Trivia: More coolly charismatic than drop-dead handsome, Richard Gere was one of the most successful sex symbols of the '80s and early '90s. Possessing something of an actual talent in addition to his good looks, Gere has proven himself to be a versatile actor since first starring as the pick-up artist who creeps out Diane Keaton in Looking For Mr. Goodbar. Capable of playing everything from romantic leads and action heroes to medieval knights and ruthless villains, Gere has moved beyond his role as cinematic eye candy to become one of the more enduring actors of his generation. Born in Philadelphia on August 31, 1949, Gere had a strict Methodist upbringing in upstate New York. Following his 1967 high school graduation, he studied philosophy and film at the University of Massachusetts -- only to leave school to pursue an acting career two years later. Gere became a professional actor and sometime musician, performing theatrically in Seattle and New York and attempting unsuccessfully to form a rock band. In 1973 the young actor landed in London, where he gained prominence playing Danny Zuko in Grease, a role he would later reprise on Broadway. While in London, Gere gained the privilege of becoming one of the few Americans ever to work with Britain's Young Vic Theater, with which he appeared in The Taming of the Shrew.Back in the U.S., Gere made his feature film debut in 1974 with a tiny part in Report to the Commissioner. He returned to the stage the following year as part of the cast of an off-Broadway production of Sam Shepard's Killer's Head; following Gere's turn in the 1977 Looking for Mr. Goodbar, he and Shepard would again collaborate in Terrence Malick's breathtaking Days of Heaven (1978). In 1979, Gere won considerable theatrical acclaim for his performance in the Broadway production of Martin Sherman's Bent, and the next year enjoyed his first shot at screen stardom with the title role in Paul Schrader's American Gigolo. Though the film was not a major critical or box-office success, it did earn recognition for the actor, who had taken the role after John Travolta turned it down. Gere did not become a real star until he appeared opposite Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman in 1982, but his bona fide celebrity status was jeopardized with roles in several poorly received films including King David (1985). A lead role in Francis Ford Coppola's 1984 The Cotton Club also failed to perk up the actor's career; despite a legendary director and stellar cast, the film received mixed reviews and poor box-office turnout. With no recent major successes behind him by the end of the decade, it looked as if Gere's career was in a tailspin. Fortunately, he abruptly pulled out of the dive in 1990, first as a cop/crime lord in Mike Figgis' Internal Affairs and then as a ruthless businessman who finds true love in the arms of prostitute Julia Roberts in the smash romantic comedy Pretty Woman. Back in the saddle again, Gere continued to star in a number of films, including Sommersby (1993), Intersection (1994), and First Knight (1995). In 1996, he was highly praised for his portrayal of an arrogant hot-shot attorney in Primal Fear, and in 1999 found further financial, if not critical, success starring opposite Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride. The following year the actor enjoyed some of his best reviews to date as a gynecologist at once devoted to and bewildered by all of the women in his life in Robert Altman's aptly titled Dr. T & the Women; many critics noted that Gere seemed to have finally come into his own as an actor, having matured amiably with years and experience. In 2002, Gere played the too-perfect-for-words husband to Diane Lane in Unfaithful. While the film was not a huge critical success, Gere was praised for a game performance, and Lane was nominated for an Oscar. Unfortunately for Gere, a starring role in The Mothman Prophecies didn't do too much for his resume -- while critics once again lauded the actor's intensity, the film itself was widely hailed as too slow-paced to properly showcase his talents. Luckily, the same couldn't be said for his performance in the multiple Oscar winning Chicago, which found Gere in the role of another hotshot lawyer, this time alongside a diverse and talented cast including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renée Zellweger, and Queen Latifah. In 2004, Gere starred opposite Jennifer Lopez and Oscar-winning Hollywood veteran Susan Sarandon in Peter Chelsom's Shall We Dance?.On- and offscreen, Gere uses his acting clout to promote his various political ventures. A devout Buddhist, Gere has been deeply involved with the struggles surrounding the Dalai Lama and the worldwide struggle for human rights -- the documentaries Return to Tibet (2003) and Shadow Over Tibet: Stories in Exile (1994) featured Gere as a prime interviewee, while 1997's Red Corner starred the versatile actor as a victim of a grossly corrupt Chinese court system.In 2005, Gere played a professor of religious studies in director David Siegel's drama Bee Season, and enjoyed success in 2007 with The Hoax, an edgy biographical drama, and The Hunting Party, a political tragi-comedy in which he played a discredited reporter mistaken as a member of a CIA hit squad. The actor joined the casat of Nights in Rodanthe in 2008, and worked with Hilary Swank in Amela, the 2009 Amelia Earhart biopic. Gere took on the role of a burnt out cop in Training Day (2009), director Antoine Fuqua's gritty crime drama Brooklyn's Finest.

