Trivia: It sounds apocryphal, but it's true: 13-year-old Kevin Pollak did begin his Bar Mitzvah speech with "A funny thing happened on the way to the temple..." In fact, Pollak's rabbi had encouraged him to do so: even at this early stage, the boy evinced a gift for comic timing. By 17, he was doing stand-up in his native San Francisco. He went on to play the West Coast comedy-club and improv circuit, and was briefly teamed with Dana Carvey, a professional collaboration that ended amicably when Carvey was hired by Saturday Night Live. Though Pollak himself didn't make it to SNL, he flourished as an impressionist, writer and film and TV supporting actor. He was given several opportunities to shine in such films as Barry Levenson's Avalon (1990), Mick Jackson's LA Story (1991) and Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men (1992). Reiner went on to team Pollak with Bob Amaral in the weekly TVer Morton and Hayes (1991) a hit-and-miss homage to the 2-reel comedies of the 1930s and 1940s (Pollak had previously played a featured role in the short-lived 1988 sitcom Coming of Age). Kevin Pollak's film career went into warp-drive in the 1990s, with such choice roles as Jacob in the two Grumpy Old Men flicks, Todd Hockney in The Usual Suspects (1995), Phillip Green in Casino (1995), and Boss Vic Koss in That Thing You Do (1996).His film and television career still going strong into the 2000s, Pollak found a way to work his passion for poker into his schedule as host of Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown in 2003, and in 2009 he launched a weekly internet series entitled Kevin Pollak's Chat Show.

Trivia: With looks that have been compared to Julia Roberts', Monica Potter emerged as one of the more promising actresses of the late '90s. The second of four girls in a close-knit family, Potter was raised in Cleveland, OH, where she was born on June 30, 1971. At the age of 12, she started modeling and doing commercials, and she further pursued her career with modeling stints in Chicago and Miami. Her dedication to acting became evident with a move to Los Angeles in 1994, where she was soon cast in the CBS soap The Young and the Restless. Potter's film debut came with a minor part in the 1996 Adam Sandler comedy Bulletproof, followed by a leading role in the Richard Grieco vehicle Heaven or Las Vegas, which played briefly in theaters before hightailing it to video. Fortunately, more high-profile work was to come, first as Nicolas Cage's wife in the 1997 action film Con Air and then as a medical student in the Robin Williams comedy Patch Adams (1998). After acting in the shadow of these formidable co-stars, Potter ventured into the limelight with lead roles in two 1998 films, the romantic comedy Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel, and Laurence and the Steve Prefontaine biopic Without Limits, co-starring Billy Crudup. In 1999, Potter had yet another leading role, this time in A Cool, Dry Place, in which she starred with Vince Vaughn and Joey Lauren Adams. Her rising star was given an additional push by her 1999 appearance on the cover of Vanity Fair's annual Hollywood issue, where she was photographed in the company of such fellow actors on the brink of stardom as Sarah Polley, Giovanni Ribisi, and Adrien Brody. She had a major role in the serial killer film Along Came a Spider in 2001, and the next year she was in the comedy I'm With Lucy. She appeared in the first of the Saw films when it was released in 2004, and that same year she was cast in the TV show Boston Legal. In 2009 she starred in the remake of The Last House on the Left, and the next year she became part of the cast of NBC's family drama Parenthood.

Trivia: With his doe eyes and April-fresh skin, Freddie Prinze Jr. seemed a natural leader of the late-'90s Hollywood teen invasion. Noted as much for his looks as for his acting, Prinze has proven to have a natural appeal that has endured him to legions of fans.The beginning of Prinze's life was a turbulent one, as his father, the actor Freddie Prinze (best known for his starring role on NBC's Chico and the Man) committed suicide when the younger Prinze was only ten months old. Born in Los Angeles on March 8, 1976, Prinze moved with his mother to Albuquerque, NM, shortly after his father's death. Growing up in New Mexico, Prinze was a poor student who decided to follow in his father's celluloid footsteps. After his high-school graduation in 1994, Prinze took off for Los Angeles with little money and few prospects. However, he soon found work in Hollywood, first appearing in various television shows, including an episode of Family Matters and a few afterschool specials.The actor first broke into film as Claire Danes' boyfriend in To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1996). The part was a small one, but helped Prinze to secure his next and more sizeable role in The House of Yes (1997), a wicked little black comedy that starred Parker Posey as Prinze's deliciously unstable sister. The film's release was mainly limited to art houses, unlike Prinze's next film, I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). The film was a huge commercial, if not critical, success that propelled Prinze into, if not the limelight, then the hearts of many girls and more than a few boys everywhere. Following this triumph, Prinze went on to do a couple of forgettable films before the 1998 sequel I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. The combined impact of that film and the success of Prinze's next major project, She's All That, gave the actor even greater fame and caused least one writer to dub him the next Leonardo Di Caprio. Unfortunately, Prinze's following endeavor, Wing Commander (1999), proved to be an unmitigated disappointment, serving to illustrate the extreme fluctuations of success in Hollywood. Prinze's growing popularity, however, seemed to survive relatively unscathed, judging by the slew of websites erected in his name.If there was any question that the actor's popularity was waning in the wake of Wing Commander's lackluster performance, that doubt would soon be confirmed with hard numbers, as a triple threat of romantic comedies unceremoniously removed the teen-crowd superstar crown from Prinze's head. The cookie-cutter offerings Down to You and Boys and Girls (the latter of which reteamed him with She's All That director Robert Iscove) attempted to posit Prinze as a collegiate heartthrob, but both films' mix of moony romance with gross-out gags did little to attract moviegoers of any age. Anticipation for his next starring role, alongside Jessica Biel and Matthew Lillard in 2001's Summer Catch, was understandably low; the film was even saddled with a late-August release, traditionally reserved by studios as a "dumping ground" for unpromising product. As it turned out, Summer Catch's mixed reviews proved more forgiving than its paltry $19 million take.Prinze's next project brought him out of the romantic comedy trend and into the doghouse, or at least the Mystery Machine. Re-teaming with his usual foil Lillard and starring -- yet again -- opposite his longtime love interest Sarah Michelle Gellar, Prinze took on the role of Fred in the live-action adaptation of Scooby-Doo in 2002. Though almost universally panned by critics, the film reversed Prinze's dwindling status as a box-office draw by appealing to a demographic he'd yet to conquer: preteens. Not one to look a gift franchise in the mouth, Prinze signed on for another installment, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, and took nearly two years off between the blockbusters as he tied the knot with Gellar.