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: After attending State University of New York at Purchase, Jay O. Sanders made his off-Broadway debut in a 1976 production of Shakespeare's Henry V. Three years later, he graduated to Broadway in Loose Ends. Sanders' first major film role was Charles Rawlings, the husband of novelist Marjorie Rawlings (Mary Steenburgen) in Cross Creek (1980). He went on to spend a year in the role of feckless resident physician Dr. Gene Pfeiffer in TV's After MASH (1982). He later portrayed Steven Kordo in the 1987-88 (and last) season of the serialized prime time weekly Crime Story. In the 1990s, Jay O. Sanders played real-life "political prisoner" Terry Anderson in the made-for-TV film Hostages (1993), and was also seen in such theatrical features as JFK (1991) and Angels in the Outfield (1994). Bit roles in such Hollywood comedies as For Richer or Poorer and The Odd Couple II helped keep Sanders a familiar face to moviegoers between frequent independent roles. Meanwhile, the busy character actor also found steady work narrating audio books and television shows such as Nova and Wide Angle. In 2011 he joined the cast of Law & Order: Criminal Intent as Captain Joseph Hannah, but by then the show was in its tenth and final season. Guest appearances on such high-profile television series' as Pan Am, Blue Bloods, and Person of Interest were quick to follow.

Trivia: Born July 7th, 1966, Indiana native and standup comic Jim Gaffigan cultivated a reputation during the late '90s and early 2000s as a low-key, witty, and inventive comic with mildly self-deprecative routines. He then branched out into television and film roles, finding mixed (if not unqualified) success in those venues. Launched during the early '90s, Gaffigan's original standup act sparked the attention of such after-hours talk programs as Late Night with David Letterman (on CBS) and Late Night with Conan O'Brien (on NBC). Both shows booked the comic for repeated spots to tremendous audience enthusiasm. Letterman was reportedly so wowed by Gaffigan's material, delivery, and presence, in fact, that he commissioned his company, Worldwide Pants Incorporated, to produce a sitcom for Gaffigan, Welcome to New York. The series cast Gaffigan as a character named Jim Gaffigan, a former weatherman from Indiana who moves to New York and takes a job on a Good Morning America-like local talk show called "AM New York." Christine Baranski co-starred as Gaffigan's caustic producer, Marsha Bickner, Roseanne's Sara Gilbert as Marsha's assistant, Amy, and Rocky Carroll as Adrian Spencer, the program's smarmy, artificial host. Many of the initial gags and bits revolved around the "fish out of water" concept of a Hoosier thrust into the Big Apple, and Gaffigan's co-workers' cutting objections to his presence in the newsroom. Unfortunately, Welcome to New York folded a few months in, thanks to markedly poor ratings and viewership. The comic continued his television work unabated, however, with a recurring role on the equally short-lived Ellen DeGeneres starrer The Ellen Show. Beginning in 1999, Gaffigan began signing for supporting roles, typically comic turns, in feature films, starting with David O. Russell's Three Kings. He played Larry Johnson, the highway pullover dumbfounded by a "meow"-spouting cop, in Broken Lizard's Super Troopers (2001), then a hotel manager in the eccentric dramedy Igby Goes Down (2002). Gaffigan also landed a bit part as Chris Grandy in Gary Winick's Big update 13 Going on 30 (2004). In mid-2005, Gaffigan issued his premier comedy video, Jim Gaffigan: Beyond the Pale -- an hour-long special in which the comic delivers a number of riffs on the subjects of food, holidays, gift giving, and religion. (The title refers to the fair-haired Gaffigan's ghostly white complexion, one of the recurring subjects of his shtick.) Gaffigan then essayed a supporting role in Hilary Brougher's 2006 psychodrama Stephanie Daley, starring Tilda Swinton, Amber Tamblyn and Timothy Hutton. 2008 found the actor co-starring alongside Justin Timberlake and Verne Troyer in the Love Guru, which won the dubious honor of three Raspberry Awards. Gaffigan would have better luck in 2009, when he joined the cast of Sam Mendes' comedy Away We Go, and again in 2010 for the films Going the Distance and It's Kind of a Funny Story. He also worked in the television sitcom My Boys from 2006-2009. '

Trivia: A native of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, born in 1977 to a Cuban mother and father, Armando Riesco moved to metropolitan San Juan with his parents at the age of three and grew up in that community, then attended Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola High School and studied English under the tutelage of the esteemed Fr. Francis Golden. This linguistic knowledge prompted the young man for a move to the mainland United States after high school, and he encountered no difficulty gaining acceptance to Northwestern University as a theater major, where he was mentored by David Downs. Thereafter, Riesco maintained an emphasis on stage work for several years, both Chicago-area theater and New York off-Broadway theater, at such prestigious venues as the Tribeca Playhouse and the Manhattan Theater Club, and moved into film and television work in the mid-2000s. Memorable features that enlisted Riesco in the cast included the Zach Braff comedy Garden State (2004), the Jimmy Fallon/Drew Barrymore romantic comedy Fever Pitch, and the high-flown adventure spectacle National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007). In 2008, Riesco turned up as Benigno in Steven Soderbergh's massive, ambitious four-hour Che Guevara biopic Che.

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.