Trivia: Solidly built American actor Craig T. Nelson started out as a comedy writer and performer, doing radio and nightspot gigs in the Los Angeles area. Success was not immediately forthcoming, and Nelson took a four-year sabbatical from show business, moving with his family to a remote cabin in Northern California. In 1979, he made his first film, ...And Justice For All, written by his onetime partner Barry Levinson. While subsequent roles in Poltergeist and Silkwood followed, Nelson would find true stardom on television. For eight seasons beginning in 1989, he starred as college athletics instuctor Hayden Fox on the top-ranked ABC sitcom Coach. Appearing alongside supporting players Jerry Van Dyke and Shelly Fabares, Nelson received an Emmy for his work on the show in 1992.After Coach, Nelson showed up in a few small roles in feature films and television mini-series before returning to series work in 2000, leading the cast of CBS's D.C.-based cop-drama The District. While enjoying the success of that show, Nelson found time for his first high-profile feature film role in over a decade, providing the voice of the head of a family of superheroes in the 2004 Disney/Pixar animated film The Incredibles. In 2005 he played the patriarch of the dysfunctional clan in The Family Stone, and followed that up two years later as skating coach in the comedy Blades of Glory. He was Ryan Reynolds disapproving dad in the hit comedy The Proposal in 2009. He was cast as the head of the Braverman clan in NBC's relaunch of Parenthood in 2010, and appeared in the inspirational Soul Surfer in 2011.

Trivia: American actress Lynne Thigpen was part of the original cast of the stage musical Godspell in 1971. She reprised her role for the 1973 film and went on to work for three decades on both the stage and screen. Theatrical audiences may remember her for her Tony-nominated lead role in Tintypes, but she is probably best known as the Chief, the host of the PBS educational game shows Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? and Where in Time Is Carmen Sandiego? On the big screen, Thigpen appeared in the mainstream features Tootsie, Lean on Me, and Bob Roberts. However, she fared much better in powerful roles on television. She was Aunt Grace Keefer on All My Children, DA Ruby Thomas on L.A. Law, and Judge Ida Boucher on Law & Order. Other TV appearances include thirtysomething, Homicide: Life on the Street, and several Hallmark Hall of Fame features. Possessing rich, powerful speech, Thigpen lent her voice to several different projects. Already known on PBS as the Chief, she narrated stories on Reading Rainbow and provided voices for Bear in the Big Blue House. She also read best-selling novels audiobooks, including titles by Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston. After a lengthy career on-stage, two Obie awards, and an L.A. Drama Critics award, Thigpen finally received her first Tony award in 1997 for her portrayal of Dr. Judith Kaufman in Wendy Wasserstein's An American Daughter. She reprised her role for the 2000 made-for-TV adaptation, released on home video with the title Trial by Media. That same year, she was cast as statistics clerk Ella Mae Farmer in the CBS dramatic series The District. On the big screen, she played authority figures like President Marjorie Bota in Bicentennial Man and Judge Brenda Daniels in Anger Management. A shock to her fellow cast members on The District, Thigpen died of a heart attack in her Los Angeles home in 2003. She was 54.

Trivia: A talented actor who began to win due notice in the late '90s, Sean Patrick Thomas broke through to mainstream audiences with winning turns in such films as Cruel Intentions (1999) and Save the Last Dance (2001). The son of immigrants from Guyana, Thomas was born in Wilmington, DE, in 1970. While attending the University of Virginia, where he studied English and planned to become a lawyer, Thomas decided to pursue a career in acting after auditioning for a student production of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. Thomas broke into film with small roles in productions that included Courage Under Fire (1996), Conspiracy Theory (1997), and Can't Hardly Wait (1998). In 1996, he further added to his acting credentials by earning an M.A. in drama from New York University. Relative fame and even a blush of notoriety greeted the actor in 1999, with a pivotal role in Cruel Intentions, Roger Kumble's free and loose adaptation of Choderlos De Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Co-starring alongside alpha-teens Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon, and Ryan Phillippe in the torrid tale of lust, betrayal, and negligent parenting on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Thomas earned (literal) exposure as the cello teacher/illicit lover of one of the film's principle characters. Even greater exposure followed for Thomas the subsequent year, when he was cast in a substantial role as Detective Temple Page on the critically acclaimed TV series The District. Riding high, he then won his first starring role on the big screen in Save the Last Dance (2001), an interracial love story set in Chicago's South Side that featured him as a black high school student in love with a white classmate (Julia Stiles). Although the film earned mixed reviews, it found an appreciative audience, and with it, a growing fan base for the young actor.