Trivia: An acclaimed character actor of the stage, screen, and television, Don Cheadle often manages to steal most of the scenes in which he appears. That is no small feat, for the slender African-American actor has, at first glance, a rather unassuming physical presence, particularly when compared to some of his big-name co-stars. An actor whose style compliments rather than overshadows the performances of those around him, Cheadle stands out for his rare ability to bring a laid-back intensity and subtle charisma to his roles.A native of Kansas City, MO, Cheadle was born on November 29, 1964, to a psychologist father and bank manager mother. During his early childhood, his family moved to Denver and then Nebraska. One thing that remained a constant in Cheadle's childhood was his interest in performing, which began around the age of five. In addition to acting, he was interested in jazz music and his parents supported both of these endeavors. By the time he graduated from high school, he had scholarships from both music and acting schools; choosing the latter, he attended the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. Following graduation, Cheadle made his film debut with a small role as a hamburger server in Moving Violations (1985). He honed his acting skills as a guest star on television series ranging from Hill Street Blues to Night Court, and, in 1992, he landed a regular role as a fussy hotel manager on The Golden Palace. Although the show faltered after only one season, Cheadle landed on his feet, subsequently snagging the plum role of earnest district attorney John Littleton on Picket Fences (1993-1995). While he was building a career on television, Cheadle was also earning a reputation in feature films. He first made an impression on audiences with his lead role in Hamburger Hill (1987), and, in 1994, he had his true screen breakthrough portraying Denzel Washington's best friend in Devil in a Blue Dress. So good was his performance -- which earned him a number of film critics awards -- that many felt an Oscar nomination was inevitable; when the Academy passed him over, many, including Cheadle, wondered why. However, the actor chalked it up to politics and got on with his career, working steadily throughout the remainder of the decade. 1997 proved to be a big year for him: he co-starred in three major films, Volcano, Boogie Nights, and John Singleton's Rosewood. He won particular praise for his work in the latter two films, earning nominations for SAG and Image awards.The following year, Cheadle made a triumphant return to television with his portrayal of Sammy Davis Jr. in The Rat Pack, winning an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe award. Also in 1998, he did stellar work in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight and Warren Beatty's Bulworth, playing a down and dirty ex-con in the former and a drug lord in the latter. Another Emmy nomination followed in 1999, for Cheadle's powerful portrayal of a school teacher sent in to counsel a young man on death row, in A Lesson Before Dying. Cheadle would become something of a fixture in Soderbergh's films, and in fact delivered a stunning performance as a federal drug agent in the director's epic muckraking drama Traffic (2000).Cheadle then turned up in Soderbergh's remake of the Rat Pack classic Ocean's Eleven in 2002.The chasm between Traffic and Ocean's Eleven (not in terms of quality but in terms of intended audience and depth) is instructive; it established a definitive career pattern for Cheadle during the mid-late 2000s. Throughout that period, the gifted actor continually projected versatility by alternating between buttered-popcorn pictures - such as Soderbergh's 2004 and 2007 follow ups to Eleven (Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen) - and more complex, demanding, intelligent material. For example, in 2004 (a particularly vital year for Cheadle) the actor delivered a four-barrelled lead portrayal in the heart-wrenching docudrama Hotel Rwanda. In that politically-tinged, factually-charged account, the actor plays the Rwandan manager of a Kigali hotel, so devastated by the surrounding massacres of his fellow countrymen that he turns the establishment into a clandestine refugee camp. Cheadle justly netted an Oscar nomination for his work. That same year, the thespian held his own against lead Sean Penn (no small feat, that) in the depressing and despairing yet critically