Trivia: The quiet yet dynamic screen presence of actor Joe Mantegna has made him one of the most powerful supporting actors in Hollywood. Born in Chicago, Mantegna made his acting debut in the 1969 production of Hair. He then joined Chicago's Organic Theatre Company. In 1978, he debuted on Broadway in Working; he also helped write Bleacher Bums, an award-winning play. Still, he did not become well-known until he played a recurring role on the TV show Soap. By 1983 he'd returned to Chicago, where he began working with playwright David Mamet. While playing the lead in Mamet's play Glengarry Glen Ross (1983), Mantegna won a Tony. When Mamet began making films, Mantegna became his actor of choice in works such as House of Games (1987) and Homicide (1991). Prior to that, the actor had played small roles in a number of other films. He also continues to play in a variety of movie genres, working with some of Hollywood's top directors. Mantegna turned producer in 1998 with the crime comedy Jerry and Tom. That trend continued on the small screen as Montenga produced such shows as Midway USA's Gun Stories, Shooting Gallery, and QuickBites, but it was his role as a regular on the CBS series Joan of Arcadia that really kept him in the public eye. Continually returning to his recurring role as Fat Tony on The Simpsons over the next decade, Montegna joined the cast of the hit television series Criminal Minds in 2007, and recieved an Emmy nomination for his performance in the successful mini-series The Starter Wife that same year.

Trivia: Versatile as well as tall, dark, and handsome, Thomas Gibson has moved easily between TV stardom and a varied movie career working with some of the industry's major names. Born and raised in Charleston, Gibson found his calling as a child, making his acting debut at age ten in children's theater productions. Though he attended the College of Charleston, Gibson relocated when he won a scholarship to New York's prestigious Juilliard School. After earning his B.F.A., Gibson made his professional New York theater debut in 1985. Gibson spent the rest of the 1980s doing theater, as well as branching out into television with two seasons on the daytime drama Another World and the TV movie Gore Vidal's Lincoln (1988).Gibson made the transition to films in style with a co-starring role opposite Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Ron Howard's glossy Irish-American epic Far and Away (1992). Along with playing a bit part in Martin Scorsese's lush The Age of Innocence (1993), Gibson further distinguished himself that year with larger roles in the critically praised PBS miniseries Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City and French-Canadian director Denys Arcand's first English-language film, the contemporary drama Love and Human Remains (1993).Gibson subsequently appeared in the second part of Whit Stillman's preppy trilogy, Barcelona (1994), and in the indie Sleep With Me (1994), but he became better-known to TV audiences that year on the CBS hospital drama Chicago Hope. After three seasons on the show, Gibson became an even more prominent TV presence in 1997 when he was cast as the straight-laced husband Greg to Jenna Elfman's hippie Dharma on the ABC sitcom Dharma and Greg. In addition to the memorable role of Greg, Gibson would appear in a number of feature films, like Eyes Wide Shut, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, and Psycho Beach Party, as well as subsuquent TV series, like the the proceedural Criminal Minds.

Trivia: California-born Shemar Moore parlayed a successful modeling stint into an acting career that began in 1994 with a lead role on the soap opera The Young and the Restless. Moore played Malcolm Winters for eight years, and earned a Daytime Emmy for his performance in 2000. After leaving The Young and the Restless, Moore landed a role on the short-lived WB superhero series Birds of Prey. A prominent supporting role in the surprise hit Diary of a Mad Black Woman followed in 2005, and that same year, he was cast on the CBS drama Criminal Minds alongside Mandy Patinkin and Thomas Gibson. In 2007, Moore made headlines in the gossip rags for a DUI arrest. He would go on to star on the proceedural Criminal Minds.

Trivia: Las Vegas native Matthew Gray Gubler got his show-business start as a fashion model, working for designers like Tommy Hilfiger. After graduating from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 2002, Gubler appeared in his first feature film, playing one of the interns in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in 2004. He soon followed that performance with a starring role in the series Criminal Minds, playing the young genius Dr. Spencer Reid. He also made a small appearance in the comedy RV before signing on to appear in The Great Buck Howard. He had a major supporting role in (500) Days of Summer, but has probably had his largest success voicing the part of Simon, the nerdy member of the rodent trio at the heart of three Alvin and the Chipmunks movies.

