Trivia: From lamebrained teenage time traveler to metaphysical sci-fi Superman, Keanu Reeves has portrayed just about every character type imaginable in his sometimes wildly fluctuating career. Frequently lambasted by critics and often polarizing audiences suspicious of his talent's true extent, Reeves has nevertheless managed to maintain his lucrative career by balancing his lesser efforts with intermittent direct hits at the box office.Born Keanu Charles Reeves in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 2, 1964, and named for the Hawaiian word that means "cool breeze over the mountains," the future actor was a world traveler by the age of two, thanks to his father's career as a geologist. His mother, Patricia Taylor, worked as a showgirl and later a costume designer of film and stage, and after his parents divorced, Reeves followed his mother and sister to live in New York; the trio would later relocate to Toronto -- where Reeves' interest in ice hockey and acting took a substantial precedence over academics. His formidable presence in front of the goal eventually earned Reeves the nickname "The Wall," and it wasn't long before all interest in school waned and the talented goalie decided to pursue acting.Later working as a manager in a Toronto pasta shop, Reeves soon began turning up in small roles on various Canadian television programs, making his feature debut in the 1985 Canadian film One Step Away before American audiences got their first good look at him in the 1986 Rob Lowe drama Youngblood. Subsequently going back to television and garnering favorable notice for his role in 1986's Young Again, it was the release of Tim Hunter's The River's Edge later that year that would provide Reeves with his breakthrough role. A harrowing tale of teen apathy in small town America, The River's Edge provided Reeves with a perfect opportunity to display his dramatic range, and the film would eventually become a minor classic in teen angst cinema.Appearing in a series of sometimes quirky but ultimately forgettable efforts in the following few years, 1988 found Reeves drawing favorable nods for his role in director Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons. It was the following year's Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, however, that would transform the actor into something of an '80s icon. Reeves' performance of a moronic, air guitar wielding wannabe rocker traveling through time in order to complete his history report and graduate from high school proved so endearingly silly that it spawned both a sequel (1991's Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey) and a Saturday morning cartoon. In an odd twist of fate, Reeves and co-star Alex Winter had initially auditioned for the opposite roles from those in which they were ultimately cast. Though he would later offer variations of the character type in such efforts as Parenthood (1989) and I Love You to Death (1990), it wasn't long before Reeves was looking to break away from the trend and take his career to the next level.After drawing favorable reviews for his turn as a rich kid turned street hustler opposite River Phoenix in Gus Van Sant's 1991 drama My Own Private Idaho, Reeves battled the undead in Francis Ford Coppola's lavish production of Dracula (1992). Showing his loyalty toward fellow Bill and Ted cohort Winter with a hilarious extended cameo in Freaked the following year, Reeves once again teamed with Van Sant for the critically eviscerated Even Cowgirls Get the Blues before surprising audiences with an unexpectedly complex performance as Siddhartha in Bernardo Bertolucci's Little Buddha (1993).Just as audiences were beginning to ask themselves if they may have underestimated Reeves talent as an actor, the mid-'90s found his career taking an unexpected turn toward action films with the release of Jan de Bont's 1994 mega-hit Speed (Reeves would ultimately decline to appear in the film's disastrous sequel). Balancing out such big-budgeted adrenaline rushes as Johnny Mnemonic (1995) and Chain Reaction (1996) with romantic efforts as A Walk in the Clouds (1995) and Feeling Minnesota (1996), Reeves spooked audiences as a moral attorney suffering from a major case of soul corrosion in the 1997 horror thriller The Devil's Advocate. The late '90s also found Reeves suffering a devastating personal loss when his expected baby girl with longtime girlfriend Jennifer Syme was stillborn, marking the beginning of the end for the couple's relationship. Tragedy stacked upon tragedy when Syme died two short years later in a tragic freeway accident. His career in fluctuation due to the lukewarm response to the majority of his mid-'90s efforts, it was the following year that would find Reeves entering into one of the most successful stages of his career thus far.As Neo, the computer hacker who discovers that he may be humankind's last hope in the forthcoming war against an oppressive mainframe of computers, Reeves' popularity once again reached feverish heights thanks to The Wachowski Brothers' wildly imaginative and strikingly visual sci-fi breakthrough, The Matrix. Followed by such moderately successful films as The Replacements (for which he deferred his salary so that Gene Hackman could also appear) and The Watcher (both 2000), Reeves took an unexpectedly convincing turn as an abusive husband in Sam Raimi's The Gift before