Trivia: An actor whose hulking presence belies his ability to slip quietly into an astonishing variety of roles, Vincent D'Onofrio is one of Hollywood's most unpredictable and compelling performers. Throughout his career, D'Onofrio has played a diverse range of characters, from Full Metal Jacket's fatally unhinged army recruit to a wholly convincing Orson Welles in Ed Wood to a bisexual porn star in The Velocity of Gary.Born in Brooklyn, NY, on June 30, 1959, D'Onofrio was raised in the diverse locales of Hawaii, Colorado, and Miami's Hialeah section. His career as an actor began on the stage, with study under Sonia Moore of New York's American Stanislavsky Theatre and Sharon Chatten at the Actors Studio. D'Onofrio's early years in the theater were filled with an obligatory helping of obscurity and miniscule paychecks (so miniscule that he worked for a time as a bouncer to help pay the bills). His fortunes began to shift in 1984, when he joined the American Stanislavsky Theatre as a performer. There, he appeared in such well-regarded productions as Of Mice and Men and David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and also made his Broadway debut in Open Admissions.D'Onofrio debuted onscreen in the straight-to-oblivion 1983 comedy The First Turn-On!, but it was not until his haunting portrayal of Pvt. Pyle (a role for which the actor gained 70 pounds) four years later in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket that he earned much-deserved notice for his work. Defying easy categorization, D'Onofrio next appeared in the romantic comedy Mystic Pizza (1988), slimming down to his normal weight and giving a convincing portrayal as Lili Taylor's lovestruck boyfriend.Having thus given audiences a glimpse of his remarkable versatility, D'Onofrio spent the next few years making his presence felt in such films as JFK (1991), in which he played assassination witness Bill Newman; The Player (1992), which cast him in the pivotal role of ill-fated screenwriter David Kahane; and Nancy Savoca's Household Saints (1993), which, through a particularly odd feat of casting, had him playing the father of Lili Taylor. Although D'Onofrio worked at a prolific pace, it was not until he portrayed Conan the Barbarian author Robert E. Howard in the 1996 The Whole Wide World that he really had his screen breakthrough. A low-key romantic drama about the relationship between Howard and a schoolteacher (Renée Zellweger), the film allowed D'Onofrio to take center stage, rather than lend support to better-known co-stars. Critics roundly applauded his performance, but although the actor kept working steadily, he was by no means a Hollywood fixture. Eschewing the limelight, he turned in particularly memorable performances in Feeling Minnesota (1996) as Cameron Diaz's cuckolded fiancé and in the 1997 blockbuster Men in Black, which cast him as the film's resident bad guy.D'Onofrio had long since become an established actor by the 2000's, and he would remain a solid force on screen in such films as The Cell, Happy Accidents, Steal This Movie, andThumbsucker. D'Onofrio would also find just as much notoriety on the small screen, most notably as Detective Robert Goren on the phenomenally successful Law & Order spin-off Criminal Intent, and even step behind the camera, penning, helming and starring in the drama Mall.

Trivia: Born and raised in the Boston area, Erbe left her hometown to study drama at New York University. After making her TV debut as Lynn Redgrave's daughter on the short-lived TV sitcom Chicken Soup (1989), she returned to New York and was cast in the acclaimed 1990 Broadway production of The Grapes of Wrath. Erbe soon scored her first major film credit as Richard Dreyfuss' daughter in the Bill Murray comedy What About Bob? (1991) and alternated stage work as a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Atlantic Theatre Company with TV and films throughout the 1990s, most notably in Rich in Love (1992), George Wallace (1997), Kiss of Death (1995), The Addiction, (1995), and Stir of Echoes. Erbe also earned major acclaim on the HBO series Oz. As the 2000's unfolded for the actress, she found continued success in TV, playing the role of Detective Alexandra Eames on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Trivia: Character actor Jamey Sheridan has had a prolific acting career in theater, television, and film productions. Born in California to a family of actors, he made it to Broadway and earned a Tony nomination in 1987 for his performance in the revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons. After several TV movie appearances, he landed a reoccurring role as lawyer Jack Shannon on Shannon's Deal, which ran for one season in 1990. His later television roles include Dr. John Sutton on Chicago Hope (from 1995-1996) and Captain Deakins on Law & Order: Criminal Intent (since 2001). Sheridan started his film career in the late '80s with small roles, and by the '90s he was playing the token family man, a role he would continue in both film and television. He was also capable of playing villains, as he did in the 1994 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand. Other interesting roles include Marty Stouffer in Wild America and the psychotic neighbor in Video Voyeur: The Susan Wilson Story. After a long history of performing Shakespeare on the stage, Sheridan appeared in Campbell Scott's production of Hamlet in 2000 as well as the Hamlet-inspired modern noir film Let the Devil Wear Black in 1999. He's also given fine supporting performances in The Ice Storm, Cradle Will Rock, Life as a House, and numerous TV movies. In teh early 2000s Sheriden frequently alternated between film and television, though it was his role on the popular detective series Law and Order: Criminal Intent that offered him the most exposure. It was during his five year run on that show that he was diagnosed with Bell's palsy, a nerve disorder that temporarily causes partial facial paralysis, and the writers ultimately incorporated that condition into the show. In 2011 Sheridan joined the cast of the Showtime drama Homeland, which centered on a Marine sergeant and war hero who returns home to the U.S. after eight years missing in Iraq, only to be pursued by a CIA officer who's convinced he's been turned into a terrosit by Al-Qaeda.Sheridan and his wife, actress Colette Kilroy, have two children.