Trivia: Canadian-born A.J. Cook trained as a competitive dancer before beginning her acting career at age 17 in the children's TV series Goosebumps. She started out in small roles on made-for-TV dramas until her first big break as one of the blonde Lisbon sisters in The Virgin Suicides. She went on to a recurring role on Higher Ground, a Fox Family Channel series about teens in boot camp, where she played the love interest of fellow Canadian Hayden Christensen prior to his role of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones. After another TV movie and the snowboarding comedy Out Cold, Cook found her niche as a lead actress in horror movies with Ripper: Letter From Hell in 2001. She then headlined a number of other thrillers, including Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell, The House Next Door, and Final Destination 2. In 2005, she began her run in the series Criminal Minds, playing special agent Jennifer "JJ" Jareau. Cook took on a supporting role in the romantic comedy I'm Reed Fish in 2006, and starred in director Ron Satlof's comedy Misconceptions in 2008. The actress took another lead role in 2011 for Bringing Ashley Home, a docudrama following a woman (Cook) determined to find her sister when she suddenly goes missing. Cook returned to the horror genre in 2013, with Wer. A member of the Mormon church, Cook lives in Salt Lake City, UT, with her husband, Nathan Andersen.

Trivia: Like a lot of showbiz hopefuls, Kirsten Vangsness has had her share of day jobs. After paying the bills as a substitute teacher, child counselor, and dinner-theater actress, Vangsness found her big break when she was cast in a Pepsi commercial. Soon afterward, she scored the role of Penelope Garcia on the hit show Criminal Minds in 2004. She made her feature film debut in the thriller In My Sleep.

Trivia: Actress Paget Brewster got her first big break with a recurring role on Friends in 1997 playing Chandler's girlfriend Kathy. A regular stint on the most popular show on television was just the springboard that the actress needed to build up her resumé, and soon she was cast in the cult hit Andy Richter Controls the Universe and the Showtime series Huff. In 2006, she had a prominent role in the family comedy Unaccompanied Minors, and later that same year, she joined the cast of the series Criminal Minds. She has also, most notably, provided the voice of Birdgirl for the Adult Swim series Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.

Trivia: As the eldest member of the Cusack acting dynasty -- the sister of John, Joan, Susie, and Bill Cusack -- Ann Cusack was raised, like her siblings, in the affluent Chicago suburb of Evanston, but achieved fame and success as a comedic actress somewhat later than the others. Born in 1961, Cusack received her formal education at the Piven Theater Workshop (studying basic improvisation with Joyce and Byrne Piven) and later at New York University's Tisch School for the Arts, where she studied dramatic performance under the aegis of the legendary playwright and theatrical and film director David Mamet. Cusack landed her premier feature-film role at the age of 30, as Shirley Baker, a WWII-era baseball player with a more than slight illiteracy problem, in Penny Marshall's summer 1992 comedy A League of Their Own (alongside Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Madonna, and Rosie O'Donnell). In the process, Cusack imparted to the film some of its biggest and most unanticipated laughs -- no mean feat, given that cast.The turn did not go unnoticed, and parts rolled in steadily for the remainder of the 1990s and into the 2000s. The characterizations began small, with low billing -- such as that of a waitress in Harold Becker's poorly received 1993 thriller Malice, and that of a TV woman in Mike Nichols' 1996 La Cage aux Folles redo The Birdcage. Not long after, however, Cusack received her highest television billing (up through that time) when cast as Karen Foxworthy, TV wife and second-string to redneck-obsessed comedian Jeff Foxworthy, in the second season (1996-1997) of the short-lived sitcom The Jeff Foxworthy Show. Unfortunately, the show folded in 1997.The parts continued unabated, however, in films of varying reception. Cusack teamed up with her brothers John and Bill and sister Joan, as well as Dan Aykroyd and Minnie Driver, in the sadly overlooked dark comedy Grosse Pointe Blank (1997, a work that John co-produced and co-scripted). Ann fared worse (as did the entire cast) by signing on for a re-team with director Mike Nichols in that helmer's 2000 turkey What Planet Are You From?, starring Annette Bening and Garry Shandling. Cusack then made intermittent appearances on such series programs as Charmed and Frasier during the late '90s and early 2000s. In 2006, Cusack essayed the supporting role of Deanna in Aaron Wiederspahn's The Sensation of Sight (2006), a moody, evocative drama (and festival cause célèbre) about a dissatisfied middle-class man (David Strathairn) who drops out of his life and takes a job selling encyclopedias.

