Trivia: One of the first ladies of contemporary British stage and cinema, Emma Thompson has won equal acclaim for her work as an actress and a screenwriter. For a long time known as Kenneth Branagh's other half, Thompson was able to demonstrate her considerable talent to an international audience with Oscar-winning mid-1990s work in such films as Howards End and Sense and Sensibility. Born April 15, 1959 in Paddington, West London, Thompson grew up in a household well-suited for creative expression. Both of her parents were actors, her father, Eric Thompson, the creator of the popular TV series The Magic Roundabout, and her actress mother, Phyllida Law, a cast member of This Poisoned Earth (1961), Otley (1968) and several other films. Thompson and her sister, Sophie (who also became an actress), enjoyed a fairly colorful upbringing; as Emma later said, "I was brought up by people who tended to giggle at funerals." She excelled at school, was well liked, and went on to enroll at Cambridge University in 1978. It was at Cambridge that Thompson started performing as part of the legendary Footlights Group, once home to various members of Monty Python, who provided a huge inspiration to the fledgling comedienne. Unfortunately, Thompson's studies and her work with fellow Footlights members Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry were interrupted when her father had a debilitating stroke. Thompson went home for a few months, where she taught him how to speak again. After her return to Cambridge, she graduated in 1980 with a degree in English, and she got her first break working for a short-lived BBC radio show. Personal tragedy struck for Thompson in 1982 when her father died of a heart attack. Ironically, it was in the wake of this turmoil that her professional life began to move forward: she got a job touring with the popular satire Not the Nine O'Clock News and worked with co-conspirators Fry and Laurie on the popular BBC comedy sketch show Alfresco. This led to Thompson's biggest break to date when she was picked for the lead in a revised version of the musical Me and My Girl. Coincidentally featuring a script by Fry, the show proved popular and established Thompson as a respected performer. She stayed with the show for over a year, after which she got her next big break when she was cast as one of the leads in the miniseries Fortunes of War (1988). The other lead happened to be Kenneth Branagh, and the two were soon collaborating off-screen as well as on. Following Thompson's BAFTA Award for her work on the series (as well as a BAFTA for her role on the TV series Tutti Frutti), she helped Branagh form his own production company, Renaissance Films. In 1989, the same year that she starred in the nutty satire The Tall Guy (which teamed her with Black Adder stalwarts Rowan Atkinson, Richard Curtis and Mel Smith)and in a televised version of Look Back in Anger with Branagh, she appeared as the French queen in Branagh's acclaimed adaptation of Henry V. Following the success of Henry V, Thompson had a droll turn as a frivolous aristocrat in Impromptu (1990) and then collaborated with Branagh on the noirish suspense thriller Dead Again in 1991. The film proved a relative hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and it further established the now-married Branagh and Thompson as the First Darlings of contemporary British theatre. The following year, Thompson came into her own with her starring role in Merchant Ivory's Howards End. She won a number of awards, including an Oscar, BAFTA, and Golden Globe for her portrayal of Margaret Schlegel, and she found herself an international success almost overnight.After a turn in the ensemble comedy Peter's Friends that same year, Thompson starred as Beatrice opposite Branagh's Benedict in his adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing in 1993. That year proved an unqualified success for the actress, who was nominated for both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Oscars, the former for her portrayal of a repressed housekeeper in Merchant Ivory's The Remains of the Day and the latter for her role as Daniel Day-Lewis's lawyer in In the Name of the Father. Although she didn't win either award, Thompson continued her triumphant streak when -- after starring in Junior in 1994 -- she adapted and starred in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility in 1995. Directed by Ang Lee, the film proved popular with critics and audiences alike, and it won Thompson a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. She also earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination, a BAFTA Best Actress Award, and a Golden Globe for Best Adapted Screenplay.1995 also proved to be a turning point in Thompson's personal life, as, after a much-publicized separation, she and Branagh divorced. Just as well publicized was Thompson's subsequent relationship with Sense and Sensibility co-star Greg Wise. The somewhat tumultuous quality of her love life mirrored that of Dora Carrington, the character she played that year in Carrington. This story of the famed Bloomsbury painter was not nearly as successful as Sense, and Thompson was not seen again on the screen until 1997, when she starred in Alan Rickman's The Winter Guest. The film -- which featured the actress and her mother, Law, playing an estranged daughter