Trivia: Although he had been appearing in both film and television productions since the mid-'80s, it took nearly two decades for actor Courtney B. Vance to finally receive recognition. The Detroit native was bitten by the acting bug while a student at Harvard, and though he had originally intended to study history, he felt the lure of the stage and was soon appearing in productions at Harvard before eventually joining the Boston Shakespeare Company. After graduation, Vance continued his acting career at the Yale School of Drama, and it was there that he first gained notice for his role opposite James Earl Jones in the August Wilson drama Fences. In 1987, Vance made his film debut in the war drama Hamburger Hill, and though he remained true to his stage roots in the ensuing years, screen roles kept rolling in. The actor climbed the credits throughout the 1990s with a series of supporting roles in The Hunt for Red October (1990), Beyond the Law (1992), and The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993). 1995 proved something of a breakthrough year for the rising star, with roles in Panther, Dangerous Minds, and The Last Supper offering him more screen time than ever. In 1996, Vance held his own as a minister opposite Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston in The Preacher's Wife. Drawing from his own faith -- which had recently been reawakened by the suicide of his father -- for the role, Vance also had memorable performances in Cookie's Fortune in 1999 and Space Cowboys the following year. He portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in the dramatic miniseries Parting the Waters (2000) and made another solid impression on television viewers the next year with a role in the popular series Law & Order: Criminal Intent.Vance would stick with the series for five years, concurrently appearing on the long-running medical drama ER. By the time he had finished his run on both programs, he was on to the science fictions series Flash Forward from 2009-2010, before signing on to appear alongside Michael Biehn in the post-apocalyptic horror flick The Divide in 2011.

Trivia: A graduate of the Juilliard School, Viola Davis built an exceptional background in theater productions and has continued to perform on-stage throughout her television and film career. Making her feature-film debut in 1996 as a nurse in The Substance of Fire, she followed that up with several TV movies and guest-star appearances on dramatic series like Law & Order and NYPD Blue. She went on to play another nurse in City of Angels, a hospital drama with a predominately African-American cast that didn't last long on CBS. She began collaborating with Steven Soderbergh for Out of Sight, and went on to star in two of the director's next few films, Traffic and Solaris. In 2001, she appeared in Kate and Leopold and in Oprah Winfrey's television presentation of Amy & Isabelle. The next year she played parts in both Far From Heaven and Denzel Washington's directorial debut, Antwone Fisher.Davis continued to work steadily in a variety of notable projects including Steven Soderbergh's Solaris, Syriana, and played a notable part in the television movie biopic of American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino. However, in 2008 she landed the small but crucial role of the mother in John Patrick Shanley's adaptation of his award-winning play Doubt. Although her screen time is minimal, her indelible performance garnered her Best Supporting Actress nominations from the Hollywood Foreign Press, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Academy. Davis became a well known entity almost instantly, and was soon filling her docket with projects like 2009's State of Play, 2010's Knight and Day and Eat Pray Love, and an arc on the series United States of Tara.Davis next appeared in the box office hit 2011 big screen adaptation of Kathryn Sockett 's period novel The Help, garnering still more praise as well as Best Actress nominations from the Academy, BAFTA, the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Golden Globes, and the Screen Actors Guild. Her performance was still making waves when the critics began lauding her agian, this time for her role in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close that same year.

Trivia: Played on the varsity football team in high school. Competed in a Golden Gloves amateur boxing competition at Madison Square Garden at the age of 17, but was soon after diagnosed with elbow tendinitis, ending his boxing career. Made his stage debut in his high school's production of Kismet. In 1999, played the role of Mitch in the Hartford Stage's production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Performed on Broadway as Mike in the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Pal Joey in 2009.