returning to familiar territory with Sweet November and Hardball (both 2001). With the cultural phenomenon of The Matrix only growing as a comprehensive DVD release offered obsessive fans a closer look into the mythology of the film, it wasn't long before The Wachowski Brothers announced that the film had originally been conceived as the beginning of a trilogy and that two sequels were in the works. Filmed back to back, and with both scheduled to hit screens in 2003, excitement over The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions began to reach feverish heights in the months before release, virtually ensuring that the films would become two of the year's biggest box-office draws; they delivered on this promise despite mixed critical receptions.Reeves ensured his liberation from typecasting with a drastic turn away from The Matrix as the curtain fell on 2003, by appearing as heartthrob Dr. Julian Mercer in Nancy Meyers' romantic comedy Something's Gotta Give. Although he played second fiddle to vets Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, Reeves scored a bullseye, especially with female viewers. In 2005, he joined the cast of the collegiate arthouse hit Thumbsucker as Perry Lyman and fought the denizens of hell in the occultic thriller Constantine. Reeves's 2006 roles included the animated Robert Arctor in Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly and Alex Burnham in Alejandro Aresti's romantic fantasy The Lake House (co-starring Sandra Bullock). In 2009, the actor was praised for his role as a bitter divorcee in the critically acclaimed comedy drama The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.Reeves soon pulled back from acting to focus more on behind-the-camera work, as a producer and director. He produced and starred in the limited release Henry's Crime (2010) and released his directorial debut, Man of Tai Chi, in 2013 (he also starred in the film). In 2014, Reeves executive produced and starred in John Wick, playing a retired hitman. He also produced a series of documentaries, Side by Side, about filmmaking in the digital and film world.Famously playing bass for the band Dogstar in his cinematic down time, Reeves' other personal interests include motorcycles, horseback riding, and surfing. When he's not filming, Reeves maintains an everpresent residence in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Trivia: An athlete practically from birth, Patrick Swayze was a football player in high school and then earned a gymnastics scholarship to pay for college. His father had been a dancer/choreographer, and Swayze began to study dance early on, eventually working with the prestigious Harkness and Joffrey Ballet companies. He made his professional debut as a dancer with the lead role of Prince Charming in a traveling company of Disney on Parade, but an old knee injury from his football days threatened to cut his dancing career short at any moment. Hedging his bets, Swayze opened his repertoire up to acting and made the transition to Broadway, landing the role of Danny in the hit musical Grease before heading to Los Angeles to make yet another transition, this time to the screen.Swayze cut his teeth on TV guest appearances, scoring a memorable role as a dying soldier in an episode of M*A*S*H. Finally, he got a role in Francis Ford Coppola's youth ensemble film The Outsiders (1983), a film of massive critical acclaim and box-office success. Steadily continuing his upward trajectory, he followed The Outsiders with the Cold War classic Red Dawn (1984) and with the Civil War TV miniseries North and South (1985). His real big break came in 1987, however, with a starring role in the hit Dirty Dancing. The film gave Swayze the chance to showcase both his acting and dancing abilities and, additionally, he wrote and performed one of the film's songs, "She's Like the Wind," which went on to become a major hit. The role made Swayze an undisputed star, and he scored big again with a tough-guy role in the movie Road House, as well as the romantic lead in the supernatural drama Ghost (1990), a box-office smash that ended up grossing more than $200 million.The '90s had started out for Swayze with a bang, but with so much of his success wrapped up in the films of the 1980s, the actor soon found himself fighting against the mentality that he was out of date. He found iconic roles like surfer Bodhi in the police thriller Point Break and even played a drag queen in 1995's To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, but transitioning into the next phase of his career proved challenging. In 2001, Swayze found a film to help him facilitate this change with the role of twisted self-help guru Jim Cunningham in the dark mystery drama Donnie Darko. There was an element of self-parody in Swayze's portrayal of the über-positive, deceptively clean-cut Cunningham, and audiences found the role refreshing. He continued to pick up projects as they appealed to him, appearing in everything from the romantic drama One Last Dance to the quirky British comedy Keeping Mum.Sadly, however, by the late 2000s some upsetting news arrived. Swayze announced to the press in March 2008 that he was suffering from inoperable stage IV pancreatic cancer. The star battled his illness for a reported 20 months, but in the end it took his life. He died at the relatively young age of 57 in September 2009.