Trivia: With his handsome looks and playful demeanor, Justin Theroux made a memorable feature debut as a determined revolutionary in the successful indie film I Shot Andy Warhol.A graduate of Bennington College who was born and raised in Washington, D.C., Theroux later relocated to New York to pursue a career in the visual arts before stumbling across acting and immersing himself in the stage. Gaining momentum in off-Broadway plays before making the leap to features, Theroux made appearances in such popular television shows as Sex and the City and Ally McBeal while gravitating toward the big screen in Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion (1997), American Psycho, and eccentric director David Lynch's Mullholland Drive. After appearing in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and the dud Duplex, Theroux appeared in a couple of episodes of the critically respected HBO series Six Feet Under. Over the next couple of years he combined little independent projects like The Baxter and Strangers with Candy with more high-profile films like Michael Mann's Miami Vice. He reteamed with David Lynch for Inland Empire alongside other former Lynch collaborators Laura Dern, and Hayy Dean Stanton. He played Jesus in the religious-themed comedy The Ten, and in 2008 he co-wrote Ben Stiller's Hollywood satire Tropic Thunder, which led to an assignment writing the hit sequel Iron Man 2. In 2012 he co-starred in Wanderlust opposite Jennifer Aniston who he ended up in a high-profile relationship with. That same year he had a screenwriting credit on the hair-metal musical Rock of Ages. Theroux next starred in the bleak HBO drama The Leftovers and wrote the screenplay for Zoolander 2.

Trivia: Is a practicing Quaker. Her first professional role was as Isabella in Measure for Measure at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. Made her Broadway debut as an understudy in The SeagulI in 1992. Performed as Katherine in the New York Shakespeare Festival stage production of Henry V. Played Brooke Wyeth in the off-Broadway premiere of Other Desert Cities in 2011; when the show transfered to Broadway, she was replaced by Rachel Griffith, but later joined the show as a replacement.

Trivia: Worked for three years as a medical doctor in Adelaide, Sydney and London before relocating to the U.S. to pursue a career in acting. Got his first break in 1996, when he joined the cast of the U.S. TV show New York Undercover. After living in the U.S. for 17 years, he had to work with an accent coach to recapture his Australian accent. Is a bit of a "motor-head"; rebuilt a 1973 Dodge Challenger by himself.

Trivia: Was adopted. Is a trained dancer. For four years, performed with the Boston Ballet. During her junior year in college, took some time off to perform in a national tour of West Side Story. Moved to New York in 1995.

Trivia: Alternately termed "smoldering" and "babelicious" by TV Guide, the 5'8" U.S. actress Kelly Rutherford -- who spent her adolescence as something of a sports nut instead of a très féminine prima donna -- ironically broke through to the public with a series of white-hot-sexy small-screen roles: barroom chanteuse Dixie Cousins on The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.; onetime-prostitute Megan Lewis on Melrose Place; and sensuous bartender Judy Owen on the post-WWII drama Homefront. Born in Elizabethtown, KY, in the late '60s (and only two years old at the time of her parents' divorce), Rutherford spent years moving from town to town across the country, under the guardianship of her fashion-model mother, Ann Edwards, until she reached her teenage years. At that point, Rutherford, Edwards, and the family's oldest child, Anthony, settled in Newport Beach, CA. Rutherford made a beeline for New York City after graduating from high school in the late '80s, where she planned to enroll in a formal drama program; instead, she signed to do several commercials and appeared on the daytime soapers Loving (opposite Luke Perry) and Generations. Returning to the West Coast, Rutherford subsequently trained at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, where a drama coach reportedly advised her to "work on [her] sexuality" -- a suggestion that helped her immensely. Though Rutherford's feature debut was a bit part in the undistinguished James Glickenhaus-directed actioner Shakedown (1988) -- starring Sam Elliott and Peter Weller -- the 1994 romantic comedy-mystery I Love Trouble constituted both her first significant assignment and the type of material she most warmed to: contemporary throwbacks to golden-age Hollywood cinema. Following a string of banal telemovies between 1994 and 1997, Rutherford joined the cast of the slasher movie sequel Scream 3 (2000) and the political drama Chaos Factor (2000), directed by Terry Cunningham. She received second billing (her highest, up through that time) in the direct-to-video police detective thriller Angels Don't Sleep Here (2001), opposite Roy Scheider and Robert Patrick.It was on television, though, that Rutherford continued to find greatest success. Beginning in the early 2000s, the actress garnered prominant roles a series of programs, starting with a recurring role as Deputy Mayor Melinda Lockhart on The District. She next played Special Agent Frankie Ellroy Kilmer on the counterterrorism thriller Threat Matrix, followed by a role as Samantha "Sonny" Liston on the similarly themed political drama E-Ring. Despite Rutherford's impressive ability to make it into the casts of highly-touted prime-time series, those programs also tended to be disappointingly short-lived. That all changed in 2007, when she was cast as Lily van der Woodsen, mother of the troubled Serena (Blake Lively), on Gossip Girl, a teen-oriented prime-time soap on the fledgling CW network. Taking a cue from previous rich-kid drama The O.C., Gossip Girl devoted a portion of its storyline to the main characters' parents, and Lily had no shortage of drama and relationship issues.

Trivia: Moved to the U.S. from Germany shortly after his birth. Started acting in college, playing the lead in Othello and appearing in The Elephant Man. Played the recurring role of D'Shawn on Beverly Hills, 90210. Appeared as Miranda Bailey's husband Tucker on Grey's Anatomy.