Trivia: S. Epatha Merkerson is a Tony-nominated and Obie-winning, African-American stage actress, but is best known for her portrayal of detective squad chief Lt. Anita Van Buren in the series Law and Order. Born and raised in Detroit as the youngest of five children, she was a fine arts graduate of Wayne State University and began her New York theater career in the late 1970s. Merkerson was nominated for a Tony award for Best Actress for her performance as Berniece in The Piano Lesson and won an Obie award in 1992 for her work in I'm Not Stupid. Her screen credits include Jacob's Ladder and Loose Cannons and, perhaps most visibly, her role as Joe Morton's terrified wife in James Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Merkerson made her television debut as Reba, the Mail Lady on Pee Wee's Playhouse, and has appeared on The Cosby Show, among other series, but her most important single television appearance may have been in the first season Law and Order show "Mushrooms," in which she portrayed the grief-stricken mother of an 11-month-old boy who is shot accidentally. Her work was not only memorable to the audience during that key first season, but also to the producers, who later picked Merkerson for the role of the new detective squad chief in the series' fourth season--a role she continued to play for over ten years. Merkerson's talent on the small screen led to roles in numerous TV movies such as Breaking Through and A Mother's Prayer, as well as roles in such films as Radio and The Rising Place. Still, her monumental gifts in both presence and interpretation may not have truly been utilized until she took the part of a strong matriarch who runs a 1960's boarding house in HBO's mini series Lackawanna Blues. Her first leading role in almost twenty years on screen, her performance earned her an Emmy Award as well as a Golden Globe. After her triumphant turn in Lackawanna Blues she returned to the big-screen in Craig Brewer's follow-up to Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan co-starring Christina Ricci and Samuel L. Jackson.Over the coming years, Merkerson would appear in a number of films, like The Six Wives of Henry Lefay and Mother and Child.

Trivia: Devotees of HBO will have little trouble pinpointing actress Susie Essman; she made one of her most indelible impressions as the brassy, bossy, acid-mouthed Susie Greene, wife of Larry David's manager Jeff Greene (Jeff Garlin), on the quirky sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm. Essman grew up in Mount Vernon, NY, as the daughter of two prosperous Jewish parents: an internist father and a college professor mother who taught Russian at nearby Sarah Lawrence College. She began her career as a stand-up comedian and entered films courtesy of the Tom Hanks/Sally Field seriocomedy Punchline (1988) (as -- fittingly -- a comedian), but hit her stride with Curb, which debuted in 2002. Essman subsequently participated in director Penn Jillette's monologue-heavy raunchfest The Aristocrats (2005) and hosted the Bravo network's competition-themed reality series Better Half (2007), before voicing a cat in the family-oriented animated comedy Bolt (2008). In 2010 she appeared in Kevin Smith's action comedy Cop Out.

Trivia: Beulah Quo is the founder of one of America's first Asian-American repertory groups, the East West Players. The Emmy-nominated actress embarked on a lucrative film and television career following her film debut in 1955's Love Is a Many Splendored Thing. Born Beulah Kwoh in Stockton, CA, the future dialog coach-cum-actress earned a bachelor's degree in social welfare at the University of California, later obtaining a master's in sociology from the University of Chicago. Subsequently, Quo and her family relocated to China so she could find work as a teacher, but she and her family fled the country on a U.S. destroyer, just as the Communists took over shortly after World War II. It was while working as a sociology teacher at a small community college that Quo received news that director Henry King was searching for an Asian dialect coach for his film Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, and after meeting with the director, King cast Quo in a small role in the film. Her career took off shortly thereafter. Quo appeared in such films as Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962) and Chinatown (1974) before receiving an Emmy nomination for her role as a dowager empress in 1978's Meeting of Minds. Joining the cast of television's General Hospital in 1985, Quo would remain on the soap opera for six years. She also appeared in such films as Bad Girls (1994) and Brokedown Palace (1999). In her later years, Quo's final feature role was in the 2001 film Forbidden City. In late October of 2002, Beulah Quo died of heart failure in La Mesa, CA. She was 79.

Trivia: Debuted on Broadway at age 17 in Abby's Song. Has appeared in commercials for Burger King, Coca-Cola, Ford and Toyota. Like his My Generation character, is a real-life musician.

Trivia: Frequently mislabeled as a performance artist, Eric Bogosian is a writer and an actor known for his comedic monologues and social commentary. Born on the East Coast and educated in the Midwest, he wrote and performed numerous one-man shows around New York during the late '70s and early '80s. After doing shows in art spaces like The Kitchen, he eventually had his solo work Fun House committed to video. The 1987 production was taped in front of a live audience. During this time he had also started acting in other people's projects, including Robert Altman's made-for-TV movie The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. The next year, he teamed with Oliver Stone for the film version of his off-Broadway show Talk Radio, starring himself as D.J. Barry Champlain. As a cinematic expansion of his original monologue, the film earned Bogosian a Silver Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival and a nomination at the Independent Spirit awards. His next big one-man show, Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll, was also made into a film, published in book form, and released on CD by Capitol. During the early '90s, he appeared as a television guest star on Law & Order and The Larry Sanders Show, and continued to publish his writing. In 1994, he finished work on the play Suburbia, which was later adapted to film by director Richard Linklater. As an actor, he had supporting roles in Dolores Claiborne, Under Siege 2, and Deconstructing Harry, followed by numerous cameos and vocal appearances. After finishing the play Griller, he went back to solo shows with Wake Up and Smell the Coffee, which was committed to film by InDigEnt. After Simon & Schuster published his novel Mall, he appeared in several TV movies and feature films, including the CBS miniseries Blonde, Atom Egoyan's Ararat, and the summer blockbuster Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.