acclaimed psychodrama The Assassination of Richard Nixon. Cheadle reserved his most formidable coup, however, for 2005, when he both produced and co-starred (opposite many, many others) in Paul Haggis's difficult ensemble film Crash-a searing, biting meditation on racism and the Best Picture winner of its year. In early 2007, Cheadle paired up with actor Adam Sandler and writer-director Mike Binder for Reign Over Me, a two-character drama about a dentist (Cheadle) reunited with his displaced college roommate (Sandler) after the trauma of 9/11. The picture reeled in generally favorable, if not universally positive, reviews. Later that same year, the actor essayed the lead role in Talk to Me. As directed by Kasi Lemmons, this period drama recreated the life and times of the controversial 1960s convict-cum-shock jock Petey Greene (Cheadle) who rides to fame amid the throes of the civil rights movement and Vietnam-era tumult; many critics tagged the portrayal as definitively Oscar worthy.Cheadle would remain a top star over the coming years, appearing in everything from the kid-friendly Hotel for Dogs to the gritty crime thriller Brooklyn's Finest. Cheadle would also take over the role of Lt. James Rhodes in the Iron Man sequel, replacing Terrence Howard. Cheadle would also find success on the small screen, producing and starring in the critically acclaimed comedy series House of Lies.

Trivia: Bearing the kind of sensitive-man good looks that have led many to think he would be perfect for a career as a tortured, latte-chugging intellectual, Ethan Hawke instead emerged in the 1990s as both a talented actor and a thinking girls' poster boy. In addition to acting, Hawke penned two novels -- The Hottest State, which is rumored to be based on a former relationship he had with singer/songwriter Lisa Loeb, and the best-selling Ash Wednesday. Born November 6, 1970, in Austin, TX, to teenage parents who separated when he was a toddler, Hawke was raised by his mother. The two led an itinerant existence until she married again, and the family settled in Princeton Junction, NJ. There Hawke began to study acting at Princeton's McCarter Theatre, and at the age of 14, he made his film debut in Explorers (1985). A sci-fi fantasy flick that starred the actor alongside River Phoenix, it didn't make much of an impact upon its theatrical release, but thanks to the presence of both Hawke and Phoenix, it went on to a second life on cable.Following his debut, Hawke stopped acting professionally to attend Carnegie Mellon University. His college career didn't last long, however; while still a student, Hawke was chosen to play one of the young protagonists of Peter Weir's Dead Poets Society. The 1989 film, which marked the beginning of Robin Williams' turn toward more dramatic roles, was a success, and Hawke, in his role as the shy, cringing Todd Anderson, made prep school angst look so photogenic that he soon had something of a teenage following. After starring as Ted Danson's son in Dad the same year, Hawke went on to make a string of movies that allowed him to demonstrate his talent but never quite propelled him further into the realm of stardom. White Fang (1991) provided him with a go at adventure by casting him as a young gold miner who forms a bond with the titular canine, while Waterland (1992) had Hawke plumbing the depths of mild delinquency as the troublesome student of an emotionally estranged Jeremy Irons. Unfortunately, almost nobody saw Waterland, and the same could be said of Hawke's other film that year, the WWII drama A Midnight Clear. Lack of an audience obscured the actor's strong performances in both films, and it was not until 1994 that he began to gain recognition for something besides Dead Poets Society. In that year, Hawke created something of a reputation for himself, both on- and offscreen. Offscreen, he became tabloid fodder when he was caught dancing with a then-married Julia Roberts and thus gained a certain -- if fleeting -- kind of notoriety. On screen, the actor starred in Ben Stiller's Reality Bites, portraying the kind of goateed, ennui-mired, more-sensitive-than-thou slacker that helped get him labeled as such in real life. Matters weren't helped when, that same year, the actor published The Hottest State, a meditation on love from the point-of-view of an angst-ridden twentysomething that was scorned by many critics as pretentious posturing.After starring as another sensitive student