Trivia: After a number of roles in his native Denmark, actor Nikolaj Waldau began appearing in U.S. films in the early 2000s with bit parts in Black Hawk Down and Wimbledon, to name a few. In 2007, he landed the lead role on Fox's New Amsterdam, a supernatural cop show from director Lasse Hallström.

Trivia: Scottish actor Gerard Butler spent seven miserable years studying law before trying his hand at acting on the London stage. Half a decade later, a much happier Butler had over a dozen theater, movie, and television credits under his belt, including starring roles in the stage version of Trainspotting (1996) and the award-winning film Mrs. Brown (1997).Born on November 13, 1969, in Glasgow, Butler is the youngest of Margaret and Edward Butler's three children; he has a sister and a brother. When Butler was barely six months old, his family relocated to Montréal, Canada, where his father undertook several failed business ventures. A year and a half later, Butler's parents divorced, and his mother took the children back to Scotland. He saw his father once more when he was four years old, and then not again until he was 16. In the meantime, Butler grew up in his mother's hometown of Paisley, where he frequented a nearby movie theater. Enamored with acting, he convinced his mother to take him to auditions, eventually joining the Scottish Youth Theatre and playing a street urchin in Oliver! at the Kings Theatre in Glasgow. An exceptional student, Butler graduated at the top of his class. Hoping to please his family and his teachers, who felt acting was an unrealistic career choice, Butler enrolled in Glasgow University's law program. He served as the president of the school's law society and earned an honor's degree. After finishing college, Butler took a year and a half off to live in Los Angeles, where he appeared as an extra in the Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston vehicle The Bodyguard (1992). He then traveled to Canada to be at his father's bedside as he succumbed to cancer. Shortly after his father's death, Butler returned to Scotland to begin a two-year law traineeship in Edinburgh at one of the country's top firms. But he was bored and discontented as a lawyer, and still dreamed about performing. He went to see Trainspotting on-stage at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh and knew he had made the wrong career choice. Soon enough, Butler's unhappiness began to show in his work, and his firm fired him with only a week left in his training. Two days later, at age 25, he moved to London to begin his acting career. Butler took on a series of odd jobs -- from waiting tables to demonstrating clockwork toys at a trade show -- while looking for work as an actor. He was supposed to be serving as a casting assistant for the play Coriolanus at the Mermaid Theatre when he ran into the show's director, actor Steven Berkoff, at a coffee bar and asked to read for a part. Impressed with the ex-barrister's moxie, Berkoff agreed and Butler secured his first professional acting role. While rehearsing for Coriolanus, he accompanied one of the other actors to an audition for the same stage adaptation of Trainspotting he had seen in Edinburgh and landed the lead part of Mark Renton. In 1997, with his theater career firmly established, Butler made his big-screen debut opposite Billy Connolly and Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown. Sometime later, he had returned to the film's shooting location, Taymouth Castle, for a picnic when he saw a child drowning in the nearby River Tay. Butler dove into the water and saved the boy. The actor received a Certificate of Bravery from the Royal Humane Society for his selfless act. That same