Trivia: Accomplished British actor Michael Sheen was born in Wales and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. As a performer at the Royal National Theatre as well as on Broadway, some of his theatrical credits include Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger, Henry V in Henry V, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Amadeus. In 1993 he made his television debut as a mentally challenged abandoned kid in the BBC miniseries Gallowglass. His made his feature-film debut two years later as Loco Oliver Parker's Othello, followed by a small part in Stephen Frears' Mary Reilly. Perhaps his best-known role to U.S. audiences was his portrayal of Robbie Ross, the close personal friend of literary icon Oscar Wilde (played by Stephen Fry) in Wilde (1997). As a voice actor, Sheen has read several of Wilde's works and other works of classic literature for Naxos Audio Books. He's also contributed to many programs for BBC Radio 4 and World Service. After he and actress Kate Beckinsale had their first child, he starred in the independent drama Heartlands and made a small appearance in the Victorian-era adventure The Four Feathers. In 2003 he was cast as werewolf leader Lucien in Len Wiseman's action fantasy Underworld, with Beckinsale starring as the vampire warrior on the opposing side of an immortal battle. The same year he completed work on sci-fi adventure Timeline, the stylish period film Bright Young Things, and the romantic comedy Laws of Attraction.He continued to work steadily, but enjoyed his biggest breakthrough returning to the role of Tony Blair for director Stephen Frears when he played opposite Helen Mirren in The Queen. Two years later he would play David Frost to Frank Langella's Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon, a part he played on stage as well. He had a memorable turn as football manager Brian Clough in the sports drama The Damned United, and played Tony Blair again in the made for cable The Special Relationship. He became part of the Twilight series, taking the part of Aro in New Moon, and sticking with the franchise all the way through to the conclusion.In 2011 he played a pontificating intellectual in Woody Allen's Oscar-winning Midnight in Paris, and two years later he appeared opposite Tina Fey and Paul Rudd in the comedy Admission. In 2013, he began a starring role in Showtime's Masters of Sex, playing human sexuality researcher William Masters.

Trivia: The second of three children, David Thewlis grew up in an apartment above his family's combination toy store and wallpaper shop. He received his training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. A veteran of the London stage and English television (Prime Suspect 3), Thewlis found his particular cinematic niche as the antihero of director Mike Leigh's Naked (1993). From the moment that Thewlis, playing an indigent from Manchester, showed up unannounced at the doorstep of his old girlfriend and immediately proceeded to verbally trash everyone in sight, the audience knew it wasn't in for a Noël Coward revival. The result of Thewlis's antisocial screen behavior was the unqualified praise of discriminating moviegoers, not to mention awards from the Cannes jury, the New York Film Critics, and the National Society of Film Critics. He went on to demonstrate his versatility in a number of diverse roles, including Paul Verlaine in 1995's Total Eclipse, an animated earthworm in James and the Giant Peach (1996), a mountaineer in Seven Years in Tibet (1997, a role for which the actor was subsequently banned from entering China), and an expatriate British composer living in Rome in Bernardo Bertolucci's Besieged in 1998. Also that year, Thewlis could be seen doing a brief but hilarious turn as a giggling conceptual artist in The Big Lebowski. As rare as it is for an actor to possess the versatility needed to alternate between such adult-oriented fare as director Mike Leigh's Naked and such innocent fun as James and the Giant Peach, Thewlis could be as effective in the former as he was endearing in the latter. Following a chilling performance as the leader of a London gang in the 2002 crime drama Gangster No. 1, Thewlis switched gears somewhat to portray the villain in the made-for-television family adventure Dinotopia shortly thereafter. In 2003, Thewlis expanded his resumé by making his feature directorial debut with Cheeky, a comedy drama concerning a mournful widower (Thewlis) whose life takes a change for the better after appearing in a popular game show of questionable taste. His profile steadily increasing thanks to roles in such high-profile releases as Timeline and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (as Professor Remus Lupin), the actor began to make as big a name for himself in large-scale Hollywood blockbusters as he previously had in intimate independent dramas. Of course, that's not to say that Thewlis had lost his taste for smaller-scale films, just that his skills were now in increased demand stateside as a direct result of his powerful early-career performances. After a busy year in 2005 with roles in the historical dramas Kingdom of Heaven and The New World, Thewlis drifted back into modern times to play a small but pivotal role in an American-shot segment of the international short anthology All the Invisible Children -- a powerful meditation on the modern mistreatment of youth by the increasingly jaded adult population. A brief turn as the Scotland Yard homicide detective trailing Sharon Stone in the belated and ill-fated sequel Basic Instinct 2 may have gone unseen by many fans after the film received considerably negative word of mouth, though a fun turn as the paranoid, bubblegum-chomping reporter hot on the trail of the young Antichrist in the 2006 remake of The Omen gave audiences much more to chew on and offered Thewlis the opportunity to have a bit of fun, to the delight of fans everywhere. The following year, Thewlis reprised his role of Prof. Lupin in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and appeared in the title role in The Inner Life of Martin Frost. He could next be seen in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, a film adaptation of the John Boyne Holocaust novel, which focuses on the friendship that develops between the child of a Nazi commander at a concentration camp and a young Jewish prisoner. Thewlis enjoyed a high-profile 2011 when the last of the Harry Potter films hit screens, as did other films he was cast in including the Shakespearean drama Anonymous, and Steven Spielberg's Oscar nominated War Horse.