Trivia: An actress whose love-her-or-hate-her screen presence can often be traced to the disastrous 1995 comic-book adaptation that should have been her breakout role, Lori Petty has endured the lingering failure of Tank Girl to prove herself capable of much more than battling maniacal super-villains with the aid of renegade kangaroos. The Chattanooga, TN, native first set herself apart from the pack as the first female editor of her high school newspaper in Sioux City, and the ambitious future actress was also active with the yearbook and the debate team. It wasn't long before Petty turned to acting as a creative outlet, and after making her television debut in a 1987 episode of The Equalizer she went on to appear in both Head of the Class and Miami Vice. Her roles in the made-for-television Bates Motel and the short-lived series The Thorns went largely unnoticed, and it wasn't until the early '90s that audiences truly got their first glimpse of the rising starlet. Following a brief but scene-stealing turn in the 1990 comedy Cadillac Man, Petty made her first big impression with a role as Keanu Reeves' surfing instructor in the following year's Point Break. When her appearance in the 1992 women's baseball comedy drama A League of Their Own found Petty practically stealing the limelight from such screen heavies as Madonna and Geena Davis, casting agents took notice, and she subsequently landed roles in such high-profile releases as Free Willy (1993), Poetic Justice (1993), and the Pauly Shore comedy In the Army Now (1994). Though Petty's solid dramatic performance in the 1994 police drama The Glass Shield earned her kudos from the critics, the film only received limited release and her contributions went largely unseen. Of course, it was only a matter of time before Petty was given the chance to headline a film, and after beating out the likes of Spice Girl Geri Halliwell and Emily Lloyd she took the lead in the much-maligned 1995 film Tank Girl. A loud, brash and ultimately misguided attempt to bring the punkish comic-book heroine to the screen, the film was ultimately done in by its own excess. Fans were pleased to see Petty bounce back the following year in the shortlived sitcom Lush Life, though the years that followed found her cast in a slew of B-level thrillers including Countdown (1996), The Arrangement (1999), Firetrap, and Route 666 (both 2001). After stepping into the director's chair and pulling double duty both in front of and behind the camera on 2001's Horrible Accident, Petty rocked her heart out in search of a record contract in the 2003 musical drama Prey for Rock & Roll.