year, he earned a small speaking part as a bad guy in the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies before spoofing ex-Wet Wet Wet singer Marti Pellow for the 1998 series The Young Person's Guide to Becoming a Rock Star. Butler finished out the '90s by appearing in the television comedy Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married, as well as returning to the stage to appear opposite Sheila Gish and Rachel Weisz in Suddenly, Last Summer in London's West End. Butler began the new millennium with supporting parts in the gangster film Shooters (2000) and the war drama Harrison's Flowers (2000). He then simultaneously landed the high-profile title roles in Wes Craven's Dracula 2000 (2000) and the USA television movie Attila (2001). Produced by the creators of The Mummy franchise, Attila chronicled the life of the eponymous fifth century barbarian and co-starred veteran actors Tim Curry and Powers Boothe. It also re-teamed Butler with his Coriolanus director, Berkoff, who played his uncle in the film. The hype that surrounded both Dracula 2000 and Attila was fueled by CNN's announcement that Butler was the frontrunner to replace Pierce Brosnan as the next James Bond. The following months, however, were anticlimactic for Butler. Dracula 2000 bombed at the box office and Attila, though one of the year's highest-rated television miniseries, proved to be forgettable. The rumors surrounding his involvement with 007 were quickly quelled when Brosnan announced that he was staying on for at least two more Bond films, and the series' producers never contacted Butler. Determined to get back on his feet, Butler signed on with a new agency. He returned to British television for ITV's miniseries The Jury (2002), which also featured Derek Jacobi and Antony Sher, while simultaneously filming a role as Christian Bale's dragon-slaying best friend in the special-effects spectacle Reign of Fire (2002). He then quickly landed a supporting role in Renny Harlin's Mindhunters with Val Kilmer and LL Cool J, but pulled out of the project to play the lead in Richard Donner's long-awaited adaptation of Michael Crichton's best-selling novel Timeline (2003). Butler also turned heads as Angelina Jolie's hunky love interest in the sequel Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life that same year.Though, to this point in his career, Butler had no doubt displayed immense talent as an actor, the films he had appeared in had almost consistently disappointed in terms of box-office returns. In 2004, that disheartening trend continued as Butler donned the famous mask of the disfigured musical genius made popular on the stage by actor Michael Crawford in the big-screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, with subsequent roles in The Game of Their Lives and Beowulf & Grendel doing little to increase his international recognizability. By 2006, it seemed that Butler was finally poised to break big, and as he prepared to lead the soldiers of Sparta in battle against the overwhelming forces of the Persian Empire in Dawn of the Dead director Zack Snyder's adaptation of Frank Miller's popular graphic novel 300, it appeared as if he was determined to do so in style.The movie was a huge international box-office hit, and Butler followed it up with the Guy Ritchie film RocknRolla the next year. In 2009 he took the starring role in the thriller Law Abiding Citizen, and appeared in the virtual reality action film Gamer. 2010 saw the release of his romantic comedy The Bounty Hunter opposite Jennifer Aniston, and in 2011 he starred in the drama Machine Gun Preacher. That same year he played the arch enemy of Coriolanus in Ralph Fiennes adaptation of that Shakespearean tragedy.