of life in Richard Linklater's romantic talkathon Before Sunrise (1995), Hawke went back to his sci-fi roots with Gattaca (1997), a near-future parable about the dangers of genetic engineering. Although the film was a relative disappointment, it did present Hawke with an introduction to co-star Uma Thurman, whom he married in 1998 and had a daughter with later that same year. Also in 1998, the actor starred opposite Gwyneth Paltrow in an adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations; despite mixed reviews, the film heightened Hawke's profile while further establishing him as one of the leading interpreters of sensitive-boy artistic angst. After a starring turn as one of the titular Newton Boys alongside Matthew McConaughey, Skeet Ulrich, and Vincent D'Onofrio in Richard Linklater's neglected 1998 Western, Hawke took on an entirely different role in 1999. Starring in Scott Hicks' Snow Falling on Cedars, he portrayed a journalist investigating the murder of a Japanese-American man in post-WWII Washington State. The same year, he appeared in Joe the King, the directorial debut of his friend and Midnight Clear co-star Frank Whaley.In addition to his film work, Hawke has remained active in the theater. He was the artistic director of the now-defunct Malaparte, a New York theater company that he co-founded with a group of actors including Robert Sean Leonard, Frank Whaley, and Josh Hamilton. He has also worked behind the camera, directing the music video for Lisa Loeb's "Stay" in 1994.Hawke subsequently earned some of the best reviews of his career to date as the title character of Michael Almereyda's 2000 adaptation of Hamlet. Set in modern-day New York, the film allowed Hawke to give the famously tortured prince a slackerish spin that more than one critic noted seemed to come naturally to the actor. The following year, he could be seen in an altogether different feature, portraying a rookie cop opposite Denzel Washington in Training Day, Antoine Fuqua's gritty cop drama. He also collaborated again with director Linklater, first for Tape, a drama co-starring Robert Sean Leonard and wife Thurman, and then for Waking Life, a groundbreaking animated feature in which the actor reprised the role of Before Sunrise's Jesse. 2001 also marked Hawke's first significant foray behind the camera as the director of Chelsea Walls, a multi-character drama about various artists living in New York's famed Chelsea Hotel.In 2002, Hawke played alongside Frank Whaley in The Jimmy Show and made an appearance on the hit television drama Alias the next year. The year 2003 was not a banner one for the actor -- after rumors of an affair between Hawke and a young model began circulating among various television and print tabloids, Uma Thurman announced their official separation after five years of marriage. In 2004, Hawke starred with Angelina Jolie in director D.J. Caruso's Taking Lives and reprised his Before Sunrise role opposite Julie Delpy in Linklater's sequel Before Sunset, a film which also provided the long-time actor with his first screenwriting credit.Hawke appeared in several moderately successful films throughout 2005 and 2006 (Assault on Precinct 13, The Hottest State, Fast Food Nation), but found himself back in the limelight for 2007's crime thriller Before the Devil Know You're Dead, in which the actor played one of two brothers involved in a plan to rob their parents' jewelry store. The film would win the Best Picture from the American Film Institute. He found success yet again for his role in the 2008 crime drama What Doesn't Kill You. The film, which also stars Mark Ruffalo and Donnie Wahlberg, features Hawke as a street-hardened young adult struggling to rise above the dog-eat-dog lifestyle to which he has become accustomed. In 2009 Hawke starred in Daybreaker, in which he played a vampire sympathetic to the human plight, and worked with Don Cheadle, Wesley Snipes, and Richard Gere for his role as a narcotics officer in the crime thriller Brooklyn's Finest.In 2013 Hawke scored a minor hit as the star of the horror film The Purge. In that same year he returned with Julie Delpy and Richard Linklater with Before Midnight, their sequel to Before Sunset, which garnered Hawke a second Oscar nomination in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. He returned to Oscar contention in 2014, this time in the Best Supporting Actor category for playing the father in Linklater's Boyhood.