and mother -- received fairly positive reviews. The following year, Thompson continued to win praise for her work with a starring role in Primary Colors and a guest spot on the sitcom Ellen, for which she won an Emmy. In 1999, Thompson announced her plans for semi-retirement: pregnant with Wise's child, she turned down a number of roles -- including that of God in Dogma -- in order to concentrate on her family. The two married in July 2003. In the years that followed Thompson would still remain fairly active onscreen, with roles as a frustrated wife in Love Actually (which found her BAFTA nominated for Best Supporting Actress) and a missing journalist whose husband (played by Antonio Bandaras) is looking for answers in Missing Argentina (which marked the second collaboration, after Carrington, between Thompson and director Christopher Hampton) serving to whet the appetites of longtime fans. For her role as a respected English professor who is forced to re-evaluate her life in Mike Nichols' made-for-television drama Wit (2001), the renowned veteran actress and screenwriter would earn Emmy nominations for both duties. Following an angelic turn in the HBO mini-series Angels in America, Thompson essayed a pair of magical roles in both Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Nanny McPhee - in which she potrayed a governess who utilizes supernatural powers to reign in her unruly young charges.Thompson then joined the cast of Marc Forster's fantasy comedy Stranger than Fiction, which Columbia slated for U.S. release in November of 2006. She plays Kay Eiffel, an author of thriller and espionage novels suffering from a massive writer's block. The central character in Eiffel's book (an IRS agent played by Will Ferrell) hears Kay's audible narration and - realizing that she's planning to kill him off - tries to find a way to stop her, with the help of Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman). She appeared opposite Dustin Hoffman in Last Chance Harvey, and in 2009 had a memorable turn as the head of the school in An Education. In 2010 she wrote and starred in the sequel Nanny McPhee Returns. In 2012 she had a hand in tow big hits, playing Agent O in the third Men In Black film, and voicing the mother in Pixar's Brave.

Trivia: British-born Asa Butterfield began his acting career when he was eight years old, playing the role of Andrew in the 2006 TV movie After Thomas. He would make a bigger splash the next year, with a role in the indie comedy Son of Rambow, and again the next year, in the Holocaust drama The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Butterfield then took on the role of Mordred in the TV series Merlin, before joining the cast of the 2010 family film Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. While his role in the latter did offer the charismatic youngster a respectable amount of exposure to the tween set, it was Butterfield's next big role -- as the eponomous orphan in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning film Hugo -- that truly cemented his reputation as a rising star. On the heels of that resounding success, Butterfield made Hollywood headlines when it was announced that he would next take the lead in Enders Game, a big-budget adaptation of Orson Scott Card's celebrated sci-fi novel.

Trivia: With his electrifying gaze, elegant comportment, and lips that look as if they could breathe life into concrete, Ralph Fiennes has caused many a jaded filmgoer to reaffirm the existence of British sex appeal. Since 1993, when he first impressed international audiences in the decidedly unglamorous role of Nazi sadist Amon Goeth in Schindler's List, Fiennes has delivered performances marked by dignified passion and relentless intensity.The oldest of six children, Fiennes was born in Suffolk on December 22, 1962. His father was a self-taught photographer and his mother a novelist who wrote under the pen name Jennifer Lash, professions which virtually ensured a unique upbringing. Fiennes' family moved a number of times while he was growing up, and the children were encouraged in their creative pursuits. Thus, it is less than surprising that four out of the six Fiennes siblings went on to work in the entertainment business, with Ralph and his brother Joseph becoming actors, his two sisters a director and a producer, and another brother a musician. Originally wanting to be a painter, Fiennes enrolled at the Chelsea College of Art and Design before transferring to London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to study acting. Following graduation, he joined the Royal National Theatre in 1987, and he became part of the Royal Shakespeare Company a year later. While a member of the company, he performed a wide range of the classics, playing everyone from Romeo to King Lear's Edmund. Fiennes first became known to a wider audience in 1991, when he starred as the title character in the acclaimed British television production of A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia. The next year, he gained additional exposure, making his film debut as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Starring opposite Juliette Binoche, Fiennes glowered his way across the screen with suitable aplomb, something that he would do again to devastating effect the next year in Schindler's List. As the psychotic Nazi commandant