Trivia: Actor Zac Efron's career began when he was just 11 years old, when his parents took note of his tremendous singing talent. They let him audition for a production of Gypsy, and he won a small role in a production that would run for 90 performances. He would eventually graduate to on-screen acting, scoring a recurring role on the hit series Summerland in 2004. This would seem like his big break, but an even bigger role would come the next year, in the hugely popular Disney feature High School Musical. Efron immediately earned a strong, loyal fan base, going on to star in big screen projects like Hairspray, 17 Again, Charlie St. Cloud, and The Lucky One.

Trivia: With a golden-locked classic Hollywood beauty reminiscent of Mia Farrow, pretty Leslie Mann has been gracing the screens of both theaters and televisions since her film debut in 1991 (Virgin High). A San Francisco native, Mann's striking blue eyes and softly high-pitched voice aren't the only factors that got her work in Hollywood amidst a sea of struggling actors; she credits much of her success to her three therapists, a psychic, and Susan Jeffers' popular self-help book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. Fidgety and energetic, Mann continued acting on television's Birdland (1994) before beating out 500 other aspiring actresses two years later for the role of Matthew Broderick's girlfriend in The Cable Guy. After turning up in She's the One the same year, Mann would take another high-profile role, as a period prostitute alongside Bruce Willis in Last Man Standing. Essaying the role of Ursula in George of the Jungle (1997) before taking on Adam Sandler in Big Daddy (1999), fans with a quick eye could later spot Mann in one of four screens in director Mike Figgis' Timecode in 2000. In the following years the attractive and increasingly prominent actress could be seen in such comedies as Orange County and The Promise (both 2002). In 1997 she married comedy writer/producer/director Judd Apatow, and he put her in a a great scene in 2005's The 40-Year-Old-Virgin which led to more high-profile parts in comedies such as Knocked Up, Funny People, 17 Again, I Love You Phillip Morris, and The Change-up. In 2012 she and Paul Rudd revived their characters from Knocked Up for the middle-age marriage comedy This Is 40.

Trivia: One of the few members of the New York-based MTV comedy troupe "The State" to hail from the Midwest, Chicagoan comedian Thomas Lennon is also an accomplished screenwriter.Born in Oak Park, IL, on August 9, 1970, Lennon attended New York University as an undergraduate in the late '80s, at a point when Todd Holoubek -- a member of the campus sketch comedy team "Sterile Yak" -- abandoned that earlier group in favor of forming an alternative improvisational ensemble, christened "The New Group." Comprised largely of freshmen, the team blended film, video, and live performance in its live audience shows. Lennon joined the ensemble, as did fellow coeds Kevin Allison, Michael Ian Black, Ben Garant, Michael Patrick Jann, Kerri Kenney, Joe Lo Truglio, Ken Marino, Michael Showalter, and David Wain. Following a series of original shows (which began with "I'm Rubber, You're Glue"), The New Group landed its first gig as the opening act for Dennis Miller during one of the comedian's appearances at NYU, circa 1990. He paid them 1,000 dollars total. In the early '90s, Lennon made several short films, including The Waiters, which ran on the Bravo network; meanwhile, after MTV formally rejected the ensemble's pitch for a weekly series, Wain worked with the others to shoot demos for the MTV series You Wrote It, You Watch It, which catalyzed the network's interest. At that point, The New Group changed its name to "The State: Full Frontal Comedy." They landed an official series on MTV in 1993, boosted by an appearance on The Jon Stewart Show, in which they completely demolished the comedian's set. Over the course of the first two years, ratings skyrocketed, carrying the series through several seasons. It wrapped in 1997.During the series' run, Lennon wrote much of the material, including the popular "Monkey Torture" sketch. After the show ended, he joined cast members Kerri Kenney and Michael Ian Black to create the Comedy Central variety show spoof Viva Variety, based on an old sketch from The State. Lennon transitioned to features by voicing the documentarian character in the hit comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous, the feature-film debut of State director Michael Patrick Jann. Lennon also appeared in the feature films Memento, Out Cold, and Boat Trip, as well as TV commercials for various candy items and video-game platforms. Returning to the television series format, Lennon sustained a recurring role in the short-lived ABC medical drama MDs. He then reunited with Kenney and other State members to create the reality cop show spoof Reno 911!, starring himself as pretty-boy Lieutenant Jim Dangle. Directed by Jann, the show became a hit on Comedy Central in 2003.Lennon maintained a busy schedule in 2004, with supporting roles in the A-list romantic comedies A Guy Thing, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, and Le Divorce. That same year, he also did screenwriting work (alongside many others) on Todd Phillips's Starsky & Hutch (2004), and the terribly received action comedy Taxi, starring Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon. While Reno 911! continued through 2005, Lennon contributed to the scripts of such mainstream releases as Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005), The Pacifier (2005), Night at the Museum (2006), and Let's Go to Prison!2007 saw the young comedian and scenarist involved in his most ambitious project to date. He posed a triple threat as cast member, executive producer, and screenwriter of that year's Balls of Fury, directed by fellow "Stater" Ben Garant, one of the major forces behind Reno 911! He was cast in Hancock and the comedy I Love You, Man. In 2009 he co-wrote Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. He had a small but crucial role in 2011's Cedar Rapids, and appeared in the comedies Bad Teacher and What's Your Number?Lennon lives with his wife, Jenny Robertson, in Los Angeles.