Trivia: With sleek, well-muscled good looks that easily lend themselves to romantic leading roles or parts that call for running, jumping, and handling firearms, Wesley Snipes became one of the most popular Hollywood stars of the 1990s. First coming to prominence with roles in Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues and Jungle Fever, Snipes went on to prove himself as an actor who could appeal to audiences as a man that women want and men want to be.Born in Orlando, FL, on July 31, 1962, Snipes grew up in the Bronx. He developed an early interest in acting and attended Manhattan's High School for the Performing Arts. His mother moved him back to Florida before he could graduate, but after finishing up high school in Florida, Snipes attended the State University of New York-Purchase and began pursuing an acting career. It was while performing in a competition that he was discovered by an agent, and a short time later he made his film debut in the Goldie Hawn vehicle Wildcats (1986). Although he appeared in a few more films during the 1980s, it was Snipes' turn as a street tough who menaces Michael Jackson in the Martin Scorsese-directed video for "Bad" that caught the eye of director Lee. He was so impressed with the actor's performance that he cast him in his 1990 Mo' Better Blues as a flamboyant saxophonist opposite Denzel Washington. That role, coupled with the exposure that Snipes had received for his performance as a talented but undisciplined baseball player in the previous year's Major League, succeeded in giving the actor a tentative plot on the Hollywood map. With his starring role in Lee's 1991 Jungle Fever, Snipes won critical praise and increased his audience exposure, and his career duly took off.That same year, Snipes further demonstrated his flexibility with disparate roles in New Jack City, in which he played a volatile drug lord, and The Waterdance, in which he starred as a former wild man repenting for his ways in a hospital's paraplegic ward. Both performances earned strong reviews, and the following year Snipes found himself as the lead in his first big-budget action flick, Passenger 57. The film, which featured the actor as an ex-cop with an attitude who takes on an airplane hijacker, proved to be a hit. Snipes' other film that year, the comedy White Men Can't Jump, was also successful, allowing the actor to enter the arena of full-fledged movie star. After a few more action stints in such films as Rising Sun (1993), which featured him opposite Sean Connery, Snipes went in a different direction with an uncredited role in Waiting to Exhale (1995). The same year he completely bucked his macho, action-figure persona with his portrayal of a flamboyant drag queen in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. Snipes continued to focus on less testosterone-saturated projects after a turn as a baseball player in The Fan (1996), starring as an adulterous director in Mike Figgis' One Night Stand (1997) -- for which he won a Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival -- and as Alfre Woodard's handsome cousin in Down in the Delta in 1998. That same year, Snipes returned to the action genre, playing a pumped-up vampire slayer in Blade and a wrongfully accused man on the run from the law in the sequel to The Fugitive, U.S. Marshals. The former would prove to be a massive cult hit and one of his biggest box-office successes to date. And while the new millenium would see most of Snipes' films relegated to straight-to-video releases, a pair of Blade sequels in 2002 and 2004 helped the actor remain a presence at the multiplexes.Sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion in 2008, Snipes began serving his term in 2010.

