Trivia: After graduating from Georgetown University in 1997, Bradley Cooper set his sites on becoming not just a working actor, but a good actor. He enrolled in the Masters of Fine Arts program at the Actors Studio Drama School at New School University and began molding his abilities around a love of the craft, rather than a paycheck. He made his first onscreen debut while attending the program, with an appearance on Sex and the City in 1998, as well as a starring role on the short-lived Darren Star series The $treet. Cooper kept his life well-balanced, however, spending time teaching acting to inner-city children through the Learning through the Expanded Arts Program and taking a job as host of the Discovery Channel show Extreme Treks in a Wild World, which took him on journeys to Peru and British Colombia. His first feature film role came in 2001 with a part in the absurdist comedy Wet Hot American Summer. Near this time, Cooper was cast as Will Tippin in the ABC series Alias, which he stayed with for two seasons. He was also cast in a number of canceled series such as Miss Match, Touching Evil, and Kitchen Confidential. Cooper would find greater and greater success with comedy, however, landing a part in 2005's Owen Wilson comedy The Wedding Crashers that exposed him to a wider audience, as well as roles in 2006's Failure to Launch, and 2008's Yes Man . But of course, Cooper's breakthrough film turned out to be the explosively successful 2009 comedy The Hangover. Cooper's starring role as the smartest friend in a misguided trio, searching for their buddy after losing track of him during his extremely wild bachelor party made him an instant household name, and he would reprise the role for 2011's The Hangover 2. In the meantime, Cooper would nab starring roles in more and more films, like the thriller Limitless and the big screen adaptation of The A-Team.He scored his biggest critical hit to date with 2012's Silver Linings Playbook where his portrayal of a bi-polar man trying to pull his life back together after being released from a mental institution garnered him a number of year-end accolades including a nomination for Best Actor from the Screen Actors Guild and at the Academy Awards. He returned to the Oscar race in 2014 playing the title role in Clint Eastwood's 21st century war drama American Sniper, for which he also was nominated for Best Picture, having served as a producer on the film.

Trivia: Christian Bale is one of the few actors in Hollywood whose child stardom has successfully translated to steady and respectable adult employment. With a wistful handsomeness to complement his impressive, sometimes underrated talent, Bale has become something of a quiet sensation, netting choice roles in a number of unconventional, critically acclaimed films.Born January 30, 1974, in Pembrokeshire, Wales, Bale was raised in England, Portugal, and the U.S. The product of a creative family (his mother was a dancer and both of his grandfathers were part-time actors), Bale made his stage debut at the age of ten, playing opposite British comedian Rowan Atkinson in The Nerd. In 1986, he debuted on television as Alexis in the miniseries Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna. His film debut came the following year with the lead role in Steven Spielberg's adaptation of J.G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun. Although the film met with very mixed reviews, Bale received almost ubiquitous praise for his portrayal of a young boy interned in a Japanese prison camp during World War II. Following a starring role in a Swedish film, Mio min Mio, Bale next appeared in Kenneth Branagh's celebrated 1988 adaptation of Henry V and in 1990, starred opposite Charlton Heston in a highly-regarded cable adaptation of Treasure Island. In 1992, Bale appeared in his first adult role in the musical Newsies, in which he could be seen singing, dancing, and sporting a fairly convincing American accent. His next film, Swing Kids (1993), also featured him dancing, this time alongside Robert Sean Leonard in wartime Germany. Although the film failed to impress most critics, it succeeded in making a favorable impact on teenage girls and swing afficionados everywhere. The following year, Bale appeared as Laurie in Gillian Armstrong's acclaimed adaptation of Little Women and then went on to lend his voice to Disney's animated film Pocahontas, which proved to be one of 1995's biggest box-office draws. The actor next appeared in The Secret Agent (1996), which, despite a strong cast including Gérard Depardieu, Bob Hoskins, and Patricia Arquette, was widely unseen in the U.S. After a tragically small role in the same year's The Portrait of a Lady, Bale was finally given the opportunity to step into the limelight with the 1997 film Metroland, an adaptation of Julian Barnes' novel. Starring alongside Emily Watson, Bale played a young husband and father wallowing in discontented nostalgia and received overwhelmingly positive notices for his thoughtful, complex portrayal. The film was not released in the U.S. until the following year, when he also had lead roles in Todd Haynes' eagerly anticipated Velvet Goldmine and All the Little Animals, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to strong reviews. The following year, Bale starred alongside Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Rupert Everett in a lavish adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In addition to the exposure he (literally) received in his role as Demetrius, Bale got a different kind of recognition for his part in the well-documented controversy surrounding the casting of Mary Harron's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho. After winning and then losing the film's lead role to Leonardo DiCaprio, Bale then won it back, prompting a wave of media coverage and at least one publication's decision to describe him as everyone's favorite underdog. It was a title that, deserved or not, seemed to fit an actor who, beneath all of the hyperbole and hype, was one of Hollywood's most engaging and underrated treasures. Bale next starred in the humans versus dragons opus Reign of Fire (2002), followed by the dystopian thriller Equilibrium before returning to the present day with the low-key sexual comedy drama Laurel Canyon (2002). Bale was about to make a breakthrough move into blockbuster film, however, as he was cast as the superhero Batman in Christopher Nolan's latest entry in the franchise, Batman Begins. The franchise reboot would prove overwhelmingly successful, especially with the dark, crime-drama style sequel, The Dark Knight (2008). Though Bale would become something of an infamous fixture in viral media for an explosively angry outburst at an on-set crewmember that was caught on audio, this did nothing to upset the actor's star power. He would also collaborate with Nolan on The Prestige (2006), before starring in the critically acclaimed western 3:10 to Yuma. Bale would also take on the infamous role of John Conner in a long-awaited Terminator Salvation in 2009, before playing a hard-nosed FBI agent on the trail of Johnny Depp's John Dillinger in Public Enemies that same year. In 2010, Bale joined the cast of the hard hitting sports drama The Fighter, directed by David O. Russell, playing the troubled brother and coach of an underdog boxer played by Mark Wahlberg. Bale would take home the Oscar and Golden Globes for Best Supporting Actor for his performance, but he was soon onto his next project, the period war drama Flowers of War. Soon, he was gearing up to don the cowl once again, with the third and final installment in Nolan's Batman franchise, The Dark Knight Rises. He reteamed with Russell to play a con man in American Hustle, earning Bale a second Oscar nomination. In 2014, he played Moses in Ridley Scott's bible epic Exodus: Gods and Kings. The following year, he returned in the ensemble film The Big Short, garnering Bale a third Oscar nomination.