Trivia: Sterling Knight landed roles in an array of popular American television series including The Closer, Grey's Anatomy, and the iconic Hannah Montana before moving into feature films with a supporting turn in the Zac Efron-Matthew Perry fantasy comedy Seventeen Again (2009).

Trivia: Actress Michelle Trachtenberg was born on October 11, 1985, in New York City, and made a recognized splash into the Hollywood scene only 11 years later when she starred with Rosie O'Donnell in Harriet the Spy. Before the film, she had commercial and television acting experience, most notably with future Buffy the Vampire Slayer co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar on the soap opera All My Children. After Harriet, Trachtenberg made smaller film appearances, along with additional television roles. In 1999, she co-starred as Penny in Inspector Gadget with Matthew Broderick. She took on the role of Gellar's younger sister on the WB series Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 2001, and a recurring turn as pop star Celeste on Six Feet Under in 2004. She appeared in Ice Princess and Black Christmas. In 2009 she joined the cast of the series Mercy, and continued to work on the big-screen in projects like 17 Again, Cop Out, and Take Me Home Tonight.

Trivia: Fans of American actress Melora Hardin who associate her exclusively with her characterization of Jan Levinson-Gould -- Michael Scott's stone-faced manager and sometimes lover, on the smash NBC series The Office -- may be surprised and delighted to discover several exciting facts about the history of her career. First, her work stretches back many decades, into her primary school years, encompassing everything from Disney movies to prime-time series dramas of the '80s, '90s, and 2000s to commercials to acclaimed feature films; she directs and edits films as well. Second, Hardin moonlights as an accomplished and gifted singer/songwriter -- a nightclub chanteuse known for sultry cabaret-style numbers, who has issued a number of acclaimed albums of her own material, including Meloradrama and Purr. And finally, this comedian's wit extends far beyond her crack-comic onscreen timing. A parodist who loves to play with her own image, Hardin runs her own website, with a series of funny-sexy (yet inexplicit) cheesecake photos that serve as throwbacks to the peek-a-boo erotica days of the mid-'50s while subtly parodying and calling attention to those setups.Given both of her parents' long tenures in film and television (her father is character actor Jerry Hardin and her mother is acting coach Diane Hill Hardin), drama came preternaturally for Hardin, and she commenced work as a child star at age six. One of her earliest assignments involved plugging Peak Toothpaste on a television commercial; she later joined the ensemble cast of a live-action children's program on NBC (circa 1977, at age ten) called Cliffwood Avenue Kids, which (as late-Gen X television babies may recall) typically aired during early weekday evenings after The Flintstones. A series of failed pilots ensued for Hardin, beginning with the late-'70s drama Thunder and encompassing over a dozen others over the next two decades.Hardin debuted cinematically at age 11, with a high-profile role in the goofball Disney comedy The North Avenue Irregulars, opposite Susan Clark and Cloris Leachman and directed by Hogan's Heroes vet Bruce Bilson. She followed this up with many additional roles in A- and B-list features throughout the '80s and '90s, but while her work shone, the films themselves often failed to catch fire; her resumé includes such forgettable fare as Iron Eagle (1985) and Soul Man (1986). A number of pictures, however, marked happy exceptions: Hardin contributed a small onscreen singing role to the fine Disney period adventure The Rocketeer (1991), and several of her songs highlighted the film's soundtrack. She also appeared in Clint Eastwood's enormously underrated, oft-humorous 1997 crime thriller Absolute Power (as Christy Sullivan, the homicide victim of Gene Hackman's lecherous president), and made a solid contribution to the satire Thank You for Smoking, opposite Aaron Eckhart.Hardin fared particularly well on television, with single- and dual-episode appearances over the years in such dramas as Little House on the Prairie, Quincy, M.E., and Murder, She Wrote. The Office, of course, represented a watershed moment for Hardin. Adapted skillfully by Greg Daniels from the British series of the same name by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the NBC sitcom follows the colorful