Trivia: Actor Will Patton successfully divides his time between mainstream and independent features, television films, and a stage career on and off-Broadway. Born and raised in North Carolina, the son of a Lutheran minister, Patton learned his craft at the North Carolina School of the Arts and at New York's Actor's Studio where he studied under Lee Strasberg. In addition, Patton studied at the Open Theater under Joseph Chaikin before making it to the New York stage. Patton has won two Obie Awards for Tourists and Refugees No. 2 and for Sam Shepard's Fool for Love. Patton also has had experience working at London's Royal Court Theatre. Upon his return to New York, Patton joined the experimental Winter Project troupe. During the 1970s, Patton performed in two soap operas, Search for Tomorrow and Ryan's Hope. Patton first appeared on film in the short underground film Minus Zero(1979). During the early '80s, Patton appeared in such New York-based independent films as Michael Oblowitz's King Blank and Variety (both 1983). After playing a small but important villainous role in Susan Seidelman's Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Patton was cast in his first big-budget film, Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1985), where he played a brutish boyfriend with a thing for leather and chains. His best portrayal of a villain can be found in the Gene Hackman-starring thriller No Way Out (1987). In the '90s he could be seen in The Rapture, In the Soup, Romeo Is Bleeding, Copycat, the infamous Kevin Costner project The Postman, and the Michael Bay blockbuster Armageddon. At the beginning of the 21st century Patton continued to remain busy with major roles in Remember the Titans, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Mothman Prophecies, and The Punisher, as well as smaller roles in diverse films like Into the West, Wendy and Lucy, Meek's Cutoff, and Brooklyn's Finest.

Trivia: One of the most versatile actresses working in film today, Lili Taylor is known for taking on complex, thorny roles that many of her more glamorous colleagues avoid. In the 1990s, she became a staple of the independent film circuit, turning in one engaging performance after another in films like The Addiction (1995), Girls Town (1996), and Pecker (1998). A native of Glencoe, IL, where she was born on February 20, 1967, Taylor was raised in a comfortable middle-class household as the second youngest of six children. She started acting in grade school and briefly attended DePaul University's Goodman Theater School before launching her professional career in local and regional theater. She acted for a time with Evanston's Piven Theater, performing in the company of such future notables as John Cusack, Aidan Quinn, and Jeremy Piven. In 1987, she spent a season on-stage in Czechoslovakia, returning stateside the following year to make her New York City stage debut in a production of What Did He See? That same year, Taylor ventured into feature films with a bit part in the John Hughes comedy She's Having a Baby. Though the role brought Taylor little recognition, she scored big with her sophomore effort, a starring role in Mystic Pizza (1988) as one of three amorous pizzeria girls (the other two were Julia Roberts and Annabeth Gish) working in a small Connecticut coastal town. More recognition followed for Say Anything... (1989), in which Taylor played John Cusack's hilariously obsessive best friend; she continued to shine in films like Bright Angel (1991), in which she was cast as the drifter sister of a jailbird, and in Dogfight (1991), in which she was the obligatory "ugly duckling" who both transformed and was transformed by her reluctant date, River Phoenix. From the late '80s through the 1990s, Taylor proved to be a willing and able ensemble player in the works of several respected directors: Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Nancy Savoca's Household Saints (1993), Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), and Alan Rudolph's Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). She also did notable work in independent films, starring in Abel Ferrara's The Addiction (1995); Girls Town (1996), a drama about four high school girls trying to cope with everyday hardship, for which she also co-wrote the screenplay; and I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), which cast her in one of her most memorable roles as the mad, murderous Valerie Solanas. In 1998, Taylor played the uncharacteristically glamorous role of an art dealer who tries to seduce the young hero of John Waters' Pecker, and also tried her hand at screwball comedy with Stanley Tucci's The Imposters. Having demonstrated her range in a number of genres, Taylor then took on big-budget horror in 1999 with her starring role in Jan de Bont's The Haunting. However, staying true to her indie loyalties, she could also be seen playing an ordinary woman who begins to lead an extraordinary life in Toni Kalem's adaptation of Anne Tyler's A Slipping Down Life, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January of that year.As the new century began Taylor could be seen alongside her old co-star John Cusack in High Fidelity, and in 2001 she tackled the historical role of Miep Gies in a retelling of Anne Frank. She had a memorable role on the HBO series Six Feet Under. She continued to work steadily in diverse projects such as The Secret, Starting Out in the Evening, Brooklyn's Finest, Public Enemies, and Being Flynn.

