miniseries Middlemarch and Madox in the Oscar-winning film The English Patient. His role as Queen Elizabeth in his youth foreshadowed later parts as government leaders, including portrayals of William Pitt in The Madness of King George, the prime minister in The Commissioner, King Polixines in The Winter's Tale, and the assistant commissioner in The Secret Agent. His good looks and aristocratic bearing make him a popular choice among casting directors seeking a proper gentleman at home with beautiful women and high society. Wadham performs frequently for Britain's National Theatre in productions of such esteemed directors and producers as Richard Eyre, Harold Pinter, Peter Gill, Stuart Burge, and Max Stafford-Clark.

Trivia: An alluring red-headed siren and a genial presence in U.S. theatrical films and television during the first decades of the new millennium, actress Amy Sloan first caught the attention of viewers when cast in the 2000 telemovie A Diva's Christmas Carol, starring Vanessa Williams as an aggressive and acid-mouthed variant on Ebenezer Scrooge. Sloan then teamed with the gifted director Euzhan Palcy (of Sugar Cane Alley and A Dry White Season fame) for a small supporting role in the gritty, sobering prison drama The Killing Yard (2001). After a spin as a reporter in the made-for-cable production No Ordinary Baby, Sloan once again demonstrated her keen instinct for picking exemplary filmmakers as collaborators, by signing on to work with acclaimed stage director Peter Masterson in the psychological thriller Lost Junction. Unfortunately, this -- like The Killing Yard -- failed to generate substantial recognition, and a supporting role in the disappointing Halle Berry/Robert Downey Jr. thriller Gothika (2003) (as an inmate) provided Sloan with only a small amount of screen time. Sloan fared better -- and received slightly higher billing -- as Sheila on television's popular Gilmore Girls and as Wendy on the short-lived 2007 series Big Shots.