employees of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company's Scranton branch -- led by one Michael Scott (Steve Carell), a sweet-natured but desperately lonely and outrageously uncouth manager. Low-key, iconoclastic, and unconventional, the program eschewed a laugh track and underplayed (to the nth degree) every one of its gags, relying on a bevy of character eccentricities to procure laughs. The episodes had Hardin (as Michael's manager) typically playing straight man to Carell's goofball, and saw the unlikeliest of employer-employee romances blossoming between them over the course of the first two seasons. Thanks to an extraordinary cast and crew, The Office instantly shot up to qualify as one of NBC's highest rated new series after its March 2005 debut; many proclaimed it as the funniest American sitcom since Seinfeld.Meanwhile, Hardin continued to hone her craft in other arenas. She first helmed the regional theatrical production of friend Adria Tennor's one-woman show Strip Search. Tagged as "Love and a 12-Foot Pole," and authored by and starring Tennor, this colorful yet surprisingly touching seriocomedy recounts the tale of a woman who undertakes a journey of self-discovery and ultimately finds her dying passion in strip dancing classes. Hardin then directed and edited an independent film entitled You that husband Gildart Jackson scripted. The motion picture stars Jackson and both of Hardin's parents, as well as Joely Fisher and The Office's Kate Flannery.In 2006, Hardin returned to big-screen work, signing with Fox Atomic and Tapestry Films to co-star in the Tom Brady-directed sports comedy The Comebacks. The film relays the story of a football coach (David Koechner) commissioned to whip a down-and-out football team into shape. In 2007, she joined the cast of The Dukes, which follows a group of down-and-out musicians attempting an ill-fated heist.

Trivia: Actor Hunter Parrish first caught the eye of many moviegoers with his roles as the brainy son of Jeff Daniels and Kristin Chenoweth in RV and a troubled inner-city high school student in the 2007 drama Freedom Writers. Yet despite these noteworthy feature achievements, Parrish's biggest early accomplishment was his leading role as a naïve suburban teen in the 2005 drama Steal Me -- in which he proved he could carry a feature and took home a Method Fest award for his efforts. In 2005, Parrish was cast in Showtime's Weeds as the grieving, insecure teenager Silas Botwin, who is forced to become the man of the house after his father dies unexpectedly. Parrish -- along with the rest of the Weeds cast -- was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild award in 2007. During his run on Weeds, his film work included It's Complicated, 17 Again, and Gone. Once Weeds finished its run in 2012, Parrish had a guest arc on The Good Wife before taking another regular role on The Following. In 2014, he had a supporting role in the indie film Still Alice,opposite Julianne Moore.

Trivia: Upbeat, high-octane actress and comedienne Nicole Sullivan gravitated to dramatic performance at age seven and reportedly caught the comedy bug from her New York state assemblyman father and antiques dealer mother. After high school, Sullivan enrolled in the prestigious Northwestern University, then studied at London's British American Dramatic Academy for one year before settling in Hollywood in the early '90s. The actress reportedly endured a long string of failed auditions and failed television pilots upon arrival, though she eventually broke through to public recognition as one of the resident performers on the Fox network's revue comedy program MADtv. That only marked the beginning, and within a few years of her MAD debut, Sullivan branched out in innumerable directions, such as voicing Mira Nova in the direct-to-video animated sequel Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins (2000) and making guest appearances on series programs including Crank Yankers, Monk, and Family Guy. Sullivan connected with much steadier work by signing on to play Holly Shumpert on seasons 4-6 of the popular Kevin James sitcom The King of Queens from 2001-2004, then moved into features, including the animated outings The Ant Bully (2006) and Meet the Robinsons (2007), and mirrored these accomplishments on the small screen with voiceover work on the animated series Slacker Cats. In 2008, Sullivan returned to the sitcom format with Rita Rocks; she played Rita Clements, a working wife and mother who moonlights as a rock star. She went on to appear in Black Dynamite and Let It Shine

