Trivia: Since performing in a play at the City of Leicester Boys School, Michael Kitchen has done practically all there is for an actor to do: motion pictures, TV films, TV miniseries, stage plays, radio plays, and audio cassettes. International film audiences probably know him best as Chief of Staff Bill Tanner in the Pierce Brosnan James Bond productions, although he has played major roles in other high-profile movies, such as Out of Africa (1985) and Mrs. Dalloway (1997). He is also well known to worldwide TV audiences for major roles in popular miniseries, including The Brontes of Haworth (1973), A Fall of Eagles (1974), Freud (1984), and Oliver Twist (1999). 2000 was a remarkable year for Kitchen -- incredibly, he completed the following productions during that year: Proof of Life, a major film in which he shared the screen with Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan; Lorna Doone, a three-hour TV miniseries; Always and Everyone, an eight-hour TV series resembling America's ER; The Secret World of Michael Fry, a TV miniseries; The Railway Children, a TV film shown in the U.K. and in the U.S. on Masterpiece Theatre; New Year's Day, a major motion picture; and Second Sight: Parasomnia, another TV film. For an encore in 2001, he played the title role in Foyle's War, an eight-hour TV series about a World War II-era detective, then played Foyle again in another eight-hour series in 2002. He also signed on for another James Bond film, his third. Between 1971 -- when he appeared in the film Unman, Wittering and Zigo -- and the present, Kitchen has never wanted for work. The reason, quite simply, is that he is one of Britain's finest and most versatile actors. He has walked across the stages of the most prestigious playhouses in England, performing the works of Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and other important playwrights. In motion pictures, he has also acted parts in productions based on the works of Franz Kafka (The Trial, 1993), Robert Louis Stevenson (Kidnapped, 1995), John Le Carre (The Russia House, 1990), and Nevil Shute (Crossing to Freedom, 1990).

Trivia: Studied architecture at Manchester University before applying to drama school. Performed in the year-long international tour of Geometry of Miracles. Joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2000, performing in As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet and The Comedy of Errors. Played Paul Milner in Foyle's War from 2002 to 2010. In 2006, starred as Charles in the first stage adaptation of The French Lieutenant's Woman.

Trivia: Performed with the Chichester Youth Theatre. Attended weekend classes at the Sylvia Young School as a child. Spent a year studying art on the John Hall Pre-University Course in Venice, Italy. Starred as Samantha Stewart in Foyle's War from 2002 to 2015. Nominated for the 2004 Most Popular Newcomer award at the National Television Awards.

Trivia: To refer to British actor Julian Ovenden as a "thespian" marks the understatement to end all understatements. The son of Queen Elizabeth II's chaplain, Ovenden came of age in a regal environment and, at an early point, demonstrated his sharpest and clearest talent in the musical realm. By seven years old, Ovenden received an invitation to sing at St. Paul's Cathedral; by the age of 13, he won a musical scholarship to Eton College. A tenure at Oxford University on a choral scholarship followed, as did post-graduate studies at London's esteemed Webber-Douglas Academy of Performing Arts, which found Ovenden acting opposite such legends as Nigel Hawthorne and under the aegis of director Michael Grandage.Ovenden pursued film and television acting alongside his theatrical and musical work from the earliest stages of his career. His first high-profile filmed role arrived around 2002, when cast in the Working Title telemovie Come Together opposite James D'Arcy. A popular turn as a doctor on the British series The Royal ensued, as did a role in the widely viewed miniseries Foyle's War (as Andrew Foyle) alongside the revered Michael Kitchen (Out of Africa). In 2004, Ovenden put his vocal and dramatic talents to use for a single television project: the Arthur Seidelman-directed telemovie A Christmas Carol: The Musical, starring Kelsey Grammer as Ebenezer Scrooge and Jane Krakowski as The Ghost of Christmas Past. Ovenden played Fred Anderson in that film. Meanwhile, the actor continued to pursue both theatrical and cinematic projects with equal vitality. Ovenden also signed for a regular supporting role on the 2008 series drama Cashmere Mafia, produced by Darren Star; however, the series didn't make it past its first season.