Trivia: Standing a burly 6'4", Liam Neeson was once described by a theatre critic as a "towering sequoia of sex." To say that he has undeniable charisma is certainly accurate, but it is a charisma composed as much of impressive talent as of broken-nosed physical appeal. Bearing both versatility and quiet forcefulness, Neeson has been touted as one of the most compelling actors of the late 20th century.Born June 7, 1952, in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, Neeson had an upbringing partially defined by his involvement in boxing. He became active in the sport as a teenager, earning his distinctive broken nose in the process; he stayed with boxing until he began experiencing black-outs from repeated blows to the head. Initially interested in a career as a teacher, Neeson attended Belfast's Queens College, but he aborted his studies after developing a desire to act. In 1976, he joined Belfast's Lyric Theatre, and two years later he began performing the classics at Dublin's famed Abbey Theatre. While he was with the Abbey, Neeson was discovered by director John Boorman, who cast him as Gawain in 1981's Excalibur. Following his part in that action fantasy, Neeson had supporting roles in such films as The Mission (1986), and he was featured in leads opposite Cher in Suspect (1987) and Diane Keaton in The Good Mother (1988). He got his first starring vehicle in 1990 with Sam Raimi's Darkman; unfortunately, the film was a relative disappointment. Neeson continued to do starring work in such films as Big Man (1991), which featured him as a boxer, Ethan Frome (1992), and Under Suspicion (1992), but ironically, it was his work on the stage that led to his true screen breakthrough. In 1992, the actor was turning in a Tony-nominated performance in Anna Christie opposite Natasha Richardson (whom he would marry in 1994) on Broadway. His work attracted the notice of Steven Spielberg, who was so impressed with what he saw that he cast Neeson as Oskar Schindler in his landmark Holocaust drama Schindler's List (1993). Neeson received Best Actor Oscar and British Academy Award nominations for his performance, and he subsequently didn't have to worry about finding work in Hollywood, or elsewhere, again.More high-profile work followed for Neeson, who went on to star in such films as Nell (1994), Rob Roy (1995), and Michael Collins (1996). However acclaimed his previous work had been, none of it received the hype of one of Neeson's 1999 projects, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. Although the film, which starred Neeson as a Jedi master, ultimately earned a galaxy's worth of negative reviews, it mined box office millions. Its success further enhanced Neeson's status as one of the world's most visible actors, and it even helped to downplay the disappointment of The Haunting, his other film that year.Neeson would enter the new millennium with a variety of projects on his to-do list, appearing in the Martin Scorsese period piece Gangs of New York in 2002, and the extremely popular romantic comedy Love Actually in 2003. The following year would find him tackling a meatier role, however, as he singed on to portray pioneering scientist and researcher on human sexuality Alfred Kinsey in the biopic Kinsey. The part would earn Neeson a Golden Globe nomination, and Neeson would follow its success with performances in Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven, as well as one in the blockbuster superhero reboot Batman Begins in 2005. He would also sign on to provide the voice of lion king Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia fantasy franchise.In 2008, Neeson starred in the thriller Taken, portraying a former CIA officer who employs his brutal skills learned on the job to find his kidnapped daughter. Audiences weren't accustomed to seeing the actor hold down the lead in an action film, but Neeson succeeded and the film was a categorical success. Sadly, the following year, Liam's wife actress Natasha Richardson died suddenly after suffering a severe head injury during a skiing accident. Neeson was left in care of their two children, Michael and Daniel, but was later able to resume his career. Neeson would find himself appearing in many action/adventure films over the coming years. He starred as the cigar-chomping ohn "Hannibal" Smith in the big-screen adaptation of The A-Team in 2010, and a man fleeing for his life and fighting for his identity in 2011's Unknown. The following year, Neeson played an oil driller stranded amid a pack of wolves in The Grey.