Trivia: Of Indian descent, both of her parents are from Calcutta, India.Is the daughter of two college professors.Started dancing at age three and acting at age seven.Moved to Los Angeles after graduating from the University of Texas.Speaks Bengali, and a little bit of Italian, Spanish and French.Supports the WWF, the ASPCA and the Sierra Club.

Trivia: Handsome leading man Matthew Perry has managed to translate the fame and popularity he garnered from playing Chandler Bing on the hit NBC sitcom Friends into an increasingly successful film career as a romantic comedy lead. Born in Massachusetts, the son of actor John Bennett Perry, his parents divorced when he was still a baby. His mother got full custody and moved Perry to Ottawa, Canada, where she worked as a political assistant (years later, Perry's mother would work as a press secretary for prime minister Pierre Trudeau). As a youth, Perry was an extremely talented tennis player and was once ranked third in Canada's doubles competition. At the same time, the teenaged Perry was interested in acting and had been appearing in school productions since he was 13. At age 15, he relocated to L.A. to join his father, in hopes of becoming both a tennis pro and a working actor. However, in 1984, Perry suffered a devastating loss during a major tennis event and decided that he would have more success as an actor. Shortly after the fateful sporting match, he debuted on an episode of the sitcom Charles in Charge. Though Perry was still in high school, it rapidly became apparent that his education would take a backseat to acting. While in a restaurant, he was spotted by director William Richert, who offered the 16-year-old a small role opposite River Phoenix in A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon (1988). Though Perry wanted to become a successful professional actor, his father was pressuring him to attend U.C.L.A. As a compromise, Perry agreed that if he could not find an acting job in the first year after high school graduation, he would attend college. Not long after that, he was hired by Fox television to star in the series Boys Will Be Boys. The series bombed, but Perry was then starred opposite Valerie Bertinelli in a new series, Sydney. While this show too was short-lived, it started Perry on a professional guest-star career that would land him roles on such series as Beverly Hills 90210, Growing Pains, and his father's show 240 Roberts. He made his sophomore film appearance in She's Out of Control (1989) opposite Ami Dolenz and Tony Danza. In the early '90s, Perry and his colleague, Andrew Hill, penned the pilot to a situation comedy about a bunch of friends in their twenties who like hanging out. They called their show Maxwell House and sold it to Universal. They pitched the idea to NBC, but the network had a similar vehicle in the works. Instead of taking Perry and Hill's show, they offered to co-star Perry in their program, Friends. The first episode aired in 1994 and became a Top Ten hit. In features, Perry had his first success with the romantic comedy Fools Rush In (1997), though it was The Whole Nine Yards -- released the same year that Friends went off the air -- that really got moviegoers laughing. A return to television in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was shortlived after being eclipsed by the similar-themed 30 Rock, and in 2007 Perry erceived an Emmy nomination for his turn as a devoted high school teacher working with inner-city teens in The Ron Clark Story. In 2011 Perry could be seen as a sports arena manager experiencing a mid-life crisis in the ABC series Mr. Sunshine, though it was promptly cancelled by the network after failing to perform. Nevertheless, subsequent small screen roles in Go On and The Good Wife showed an actor determined to persevere at all costs.

Trivia: Actress Allison Miller made her professional debut in the 2006 short film Lucy's Piano. She soon followed this with appearances on shows like Desperate Housewives and Boston Legal. Then in 2009 she was cast in a major role, playing Michelle Benjamin on the NBC series Kings. Miller would go on to remain a successful on-screen presence, starring on series like Terra Nova and Go On.