Trivia: The tall, slightly gaunt, and quintessentially British character actor Laurence Fox bears more than a passing resemblance to one of the Windsors, so it scarcely surprised anyone when American producers from the WE women's network tapped the rising young thespian to evoke a twentysomething Prince Charles in the fluffy romance Charles and Camilla: Whatever Love Means (2005). Astute observers, of course, realized that this uncanny portrayal only represented the proverbial tip of the iceberg for Fox; at the time, he had already played another crowned head, Lord Rupert Standish, amid the ensemble cast of Robert Altman's Oscar-nommed comedy mystery Gosford Park (2001), and subsequently held his own with small supporting roles in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) and Becoming Jane (2007) -- both of which also required the performer to project prime English stoicism and fortitude.

Trivia: British supporting actor Alan Howard is primarily a stage actor, but he also occasionally appears in feature films. His movie career began with a small role in the controversial British courtroom drama, one of the first to dare present homosexuality in a nonjudgmental light, Victim (1962). Major roles include that of Michael the Lover in Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989). Howard is the nephew of distinguished actor Leslie Howard.

Trivia: Tall, radiant, and sensual, British ingenue Emily Blunt caught the attention of the public and press when she starred (at age 20) opposite Natalie Press in Pawel Pawlikowski's gentle, finely told lesbian romance My Summer of Love (2004). In the eyes of many Americans, Blunt (who counted this as her first cinematic credit) seemed to arrive at the top instantaneously. In truth, Blunt -- a London native -- had established herself on British television (largely in BBC productions) several years prior. Summer, however, represented the actress' big global break. She plays a sexually experienced and playfully manipulative teen who seduces the younger and more impressionable Press into an impassioned love affair, while the latter's brother (Paddy Considine) becomes a born-again evangelical Christian and carries his faith to torturous, alienating extremes. The work garnered enthusiastic notices and performed well on the international festival circuit; it thus marked a fortuitous and brazenly intelligent cinematic bow for a young actress. Newsweek's David Ansen was not alone when he tagged Blunt (along with her co-star, Press) as a "major discovery." Variety's Derek Elley observed, "Blunt's perf as the mysterious, mixed-up Tamsin grows, adding a sense of menace which coincides with...Considine's loony Phil." After a supporting role in the U.S. miniseries Empire (about the Roman Empire), Blunt landed her second major break -- and culled even broader exposure -- with a supporting role in David Frankel's bittersweet drama The Devil Wears Prada. As Emily, the obnoxious (yet soft-hearted) assistant to fashion mogul Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), Blunt delivered a colorful and impressive performance. As a result, she received a 2007 Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Although she lost out to Jennifer Hudson at that ceremony, Blunt won the award for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series, Mini-Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television for her work opposite Bill Nighy in Gideon's Daughter.Blunt followed Prada up with planned supporting roles in such features as The Snow Goose (2006), The Girl in the Park (2007), Wind Chill (2007), The Great Buck Howard (2007), and The Jane Austen Book Club (2007).In 2009 Blunt scored her largest starring role to date as the title character in the costume drama The Young Victoria. In 2010 she married The Office star John Krasinski, and in that same year they co-starred together in Gulliver's Travels. The couple would also each appear in cameo roles in 2011's The Muppets, written and co-starring Jason Segel with whom Blunt would co-star in the 2012 romantic comedy The Five-Year Engagement and rounded out her 2012 with the Golden Globe nominated Salmon Fishing in Yemen, romantic dramedy Your Sister's Sister and the sci-fi action thriller Looper. In 2014, she starred opposite Tom Cruise in the action-thriller Edge of Tomorrow and showed off her singing skills as the Baker's Wife in Into the Woods. The following year, she appeared in the Oscar-nominated Sicario, and in 2016, tackled the Snow White sequel The Huntsman: Winter's War and starred in the highly-anticipated adaptation of The Girl on the Train.