Trivia: Although American leading man Gary Busey has made distinguished appearances in many films, he has yet to attain the consistent popularity that would make him a major star. Born in Texas, Busey first few years were spent on an Oklahoma ranch where he learned to be a bull rider. He attended three different colleges before finally graduating in 1963, the year he became a professional drummer with the rock group The Rubber Band. Later, he billed himself as Teddy Jack Eddy and played percussion for Leon Russell, Kris Kristofferson, and Willie Nelson. In 1970, Busey made his acting debut in an episode of the TV western High Chaparel. This led to his feature film debut as a biker in Angels Hard as They Come the following year. After that Busey went on to play supporting roles (typically cast as renegades, daredevils, or good ol' boys with dubious morals) until 1978 when he made a major splash playing the lanky lead in The Buddy Holly Story, for which he did all the guitar and vocal work. His impersonation of Holly was remarkable and won him considerable acclaim and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Busey then went on to play leads in many films of varying quality during the early to mid-1980s. In the late '80s he returned to supporting roles and co-leads. In 1988, Busey almost died in a motorcycle accident and his near death resulted in enactment of tougher helmet laws in California.

Trivia: John McGinley, often credited as John C. McGinley, has become one of the most prolific character actors in Hollywood since he first got noticed in Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986). The intense, unblinking actor specializes in sarcasm, cynicism, and a used car dealer's unctuous insincerity, meaning he can play either wacky or sinister in both comedies and dramas. Although he has appeared in six Stone films, his breakout performance came in a very different format, as the acerbic and piercingly straightforward Dr. Perry Cox on the hit NBC sitcom Scrubs (2001).McGinley was born on August 3, 1959, in New York City. Growing up in Millburn, NJ, he was more involved in sports than theater. He began studying acting at Syracuse University, continuing at N.Y.U.'s Tisch School of the Arts. McGinley then toiled both on and off-Broadway, as well as two years on the soap opera Another World, scoring his first film role in the Alan Alda-directed Sweet Liberty (1986). It was while he was serving as John Turturro's understudy on the play Danny and the Deep Blue Sea that a casting scout in Stone's employ spotted him and got him an audition for Platoon. McGinley was cast as the sycophantic Sgt. Red O'Neill in the eventual Oscar winner.McGinley followed up Platoon with another one-two punch of Stone movies, Wall Street (1987) and Talk Radio (1988). In interviews, McGinley has described theirs as a "strong working relationship," not a friendship per se with the demanding director. He appeared in a handful of other films before his fourth Stone collaboration, Born on the Fourth of July (1989), which was quickly followed by his first screenwriting effort. McGinley co-scripted and co-starred in the 1990 film Suffering Bastards, alongside Talk Radio's Eric Bogosian.The 1990s were a period of intense work for the actor, who appeared in an average of three movies a year, sometimes as many as seven -- a necessary but no less tricky feat for a character actor earning modest paychecks. The most heralded of these were David Fincher's Seven and Stone's Nixon (both 1995); the most forgettable were Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) and the Steven Seagal starrer On Deadly Ground (1994). For most moviegoers, he remained under the radar.Two showy roles in 1999 ably demonstrated McGinley's facility for comedy. As a callous efficiency expert brought aboard to reorganize (i.e., downsize) the tech firm at the heart of Office Space, McGinley grinned and joked his way through a round of heartless layoffs. A similar oiliness informed his loud, obnoxious, kiss-ass portrayal of a Jim Rome-type sports interviewer in Stone's Any Given Sunday. It was soon after, in 2001, that McGinley was brought aboard for the role destined to identify him beyond any single film. As the default mentor on Scrubs, McGinley alternated hard-knocks frankness, biting wit, and a genuine desire to be left alone, in turn creating a hilarious persona and sealing his fate as an unwitting cult figure to the young surgeons. The sitcom work schedule has given him the necessary stability to spend time with his young son, Max, who has Down's syndrome.

Trivia: Thanks in large part to the independent film movement of the late '80s, the boyishly handsome James LeGros went from being an underrated bit player in Hollywood schlock to a well-respected character actor. A Minnesota native, LeGros found steady work when he migrated to Los Angeles after college in the early '80s, popping up as a guest star in such TV series as Knight Rider, and in Danny DeVito's directorial debut, the made-for-cable satire The Ratings Game (a.k.a. The Mogul). Sci-fi made up the bulk of LeGros' early feature-film roles, including the dreadful post-apocalyptic teen flop Solarbabies (1986) and the thriller sequel Phantasm II (1988).It was director Gus Van Sant who afforded LeGros the opportunity to show his skills with a meaty supporting role in 1989's much-acclaimed Drugstore Cowboy. As part of a quartet of drifters stealing their way across the Pacific Northwest, the actor held his own against the iconic Matt Dillon as well as newcomer Heather Graham. More challenging parts followed in the early '90s, including the psychological drama The Rapture (1991), Cameron Crowe's ensemble romantic comedy Singles (1992), and a pair of firearm-obsessed indies, Guncrazy and My New Gun (also 1992). Pairing with director Todd Haynes for his 1995 sophomore feature Safe, LeGros garnered more acclaim as a confidante/romantic interest for the mysteriously ailing character played by Julianne Moore. That same year, he hilariously sent up a narcissistic Hollywood actor -- not-so-secretly based on Brad Pitt -- in director Tom DiCillo's satire on the perils of indie filmmaking, Living in Oblivion.As the millennium drew to a close, LeGros would re-team with Moore in the ensemble dramedy The Myth of Fingerprints (1997), playing an eccentric New England townie who has a crush on Moore's icy, cosmopolitan yuppie. With the film, LeGros began a long-standing collaboration with the film's writer-director -- and Moore's real-life beau -- Bart Freundlich, who would go on to cast LeGros in his subsequent films, including the road movie World Traveler (2001), the family film Catch That Kid (2003), and the screwball relationship comedy Trust the Man (2006).In the intervening years, LeGros made a successful return to the medium that gave him his first break: television. He was exposed to perhaps his widest audience to date in 1998 on the venerable medical drama ER, and then on the popular series Ally McBeal, in 2000 and 2001. A starring role on Showtime's gritty, controversial terrorist drama Sleeper Cell followed in 2005.