Trivia: Is of Welsh ancestry on his mother's side. Trained as a draftsman after dropping out of college. Actress Amanda Redman, his then-sister-in-law, encouraged his acting career and even prepped him for his audition to get into the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. While studying at the Central School of Speech and Drama, he shared a flat with actor Jamie Glover and met his future wife, Beth Goddard, at Glover's birthday party in July 1997. Wrote a book on 1970s and '80s culture, Things Ain't What They Used to Be, in 2008. Patron of Momentum charity that helps children and the families of those children deal with cancer. Best known for his roles as DCI William Bell in State of Play, DCI Gene Hunt in the BBC series Life on Mars, and the sequel Ashes to Ashes. Supports non-league football team Wealdstone FC and is known to be a fan of Arsenal FC.

Trivia: Orlando Bloom began reading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy as a teenager before abandoning the books in favor of sports and girls. He did not complete the three volumes until his early twenties: first in print, and then on camera as one of a handful of actors carefully selected for New Line Cinema's highly anticipated, $270 million, three-film screen adaptation of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The international success of the trilogy's first installment, The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), made Bloom a sought-after young actor. The talented Brit works the talk show circuit, mugs in magazines, and appears at every important award show -- always with a playful demeanor and an uncorrupted smile that suggest he could still be just as easily fulfilled by rugby and romance. Bloom was raised in Canterbury, Kent, with his sister, Samantha. Their mother taught them to enjoy the arts and encouraged them to participate in the local Kent Festival. Bloom began by reciting poetry and prose, displaying an advanced sensitivity to tone and modulation. Yet, it wasn't this precociousness or his frequent trips to the theater that influenced Bloom to become a professional actor. He was in awe of larger-than-life characters -- from Superman to the members of the A-Team -- and knew the only way to become one was to play one on the screen. At 16, Bloom relocated to London and performed with the National Youth Theatre for two seasons before winning a scholarship to train with the British American Drama Academy. At the conclusion of his term with the group, he played the lead in A Walk in the Vienna Woods, and secured an agent. This led to small roles on British television and an appearance in Brian Gilbert's Wilde (1997). Wishing to further his education, Bloom then enrolled at London's prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama (the alma mater of Ewan McGregor, Joseph Fiennes, and Ben Chaplin, among others). There, he acted in several plays, including Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Chekov's Three Sisters, and Sophocles' Antigone. While still in school, Bloom was trying to make it onto a friend's rooftop terrace when he fell three stories and broke his back. The accident almost paralyzed the actor, but surgery let him walk out of the hospital on crutches. Soon afterward, all his peers auditioned for coveted roles in the upcoming The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The extensive and selective casting process took place in every English-speaking country. Bloom good-naturedly tried out for the role of Faramir, a character introduced in the second film, The Two Towers (2002). After meeting with the project's director, Peter Jackson, Bloom was not cast as Faramir. Instead, Jackson asked that he read for the part of Legolas Greenleaf, a much more prominent figure who is featured in all three films. The director offered Bloom the role a few weeks later, only two days before the burgeoning star graduated from drama school. Legolas, Tolkien's warrior elf, has super-human strength, swift reflexes, and heightened sensory awareness. To play him, Bloom trained in archery, swordplay, and horseback riding for two months prior to shooting. He developed a graceful style of combat based on the characters in Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai and worked to manage his posture, poise, and composure. As Legolas, Bloom is immortal, and at 2,931 years old, is a tall, athletic, and skilled fighter of evil -- he truly is larger than life. After finishing The Lord of the Rings -- all three films, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, were shot simultaneously over 18 months in New Zealand -- Bloom headed to Morocco for a role in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down. The film chronicles the horrific Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, in which a "simple" mission left 18 U.S. soldiers dead and 73 wounded. Debuting his American accent, Bloom plays a neophyte ranger who breaks his back after falling 70 feet from a helicopter. This combat film opened only a few weeks after The Fellowship of the Ring and received equal acclaim. Following these blockbusters, Bloom performed in several quirky films with limited releases such as Lullaby of Clubland (2001). But it wouldn't be long before Bloom was blowing up the box-office once again with the 2003 crowd-pleaser The Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Bloom showed up opposite Brad Pitt and Black Hawk Dawn costar Eric Bana in the 2004 historical epic Troy, his intense star-power was unquestionable.Bloom faced a down year in 2005, failing to match the box office success of Troy with Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven. That same year he stepped into the role once occupied by Ashton Kutcher in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown, but the film never recovered from the bad press it received after its initial film festival screening, failed to find an audience in theaters, and was unpopular with critics. Bloom rebounded one year later by returning with the other principles in back-to-back filmed sequels for Pirates of the Caribbean, the first of which, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, shattered box office records for opening day and opening weekend, and became the first film to take in one hundred million dollars in just two days. It will hardly strike one as prescient, then, that industry insiders and the trades were advance prepping Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End as one of the most lucrative releases of 2007, possibly of any year. The actor would appear in more down tempo projects in the coming years, like 2010's Main Street, and 2011's The Good Doctor, before hopping on board another swashbuckler, playing the Duke of Buckhingham in The Three Musketeers. Though the film wasn't a huge success in the States, Bloom would have another franchise ticket to cash in the following year, reprising the role of elf Legolas in the Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit.