Trivia: Ellen Barkin is one of the most respected, versatile actresses on the screen; she is equally at home playing supporting roles, character roles, and leads -- even as true stardom eluded her. Prior to becoming an actress, Barkin attended the renowned High School for the Performing Arts in New York, studied history and Drama at Hunter College, and attended workshops at The Actors Studio. Barkin debuted on-stage in 1980's Irish Coffee and continued her theater work while appearing the following year in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow. She had roles in various TV movies before making her critically acclaimed film debut as the neglected wife of an obsessive record collector in Barry Levinson's Diner (1982), and subsequently went on to play supporting roles ranging from unhappy wives to white-hot sexpots to a small but vital part as Robert Duvall's troubled daughter in Tender Mercies (1983). Following her appearance in the romantic thriller The Big Easy in 1987, Barkin gained a small but devoted following. While filming the experimental supernatural thriller Siesta (1987), she met her husband, Irish actor Gabriel Byrne, with whom she had two children. (The couple divorced in 1993.) Remaining involved with The Actors Studio when not working, Barkin worked steadily during the late '80s and throughout the '90s -- most notably in Sea of Love (1989) -- and appeared (with Oprah Winfrey) in 1997's Before Women Had Wings, her first TV movie in 13 years. She appeared in Terry Gilliam's adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, as well as the 1999 black comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous. She made a move into indie fare at the beginning of the next decade with parts in Todd Solondz's Palindromes, and Spike Lee's micro-budget drama She Hate Me. She had her most high-profile role in quite some time in 2007 when she was cast in Ocean's Thirteen. Two years later she was in the cop drama Brooklyn's Finest, and two years after that she was the lead in the ensemble dysfunctional family drama Another Happy Day.

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: 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: Although both his parents had careers in the theater, he didn't decide to pursue acting until late in his college career. Turned down a longer character arc for Trey on The O.C. so he could return to doing theater, his true passion. Received Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Award nominations in 2004 for his performance in Neil LaBute's The Distance from Here.

Trivia: At 14, was cast in her first movie, the short film Liminality starring Stephen Baldwin. Left home when she was 16 to study acting full-time in New York City. Beat out 500 hopefuls to land a role opposite Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart in the 2010 docudrama The Runaways. Was named after famed acting coach Stella Adler.

Trivia: Tall, chiseled-face character actor Robert John Burke has been acting since the 1970s, but he is best known to art house audiences as a regular member of New York-based director Hal Hartley's stock company of decidedly non-Hollywood actors. Born on Long Island, Burke studied acting at S.U.N.Y. Purchase in the early '70s. After he graduated from college, Burke began acting in TV, appearing on such shows as As the World Turns and Happy Days. Though he made his feature film debut in The Chosen (1981), Burke devoted his energies in the early '80s to an experimental teaching program designed to involve students directly in the arts. Burke returned to movies and TV in the latter half of the 1980s with roles in actioner Wanted Dead or Alive (1986), TV movie comedy Pass the Ammo (1989), and late-'80s dance trend vehicle Lambada (1989). Burke's fortunes began to change when he was cast in the lead role of an enigmatic ex-con who returns to his Long Island hometown in the then-unknown Hartley's first feature, The Unbelievable Truth (1990). Shot on a shoestring budget in 11 days, The Unbelievable Truth garnered positive notice for Hartley's distinctly offbeat, dark comic sensibility and his stars' deadpan, wry performances. Burke followed The Unbelievable Truth with a supporting part in the Oscar-nominated 1930s coming of age film Rambling Rose (1991) and a high-profile starring role replacing Peter Weller as the imposing eponymous cyborg law enforcer in Robocop 3 (1992). Burke stayed busy from then on, alternating between independent movies and Hollywood