Trivia: Inasmuch as there was already a Wally Cox, American actor Walter Edward Cox chose the stage name Bud Cort when applying for his Equity card. Straight off the stage, Cort was cast in the small role of an intern browbeaten into tears by Robert Duvall in M*A*S*H* (1970). This brief appearance was enough to encourage M*A*S*H director Robert Altman to entrust Cort with the lead in his next film, Brewster McCloud (1971), a Vonnegut-like pastiche about a flying boy. Cort was not "standard leading man" material, thus many of his roles were in the offbeat vein of Brewster McCloud, even in more down-to-earth material like The Strawberry Statement (1971). Thus Cort was in many ways perfect for the suicidal teen protagonist of Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude (1972), whose life would be turned inside out (and back on track) by septuagenarian "free spirit" Ruth Gordon. It wasn't that Cort quit acting after Harold and Maude; it's simply that many of his subsequent films tried too hard to emulate Harold and Maude's cult status, and fell so short of this goal as to be forgettable. The later Cort films in this "midnight movie wannabe" vein included Electric Dreams (1984), Invaders From Mars (1989), Love at Stake (1991), and Ted & Venus (1992), a charmingly outdated "crazy for love" opus which Cort also directed.

Trivia: A successful character actress most adept at playing matronly types, Beth Grant took her onscreen bow in the late '80s and began tackling innumerable roles in Hollywood features, usually bit parts as housewives, female doctors, or down-home small-town women. Grant received her first feature assignment as a harried mother at a farmhouse in Barry Levinson's Rain Man (1988). She subsequently divided her time between film and television roles, guest-acting on dozens of series and occasionally taking on more extensive small-screen roles, such as on Coach and Jericho. Grant's many big-screen credits include the films Don't Tell Her It's Me (1990), Speed (1994), Donnie Darko (2001), and Little Miss Sunshine (2006). She was particularly memorable in the latter, as one of the snotty and obnoxious pageant judges. Darko represented Grant's first experience working with helmer Richard Kelly; she re-teamed with Kelly for his follow-up, the dystopian black comedy Southland Tales (2005).

Trivia: The actress whose convincing portrayal of one of Buffalo Bill's potential victims in The Silence of the Lambs had audiences squirming in their seats, Brooke Smith has subsequently built an enduring career with memorable roles in such efforts as Robert Altman's Kansas City (1996) and the searing reality television satire Series 7: The Contenders (2001). Born the daughter of renowned publicist Lois Smith and raised in New York City, Brooke was immersed in show business from the moment she left the womb. A graduate of Tappan Zee High School, Smith is also a professional journalist whose published interviews with such stars as Ed Harris and Steve Buscemi have earned her kudos in the world of entertainment journalism. Smith made her film debut in the 1988 drama The Moderns, and it was only three short years later that her breakthrough role in The Silence of the Lambs would launch a successful career working with some of the most respected names in the business. Directed by everyone from Louis Malle (Vanya on 42nd Street) to Sydney Pollack (Random Hearts), Smith can usually be spotted in minor, albeit sometimes pivotal supporting roles that always serve to elevate any project in which she appears. In 2001 Smith took the lead, to memorable effect, in 2001's Series 7: The Contenders. A film that took the concept of reality television to the next level, Series 7 found Smith cast as an expectant mother who becomes a participant in a deadly television series in which participants are expected to kill or be killed. Smith's performance as the ice-cold participant who seems to derive pleasure from tormenting her opponents gave the film a disturbing edge that left audiences chilled to the core. Subsequently appearing in the Coen brothers' The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) and Joel Schumacher's big-budget action opus Bad Company, it seemed that Smith might finally be on her way to becoming a recognizable figure in the world of film.

Trivia: With an astonishing resumé that incorporates everything from Seinfeld to Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill, character actor Toby Huss qualifies as a staple of American pop culture. Born December 12, 1966 in Marshalltown, IA (the birthplace of many an actor or actress), Huss grew up in the American heartland, then briefly attended the University of Iowa after high school before dropping out and heading to Tinseltown. The elusiveness of Huss' name recognition is tied inextricably to his versatility -- most viewers will remember such inimitable creations as Cotton Hill (on Mike Judge's King of the Hill); Artie -- The Strongest Man in the World (on The Adventures of Pete & Pete); and The Wiz ("Nobody beats me, cause I'm the Wiz!"), a nutty appliance salesman who dates Elaine, on Seinfeld -- but only the most incisive of viewers could tie them to the same person. Huss also portrayed Felix "Stumpy" Dreifuss on the HBO period drama Carnivàle (2003-2005) and Big Mike on the irreverent Comedy Central series Reno 911! (2003-2007). In addition to his television work, Huss has graced nearly 40 feature films with his presence, and nearly all are laugh-fests that take full advantage of the actor's comic flair. These include: Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996), Harold Ramis' Bedazzled (2000), and The Country Bears (2002). As Beavis and Bears demonstrate, Huss is particularly adept at voice work.

Trivia: Moved to Los Angeles with his mother when he was 15 to pursue his dream of being an actor. Won various acting awards at a talent competition in Florida; a photographer saw his potential and recommended an agent. Appeared in adverts for PlayStation, Progressive Insurance and Moviefone. Landed his first TV role as Seth Wosmer on Disney's Phil of the Future in 2004. Over the course of American Horror Story, he played a frat boy, a young serial killer and a 1950s carnival performer.