Trivia: A Scottish actor whose heritage is betrayed as much by his pale skin and red hair as it is by his accent, Kevin McKidd first earned recognition in 1996 with parts in Trainspotting and Small Faces, two films that helped to put the Scottish film industry on the world cinema map. Born and raised in Elgin, a town in the northeast of Scotland, McKidd developed an interest in acting early on and was active with the Moray Youth Theatre throughout his childhood and adolescence. His time as an engineering student at the University of Edinburgh produced little in the way of engineering but did allow McKidd to rack up experience as part of the university's Bedlam Theatre. Finally deciding to chuck his course of study in order to pursue acting full-time, he enrolled in the Queen Margaret Drama School, where he trained until he graduated in 1994. Immediately after his graduation, McKidd auditioned for and won the lead role in The Silver Darlings, which was staged by Robert Carlyle's Rain Dog Theatre Company. This was followed by his casting as a vicious Glasgow gang leader in Gillies MacKinnon's Small Faces (1995) and his role as Tommy, an Iggy Pop-worshipping, AIDS-stricken heroin addict in Danny Boyle's Trainspotting (1996). The huge success of the latter film got McKidd noticed, although his performance was largely overshadowed by those of co-stars Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle. However, the actor soon found more work headed in his direction and spent the rest of the decade appearing in a steady stream of small art house pictures. Among the films he appeared in were Gilles MacKinnon's Hideous Kinky (1998), in which he had a cameo as a massively stoned traveler in Morocco and Rose Troche's Bedrooms and Hallways (1998), in which he starred as a gay man grappling with bisexual urges. In addition to his work on the screen, McKidd remained active on the stage, portraying the title character in the Almeida Theatre production of Jean Racine's Britannicus and starring alongside Jude Law in director Jonathan Kent's Albery Theatre production of John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. He worked steadily throughout the next decade in projects like Anna Karenina, Dog Soldiers, and the biopic De-Lovely. In 2005 he appeared in Ridley Scott's epic Kingdom of Heaven, and that same year he was cast in the historical series Rome. Two years later he had a major role in the Silence of the Lambs prequel Hannibal Rising. The following year, in 2008, McKidd joined the ensemble cast of Grey's Anatomy, which scaled back his film work. In 2010 he was cast as Poseidon, the father of the young hero in Percy Jackson & The Olympians. He joined the Pixar family in 2012 giving voice to Lord MacGuffin in Brave.

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: In 2002, performed as Kent in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of King Lear. Made his film debut in 2004, as Michael Connolly in Inside I'm Dancing. Nominated for a 2004 Ian Charleson Award for his role in The Seagull. Starred as Dominic Rook in Being Human between 2012 and 2013. As of 2019, has starred as Sandy Wilson in Crime Drama Shetland since its debut in 2013.

Trivia: An actor of remarkable intensity whether playing comedy, drama, or classical-stage roles, Marton Csokas first became familiar to stateside audiences as Borias on the hit television series Xena: Warrior Princess. And though American audiences may not have been privy to his early stage and screen work, his performance in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring made him a familiar face. Born in New Zealand in June 1966, Csokas' early schooling didn't exactly encourage creativity, and the future actor didn't discover his passion for the stage and screen until his late teens. While studying literature and art history for a year at Canterbury and Christchurch, Csokas became involved with a writer's club and theater company before graduating from the New Zealand Drama School and co-founding the The Stronghold Theater. Steadily gaining experience and harboring a growing passion for classical-stage drama, the actor landed a role in the television series Shortland Street before making his feature debut in Jack Brown Genius (1994). Numerous small film roles followed, and, after becoming a recognizable star in his native country, Csokas began to familiarize himself with American television audiences with Xena and such small-screen features as The Three Stooges (2000). His experience in the fantasy world of Xena prepared him well for his role as Celeborn in the first Lord of the Rings movie in 2001, and American audiences later saw the versatile actor as a villainous criminal mastermind bent on world domination in XXX (2002). He appeared in director Alex Proyas' decidedly upbeat Garage Days the same year and in Richard Donner's time travel fantasy Timeline in 2003.

Trivia: Born to an English mother and Sudanese father. Uncle Sadiq Al Mahdi was a two-time Prime Minister of Sudan (in the 1960s and '80s). Was bitten by the acting bug as a teenager, when he played Puck in a high-school production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Initially aspired to be a director, and has directed plays as well as two episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Interests include wine collecting, role-playing games, gardening and home projects.