projects. Working with Hartley again, Burke starred as one of a pair of brothers searching for their ballplayer-turned-anarchist father in the quirky yet appealing Simple Men (1992); he played a smaller role in Hartley's troubled romance triad Flirt (1995). Burke also acted more than once with the far less celebrated independent filmmaker Eric Schaeffer, appearing in Schaeffer's industry insider comedy My Life's in Turnaround (1993) and self-indulgent romantic comedy If Lucy Fell (1996). Outside of the New York independent scene, Burke played Reese Witherspoon's African gamekeeper father in the children's adventure A Far Off Place (1993), joined the distinguished cast populating Tombstone (1993) (the Kurt Russell version of the Wyatt Earp Western legend), appeared in Oliver Stone's third Vietnam movie, Heaven and Earth (1993), and starred as the cursed obese lawyer in Stephen King's horror yarn Thinner (1996). Continuing to show his versatility in both comedy and drama, Burke joined the supporting cast of the light-hearted buddy chase movie Fled (1996) and starred as Natasha Gregson Wagner's father in the bayou love story First Love, Last Rites (1997). Burke returned to TV in the late '90s in two acclaimed HBO productions, the ambitious miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998) and the wrenching Vietnam War docudrama A Bright Shining Lie (1998). At the start of the 2000s, Burke reunited with Hal Hartley for the Cannes Film Festival entry No Such Thing (2001). Drawing upon his varied experience, not to mention his formidable mien, Burke played the mammal/lizard Beast to Sarah Polley's Beauty in Hartley's singular reworking of the fairy tale romance.

Trivia: Actress Lela Rochon started her career in show business as a bikini-clad party girl in Spuds MacKenzie beer commercials during the '80s. A trained dancer, she was in the background of Breakin', Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Lionel Richie's music video for "All Night Long." In 1985, she starred in her first feature, A Bunny's Tale, a TV-movie starring Kirstie Alley as feminist activist Gloria Steinem during her Playboy Bunny days. Rochon went on to appear in the low-budget movies Stewardess Schooland Foxtrap, as well as the Eddie Murphy blockbusters Harlem Nights and Boomerang. Her big film breakthrough came in 1995, when her friendship with author Terry McMillan helped her to get an audition with director Forest Whitaker for the role of Robin in Waiting to Exhale. The film was a surprise Hollywood hit and Rochon was offered several new projects. After joining the cast of the WB series The Wayans Bros. as Shawn Wayans' girlfriend Lisa, she starred opposite Timothy Hutton in the made-for-cable movie Mr. and Mrs. Loving. She showed her versatility in her next few films as a wide array of characters: an exotic dancer in Gang Related, a government aide in The Chamber, a schoolteacher in Why Do Fools Fall in Love, a corporate vice president in Knock Off, and a kooky best friend in Labor Pains. In 2001, she joined the cast of the Lifetime original series The Division as Inspector Angela Reide. She and her husband, director Antoine Fuqua, have two children.

Trivia: The fifth of 11 children. Attended Southwest Minnesota State University on a football scholarship; tried out for The Crucible after injuries sidelined him. Studied at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco after college. Made his Broadway debut in the play Mastergate in 1989. Received the 2002 Lucille Lortelle Award for Outstanding Featured Actor for the off-Broadway play Four. Supports a scholarship for SMSU, the Isiah Whitlock Jr. Fine Arts Theatre Endowment.

Trivia: The frequently glamorous African-American actress Tawny Cypress built her career from the very late '90s onward. Her first major role was the minor character Melissa in the Richard Gere/Winona Ryder sudser Autumn in New York (2000). She went on to appear in a variety television programs in both guest parts (NYPD Blue, Law & Order: Criminal Intent) and recurring roles (Third Watch, All My Children), but it wasn't until 2006 that she truly gained mainstream attention. That fall, she took on the role of Simone Deveaux on the prime-time fantasy drama Heroes, a series that soon became a massive hit. She remained with the show for one season, and then could be seen on the New Orleans-set police drama K-Ville in the fall of 2007, playing Ginger "Love Tap" LeBeau, the only main character who was a female officer.