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: Began working in commercials at the age of 6 and has appeared in ads for Barbie, K-Mart and Pop Tarts, among others. Big break came when she replaced Christina Milian as host of Movie Surfers on the Disney Channel in 2002. Has appeared as a background dancer for Missy Elliott, Pharrell Williams, Jamie Foxx and Lil' Bow Wow. Was one of the four singing and dancing Fantanas in the Fanta soft drink ads. Toured with the Black Eyed Peas on their 2007 Black Blue & You world tour. Singing voice is featured on two will.i.am songs, "I Got It from My Mama" and "The Donque Song". Is fluent in English, Spanish and French.

Trivia: American actor/writer Brian Doyle-Murray began his professional performing career at Chicago's Second City comedy troupe. Once established, Brian was instrumental in bringing his younger brother Bill into Second City. While Bill Murray's star ascended, Brian stayed busy as a writer and comic character actor. He co-wrote the 1980 comedy hit Caddyshack and had choice supporting roles in such films as Modern Problems (1981), Club Paradise (1986) and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989). Brian has also appeared to excellent effect in several of his brother Bill's starring features, most recently in the hilarious role of the lugubrious mayor of Punxsutawney in Groundhog Day (1993). One of the staff writers of the earliest years of Saturday Night Live, Brian Doyle-Murray has remained active on television as a guest actor, as a regular on the 1991 sitcom Good Sports, and in such made for TV movies as Babe Ruth (1991).

Trivia: Participated in high-school plays and community theater in her hometown in Virginia. Graduated from high school a year early. Her first film audition led to her first film role, starring in the 2006 comedy The Foot Fist Way.

Trivia: A role in the Michael Weller play Help! brought her to Los Angeles. Got her start in the late 1990s with guest-star roles on The Pretender, Party of Five and The X-Files. Appeared in producer Steven Bochco's series City of Angels, NYPD Blue and Murder One. Wrote, performed and toured in her one-woman show, Besame Mucho...O.K., That's Enough. Cast alongside fellow West Wing alum Bradley Whitford in The Good Guys.

Trivia: A self-described "Korean-American fag-hag, s**t-starter, girl comic, trash talker," Margaret Cho is nothing if not straightforward, and this forthright approach to her material made her one of the more compulsively entertaining -- and startling -- comedians to gain an audience in the 1990s. The daughter of Korean immigrants, Cho was born in San Francisco on December 5, 1968. Partially raised by her parents, who owned a bookstore, and partially raised by a motley crew of gay men and drag queens, Cho's upbringing in the city's Haight district made for a colorful childhood and adolescence. She began doing standup at 16, performing in a comedy club above her parents' store. A short time later, she won a comedy contest, first prize being the chance to open for Jerry Seinfeld. After moving to Los Angeles in the early '90s, Cho found her audience growing, and, after appearing on shows hosted by Arsenio Hall and Bob Hope and winning the 1994 American Comedy Award for Female Comedian, she was approached to be the star of her own sitcom, CBS' All-American Girl. Billed by the network as a ground-breaking show thanks to its status as the first network series about Asian-Americans, All-American Girl proved to be controversial, attacked by some for not being Asian enough even as others criticized it for being too Asian. For her part, Cho found herself in the center of the controversy, and the pressures surrounding her -- many of which were manifested in the network's orders to her to lose weight -- lent themselves to the comedian's addiction to diet pills and alcohol, a struggle she would later detail in her one-woman show I'm the One That I Want. Following the short-lived sitcom's cancellation, Cho continued to deal with drug and alcohol problems. She eventually kicked her addictions and became visible again, appearing in supporting roles in films ranging from The Doom Generation (1995) to John Woo's Face/Off (1997) and performing sold-out shows across the country.In the late '90s, Cho used her experiences with All-American Girl as the basis for her off-Broadway show I'm the One That I Want. The show became a huge success among critics and audiences alike, and subsequently toured the U.S. for over two years. In 2000 it was adapted for the screen; that same year Cho kept busy with a number of other projects, including Spent, an independent drama about addiction and dysfunction among a group of twenty-somethings. Cho continued to work as a stand-up comic throughout the 2000s, and in 2007 voiced a character in Rick and Steve, a short lived animated series. In 2010, Cho participated in the 11th season of dancing with the stars.