Trivia: One of Australia's most popular and distinguished actors, Geoffrey Rush came to the attention of the international community in 1996 with his performance as pianist David Helfgott in Shine (1996). Rush won an Academy Award for Best Actor, Golden Globe, and Australian Film Institute Award for his work, and he subsequently began appearing in films that would further make him known to audiences all over the world. A Queensland native, Rush was born in Toowoomba on July 6, 1951. After taking an arts degree from the University of Queensland, he began his theater career at Brisbane's Queensland Theatre Company. In addition to honing his skills with the classics, Rush lived in Paris for two years, where he studied pantomime at the Jacques Lecoq School of Mime. After returning to Australia, the actor resumed his stage work, at one point co-starring in Waiting for Godot with former roommate Mel Gibson. He spent much of the early '80s as part of director Jim Sharman's Lighthouse troupe and he also began working in film; his debut came in the 1981 Hoodwink, which also featured a young Judy Davis. Rush continued to appear in Australian films and on the stage, directing a number of theatrical productions in addition to acting in them. His big international break came in the form of the aforementioned Shine; following the adulation surrounding his performance as the unbalanced piano prodigy, Rush began to garner substantial roles in a number of high-profile projects. First was Gillian Armstrong's Oscar and Lucinda (1997), in which he played Oscar's great-grandson. The following year the actor drew raves for his work in Elizabeth, which featured him as the Queen's casually sinister confidant, and Shakespeare in Love, for which he again donned tights, this time to play a debt-ridden theater owner. His work in that film scored him his second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actor. The same year, he could also be seen as the dastardly Inspector Javert in Bille August's adaptation of Les Miserables.In 1999, Rush exchanged the past for the future with Mystery Men. Starring as the dastardly Casanova Frankenstein, he shared the screen with an unlikely assortment of actors, including Greg Kinnear, Janeane Garofalo, Ben Stiller, and Paul Reubens. The same year, he starred as an eccentric millionaire who invites a few guests (including Bridgette Wilson, Taye Diggs, and Peter Gallagher) over for some tea and terror in the remake of William Castle's 1958 classic The House on Haunted Hill.At this point audiences in the know were indeed well aware of Rush's versitility, and any actor able to move from the campy, big budget B-horror to the Oscar nominated art-house antics of Phil Kaufman's Quills had little need to prove himself to either critics or audiences. Though he may not have taken home the trophy at the 2001 Academy Awards, his performance as the Marquis de Sade in the Kaufman film drew praise from nearly every corner of the critical spectrum and Rush was now recognized as one of the premier talents of his generation. Whether appearing in such deadly serious independent drama as Frida or wide release cotton candy as The Banger Sisters, Rush was never anything less than fascinating to watch and his enthusiasm for his craft always managed to shine through into his performances. Though the film wasn't seen by the majority of stateside audiences, 2003's Swimming Upstream offered Rush in a meorable turn as the distant father of Australian swimmer Tony Figleton. After taking on one of Austrailia's most notorious outlaws in the 2003 drama Ned Kelley and offering vocal work for the popular Pixar family adventure Finding Nemo, Rush remained on this high seas - this time mostly above water - as the leader of an undead crew of pirates in the 2003 swashbuckler Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Though his menacing performance may have been slightly overshadowed by the flamboyant antics of co-star Johnny Depp, Rush nevertheless managed to craft one of the most complex and rousing villians in recent screen history. Next turning up as the hapless victim of a gold-digging maneater in the Coen Brothers' Intolerable Cruelty, Rush soon began preparation for his role as none other than the immortal Inspector Clouseau in the made-for-television biography The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. Rush played the Mossad representative who acts as the contact for the group of avenging agents in Steven Spielberg's outstanding Munich. Then he returned to the biggest hit of his career, reprising his part as a pirate in the next two Pirates of the Carribean films. He also agreed to reteam with director Shekhar Kapur and co-star Cate Blanchett for the sequel to Elizabeth reprising his role as Sir Francis Walsingham.As anticipated, the 2006 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest opened to spectacular box office and solid (if not exemplary) reviews, though few of the critics who praised the film actually singled out Rush's fine performance in it as Barbossa (doubtless blinded by the impressive torrent of special effects and the squishy villainry of Bill Nighy that took center stage). Rush also joined the cast of that same year's Candy. Not to be mistaken for the awful Christian Marquand picture of the same title (or a remake thereof), the film actually constitutes a finely-tuned gut-wrencher about the heroin addictions of a poet and art student who become romantically entwined and decide to wed. Rush plays the ultra-liberal professor who first encourages the heroin use as experimentation, but later acknowledges the couple's inseparable, volatile bond to one another other via shared use of the substance. The picture stars Abbie Cornish and Heath Ledger as the marrieds. THINKFilm scheduled Candy for release in October 2006 as Shekhar Kapur directed Rush in The Golden Age - the Elizabeth sequel for Universal and Working Title - which the studios slated for an October 2007 premiere. Meanwhile, the actor also lent a great deal of his time to shooting the third Pirates installment, also debuting in 2007. 2010 would prove a banner year for Rush, as he was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as a speech therapist in The King's Speech, and the winner of the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for the same film. In 2011, Rush reprised his Pirates role once again for Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides.Rush married Shakespearean stage actress Jane Menelaus in 1988, with whom he has two children - Angelica and James. The couple resides in Melbourne. He is actively involved with environmental causes.