Trivia: Born September 18th, 1970, actress, comedian, author, reality-show host, and occasional scriptwriter Aisha Tyler came of age in San Francisco and studied poly sci at Dartmouth College before mounting a (brief) career as an advertising executive in her hometown. Dissatisfied by this pursuit, and pining to launch herself as a full-time entertainer, Tyler "dropped out" of the corporate world and hit the road with a solo standup comedy act in the mid-'90s.Around 2001 -- after five years in Los Angeles with occasional standup bookings and concomitantly limited acclaim and recognition -- Tyler landed two huge breaks, first as the host of the irreverent Talk Soup during that program's final year (a position she inherited from Greg Kinnear, John Henson, and others), and then as the primary host of the dating series The 5th Wheel. Riding the crest of popularity generated by reality television during the first several years of the millennium, Wheel coupled the unscripted spontaneity of The Real World and Survivor with the format of the dating series Blind Date. Its premise involved setting two couples up on blind dates, having them "swap" partners, and adding an unforeseen fifth member (the "wheel" of the title) to stir things up and add provocation. The program placed a greater emphasis on erotic and suggestive content than Blind and -- perhaps as a result -- it unsurprisingly became a massive, runaway hit.The ever-ambitious Tyler, however, continued to expand her horizons. She maintained a short tenure with Wheel and quickly moved on to other endeavors, placing a particularly strong emphasis on television work. This included a stint as Charlie (the only recurring African-American cast member) in the final two seasons of the popular sitcom Friends, and a recurring role as covert terrorist Marianne Taylor on the weekly suspenser 24. Tyler also portrayed attorney Andrea Moreno (who dies in a car crash but is then "ushered" over to the other side by Jennifer Love Hewitt's psychic) in the first season (2005-2006) of the supernatural drama The Ghost Whisperer. After that, Tyler segued into feature-film work, with bit roles in such pictures as The Santa Clause 3 and .45.Six feet tall and one of the most physically breathtaking young actresses of her generation, Tyler frequently provides beauty tips in such magazines as Ebony and Glamour; she is also an outspoken proponent of physical fitness and a strenuous exerciser who pushes herself to an almost unimaginable degree. A February 2007 issue of In Style magazine reported, "In addition to scaling walls, Tyler runs, uses a rowing machine, lifts weights, snowboards and scuba dives. But for her, nothing beats the mental rush of rock climbing." In 2004, Tyler also authored and published the best-seller Swerve: Reckless Observations of a Postmodern Girl, a free-form, witty expostulation on such "hot" topics as men, bikini waxing, reality television, dating wars, sex, and body image.After filming several unremarkable movies throughout the mid-2000s, the actress found success on Archer, a television series that features Tyler as a dedicated but deadly agent for ISIS, a secret intelligence unit in New York City. While she continued work on Archer, she landed the job of co-host on The Talk, and later, host of the revamped Whose Line Is It Anyway? As if that weren't enough, Tyler also landed a recurring role on Criminal Minds in 2015.

Trivia: Studied conducting under David Zinman and Murry Sidlin at Aspen Music Festival and under Leonard Slatkin at the National Conducting Institute in Washington, D.C. Appointed an American Conducting Fellow of the Houston Symphony in 2004, and an assistant conductor of Kansas City Symphony in 2006. Has been a guest conductor at many orchestras, including Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Monte Carlo Philharmonic, and NHK Orchestra of Tokyo. Made his Broadway acting debut in the play Clybourne Park in 2012.

Trivia: Launching her performing career in her native Tulsa, Jeanne Tripplehorn spent several years as a local radio DJ and TV host. Educated at both the University of Oklahoma and Juilliard, Born June 10th, 1963, Tripplehorn was first seen on a nationwide basis in 1991 in a supporting role in the made-for-TV movie The Perfect Tribute, a fictionalized retelling of the events leading up to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Many of Tripplehorn's film characterizations have ranged from mildly eccentric to deeply disturbed, thanks in great part to her breakthrough appearance as Michael Douglas' "rough sex" partner in the erotic chiller Basic Instinct (1992). She got a chance to play normal -- albeit frazzled -- as Hugh Grant's fiancée in the romantic comedy Mickey Blue Eyes (1999); in 2000, she returned to rougher territory as a lesbian gangster in Mike Figgis' experimental ensemble film Timecode. In 2006 Tripplehorn found success on the small screen for her role as Barb Henrickson, a devout Mormon who often struggles with her polygamous lifestyle, in the HBO drama series Big Love.