Trivia: Lead actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Met his future Red Hot Chili Peppers band mates Flea and Hillel Slovak while attending high school in Los Angeles. Detailed his struggles with drug abuse in his 2004 autobiography Scar Tissue. Named son Everly Bear after the Everly Brothers, a '50s and '60s music duo he considers to be among his favorite artists. Filed a lawsuit with the Red Hot Chili Peppers against Showtime in 2007 over its use of the title Californication for its comedy-drama series. (The band had released an album of the same name in 1999.) Is a longtime vegetarian and was voted one of the Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrities of 2008 in a poll sponsored by PETA. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) in 2012.

Trivia: Began his career in musical theater. Met a casting director in Los Angeles while helping a friend move, which led to a role in Point Break (1991). Grew his hair long to avoid being typecast as a wholesome character.

Trivia: A burly, commanding actor known almost as much for the tumultuous quality of his offscreen life as that of his onscreen roles, Tom Sizemore has carved out a niche for himself in such guys 'n' guns films as Natural Born Killers, Strange Days, Heat, and Saving Private Ryan.Born in Detroit, Sizemore was educated at Wayne State and Temple University, earning a Master's in theater at the latter. He enjoyed an auspicious debut year in 1989 when he appeared in no less than four movies including Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July. That same year, the actor won the semi-regular role of Vinnie Ventressa on the popular TV drama China Beach. He went on to do starring work in such films as Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), Carl Franklin's highly praised crime noir Devil in a Blue Dress (1994) and Michael Mann's crime thriller Heat. Sizemore's involvement with the latter film marked a personal turning point for him; for years he suffered from a well-publicized addiction to heroin, and he seemed to be losing his battle until he met his Heat co-star and childhood icon Robert De Niro, who, Sizemore subsequently admitted in interviews, convinced him to go into rehab.In 1998, Sizemore starred in what was possibly his most high-profile role to date in Steven Spielberg's WWII epic Saving Private Ryan. Cast as Sgt. Horvath, Tom Hanks' right hand man, the actor earned positive notices as part of a stellar ensemble cast that also included Giovanni Ribisi, Matt Damon, Jeremy Davies, and Vin Diesel. He subsequently porked out to play mob boss John Gotti in the made-for-TV Witness to the Mob and then returned to the screen in Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead (1999), which cast him as Nicolas Cage's ex-best friend. In 2000, Sizemore starred alongside Val Kilmer and Carrie-Anne Moss in the sci-fi adventure Red Planet; that same year, he appeared in Play It to the Bone, a boxing drama starring Woody Harrelson and Antonio Banderas. With the release of Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down the following year, the grizzled screen veteran seemed as if he may be threatening to becoming something of a later-day action star.Though to this point Sizemore's work in features had left him with little experience in the realm of television, all of that would change when he took the lead in the 2002 series Robbery Homicide Division. For an actor who excelled at playing hardened detectives and rough cops, the show seemed the ideal star vehicle for Sizemore, and after contributing vocal work for the controversial video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City that same year, he stepped into the lead for the crime thriller Swindle as the year wound to a close. A supporting role in Dreamcatcher got 2003 off to a shaky start, and things only went downhill from there when, in October of that year, the troubled actor entered rehab before being sentenced to six months in prison on domestic violence charges. Though his personal life may have been somewhat in flux, one certainly couldn't tell by looking at his screen credits for 2004 -- a year in which Sizemore would appear in no less than four films including the family adventure Fly Boys.

Trivia: Was born in a U.S. Air Force base.Was a member of the Huskies' NCAA Division-I Gymnastics Team.Discovered her passion for martial arts while touring Asia as a goodwill ambassador.Student of sensei Benny Urquidez.Is an accomplished equestrian.In 2014, became the first woman to be nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Stunt Coordination for a Comedy or Variety Show.Has a production company called JMP Productions, Inc.

Trivia: Lead actor, onscreen from the '80s.