Trivia: Made his film debut, in 2010's Charge Over You, while still in college. Had a recurring role on the Australian soap opera Home and Away. Enjoys surfing and was able to put his hobby to use when he played a surfer in Ride (2014).

Trivia: Was an athlete as a child; involved with Little League baseball but primarily played basketball. Studied acting at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford after graduating from Howard University in Washington, United States. Originally aspired to be a director. Made his TV debut in a 2003 episode of Third Watch. Trained for five months with baseball coaches to prepare for his role as Jackie Robinson in 42 (2013).

Trivia: Practiced martial arts for a decade and earned a black belt in karate while growing up in Paris. Auditioned for a commercial to earn extra money while attending law school and ended up being cast in La vie devant nous, a popular teenage drama. Visited Cambodia, her father's native country, for the first time while filming a movie in Thailand. Actively supports the Cambodian Children's Fund, a humanitarian group that helps educate impoverished children.

Trivia: Sporting the kind of darkly mischievous good looks that often get him cast as randy, ne'er-do-well paramours, Rufus Sewell began his film career in the early '90s and soon emerged as one of England's most promising young actors. The son of an Australian animator who died when he was ten, Sewell was born in Twickenham, Middlesex, on October 29, 1967. He trained to become an actor at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, leaving the school after three years. After making a promising debut on the London stage with an award-winning performance in Making It Better, Sewell originated the role of Septimus Hodge in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, which earned him a nomination for the prestigious Olivier Award. He also won acclaim on the other side of the Atlantic, winning Broadway's Theatre World Award for his performance in Translations.In addition to his work on the stage, Sewell had been acting on both the large and small screen, making his film debut in 1991 with Twenty-One, in which he played Patsy Kensit's junkie boyfriend. In 1994 he caught the attention of American art house filmgoers with his role as a sweet-natured bus driver who becomes the object of Albert Finney's affections in A Man of No Importance; the same year, PBS viewers could see him star in the acclaimed adaptation of Middlemarch.Sewell's art house recognition increased the following year, when he had starring roles in John Schlesinger's Cold Comfort Farm and Carrington. The first film cast him as an earthy farmer accustomed to rolls in the hay, while the second cast him as one of Emma Thompson's army of spurned lovers. Both films helped to get him noticed, even if the attention centered primarily on his imported lust-object status, but it was not until 1998 that he was given his first starring role, headlining the cast of Dark City. Unfortunately, the film vaporized at the box office, as did Sewell's other film that year, Dangerous Beauty.In 1999, the actor was again visible to transatlantic audiences, first as a bitter, alcoholic cokehead in The Very Thought of You, a romantic comedy released in Britain the previous year; and then in John Turturro's Illuminata, a turn-of-the-century romantic farce which cast him as an amorous actor. The latter film -- which also featured Susan Sarandon, Ben Gazzara, and Christopher Walken in its impressive cast -- won a number of good reviews, as did Sewell, an actor who by this point had made the expression of earthy lustiness into something of an endearing trademark.In 2000 Sewell graced the screen in Bless the Child, a supernatural thriller that also starred Kim Basinger and Christina Ricci. Of course few actors of his generation could essay such instantly dislikable villains as the talented Sewell, and after raising the ire of the noble Heath Ledger in the popular period adventure A Knight's Tale, he would once again make viewer's skin crawl as an aristocratic creep with more than a few skeletons in the closet in Neil Burger's romantic fantasy The Illusionist. In 2008 Sewell appeared as Alexander Hamilton in the Emmy-winning HBO mini-series John Adams, with subsequent roles in Eleventh Hour and The Pillars of the Earth preceding a turn as Detective Aurelio Zen in the TV mini-series Zen, and a turn as an evil bloodsucker with designs on the newly established United States in Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.

Trivia: Played for Richmond and Hawthorn in the Victorian Football League while growing up in Melbourne, Australia.Was the 2004 winner of the Girlfriend Model Search title in Australia.Has had a prolific career as a model, working with Calvin Klein, Chanel, Mulberry, D&G, Gap, H&M, Donna Karan, Fendi, Victoria's Secret PINK, Gucci, Versace, among several others.Made her major film debut starring at The Dag in the 2015 action thriller Mad Max: Fury Road alongside Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy.Frequently draws and uses oil pastels for abstract paintings.

Trivia: Moved to England with her English parents when she was an infant and returned to Australia years later. Was born deaf in one ear and regained her hearing after a series of operations undertaken before she was 6. Her debut was on the long-running Australian show Home And Away. While working on Home And Away, co-star Isla Fisher took her under her wing, and helped her feel comfortable with the camera.

Trivia: With his rugged, everyman exterior and quick wit, Aussie actor Bryan Brown has made an undeniable mark in the world of cinema with unforgettable roles in such efforts as Bruce Beresford's Breaker Morant (1980), the innovative action thriller F/X, and the bottle slingin' bartender drama Cocktail (1988). Although public misconception may be that Brown abandoned the Land Down Under for a film career in Hollywood, the lifelong Australian resident remains true to his homeland despite his status as a popular international film star. A former insurance salesman who was bitten by the acting bug early on, the Sydney native soon found stage work in both his hometown as well as London. His film debut as a lovelorn, mentally ill man in The Love Letters From Teralba Road (1977) soon followed, and after gaining positive critical notice for his performance, Brown appeared in minor capacity in such films as Phillip Noyce's Newsfront and Bruce Beresford's Money Movers before his breakout turn as a supporting player in the searing war drama Breaker Morant. His star on the rise in the early '80s, Brown subsequently appeared in the prison drama Stir before turning up in the acclaimed miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983). The musical drama Give My Regards to Broad Street proved a surprising gem to Paul McCartney and Brown fans alike the following year, and with the release of F/X in 1986, Brown became a bankable international star. The film's innovative use of special effects as a means to drive the plot, combined with a smart script and Brown's natural charisma, resulted in a modest hit that spawned both a sequel and a television series (albeit without him). After taking the lead in Tai-Pan (1986) and returning to Australia for the relationship drama The Good Wife (1987), Brown took his biggest Hollywood role to date as a veteran bartender opposite Tom Cruise in Cocktail. Although Brown would have little chance to truly shine opposite the Hollywood heavy, he did manage to steal a few scenes and have fun with the role. Shifting gears entirely for Gorillas in the Mist that same year, Brown was once again offered the opportunity to shine in the role of a National Geographic photographer who falls for primate researcher Dian Fossey Sigourney Weaver. Despite the fact that Brown's '80s momentum may not have carried into the '90s as strongly as fans might have hoped, those who did seek out his films found him still very much at the top of his game. From Nicolas Roeg's existential drama Full Body Massage (1995) to the intensely personal Dead Heart (1996), his performances were consistently thought provoking. After expanding his resumé to include producer credits with the 1991 F/X sequel, Brown did his best to bring stories to the screen that he found personally compelling. His association both in front of and behind the scenes of Twisted Tales (a sort of Down Under Twilight Zone meets The X-Files) helped to maintain his high profile in Australia, and, in 1999, Brown appeared opposite hot-Aussie export Heath Ledger in the comedy drama Two Hands. After more starring roles that year, Brown appeared in the sleeper drama Risk and the nuclear drama On the Beach (both 2000). Having been a youngster in 1960 Australia, the retro-gangster comedy Dirty Deeds had special appeal to Brown, and his turn as a Sydney-based crime syndicate leader who draws the ire of a fearsome Chicago crime family offered a fun take of the gangster-chic trend. Although Brown would threaten to take a break from acting following Dirty Deeds, it wasn't long before he was back in front of the cameras for the Ben Stiller comedy Along Came Polly Captured (2004).

Trivia: Frequently referred to in the Australian press as "the next big thing" during the first several years of her career, Aussie ingenue Emma Booth hailed from Western Australia (the Perth end). Booth was poised to become a sensation among American audiences when she signed to play Jill (and received third billing) in the 2007 romantic comedy Introducing the Dwights, also known as Clubland. This little film -- about the son of a blue comedian and a country music has-been, and his romance with a sprightly newcomer (Booth) -- shot up to qualify as a sleeper hit of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. Booth subsequently joined the cast of director Beeban Kidron's period comedy Hippie Hippie Shake, about controversial Oz magazine editor Richard Neville and his battles with the Obscene Publications Squad.

Trivia: Has worked extensively in the theatre including the Hayloft Project's production of The Nest in 2010 and The Sydney Theatre Company's production of Romeo and Juliet in 2013. Fell from a horse and dislocated his knee while filming the TV series Wild Boys in 2011. Had to master a South African accent when he played Tony Greig in 2011's Howzat! Kerry Packer's War. First major Hollywood movie was a role in Gods of Egypt (2016).

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from 1970.

Trivia: Is of English, Chinese, Māori, and Cook Islander descent. Began modelling at age sixteen after being discovered by a modelling agency at age eleven. Played Cheedo the Fragile in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). In 2016, played Zaya in Gods of Egypt.

Trivia: At age 11, moved with her family from Melbourne to Hobart. Attended the National Institute Of Dramatic Art at age 16, in the very first intake in 1959. Became a Member of the Order of Australia for services to performing arts in 1981. In 1986, directed the film The More Things Change... Was the artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company from 1999-2007. In 1999, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Tasmania. Gave the Australia Day Address in 2004.

Trivia: His first role was an uncredited role in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005).Has appeared in Gods of Egypt (2016), Hacksaw Ridge (2016) and Alien: Covenant (2017).