Amon Goeth, Fiennes blended quiet yet absolute menace with surprising charisma (even more surprising given that he had gained over 30 pounds for his role) to such great effect that he earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination and a British Academy Award for his portrayal. Fiennes' work in the film incited a flurry of interest in the actor, whose intensity and odd name (its correct pronunciation is "Rafe Fines") made him the subject of many a magazine article.Interest in Fiennes only increased the following year, when, back to his normal weight and sporting an American accent, he played the more sympathetic (but tragically flawed) Charles Van Doren in Robert Redford's Quiz Show. Critics loved him in the role, and he further consolidated his acclaim two years later in Anthony Minghella's Oscar-winning adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, which won Fiennes Oscar and Golden Globe nominations as Best Actor. Given his newfound heartthrob status, many audience members were surprised to see Fiennes next turn up in the title role of the gawkish, ginger-haired minister with a gambling problem (playing opposite a then-unknown Cate Blanchett) in Oscar and Lucinda (1997). He gave a highly eccentric performance in the film, which received a mixed critical reception. Where Oscar and Lucinda was only vaguely disappointing, Fiennes' next project, a 1998 film version of the popular 1960s TV series The Avengers, was one of the most lambasted films of the year. Fiennes somehow managed to avoid most of the critical wrath directed at the film, and in 1999 he could be seen starring in no less than three disparate projects. In Onegin, directed by his sister, Martha, Fiennes played the title character, a blasé Russian aristocrat; in The End of the Affair, directed by Neil Jordan, he portrayed a novelist embroiled in an adulterous affair with the wife (Julianne Moore) of his best friend (Stephen Rea); while in Sunshine, directed by István Szabó, he played three different roles in a saga tracing 150 years of the affairs and intrigues of a family of Hungarian Jews.If his roles to date had served to showcase Fiennes' talent at about the rate of a solid performance per year, 2002 provided a trio of diverse and demanding roles that would prove just how well he could perform under pressure. In Red Dragon -- the first of those efforts to hit stateside screens that year -- Fiennes' chilling performance as serial killer Francis Dolarhyde shifted between meekness and menace at the drop of a hat. Thankfully eschewing the grandiose theatrics of Hannibal for a tone more in keeping with the original Silence of the Lambs, the film proved a hit at the box office, and Fiennes' performance rivaled that of Ted Levine's in providing the film with a chilling villain straight from the pages of the most lurid true-crime encyclopedia (Fiennes' character was purportedly based on the exploits of an uncaptured Wichita serial killer who went by the name "Bind, Torture, Kill"). A few short months later, audiences were treated to yet another deeply disturbed characterization by Fiennes, that of a schizophrenic man haunted by his childhood in director David Cronenberg's dark psychological drama Spider, based on author Patrick McGrath's bleak novel of the same name. Fiennes' performance substituted the menace of Red Dragon with a more sympathetic protagonist whose memory slowly regresses to reveal a scarring childhood tragedy. No doubt having had his fill of disturbed characters that year, Fiennes once again caught audiences off guard with a disarmingly charming role in the romantic comedy Maid in Manhattan.Fiennes would continue to find substantial and challenging roles in the years to come, most notably in his sister's film Chromophobia, the Merchant-Ivory film The White Countess, The Constant Gardener, the James Bond film Skyfall, and the ever-popular Harry Potter series, in which Fiennes played baddie Lord Voldemort. Fiennes would also earn accolades for directing and starring in a cinematic adaptation of William Shakespeare's war epic Coriolanus.

Trivia: The daughter of director Stephen Gyllenhaal (Waterland [1992]) and screenwriter Naomi Foner (Running on Empty [1988]), and the sister of hot young Hollywood heartthrob Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko [2001], The Good Girl [2002], Moonlight Mile [2002]), Maggie Gyllenhaal seems to have all the makings of a successful young starlet with her Tinseltown background and curiously unique beauty. Born in November 16th, 1977, Gyllenhaal got some early screen breaks thanks to roles in such Stephen Gyllenhaal films as Waterland (1992) and Homegrown (1998). Soon graduating from Columbia University with an English degree, pretty Gyllenhaal continued to refine her acting skills on the stages of New York and London theaters in such productions as The Tempest and The Butterfly Project. Her ascent into the collective film conscience continued with a humorous turn in director John Waters' anarchic Cecil B. Demented and alongside younger brother Jake in the surreal teen fantasy Donnie Darko (2001). Soon gaining more prominent roles alongside such hot Hollywood actors as Drew Barrymore (Riding in Cars With Boys [2001]) and Josh Hartnett (40 Days and 40 Nights [2002]), Gyllenhaal would turn up later in 2002 in eccentric director Spike Jonze's sophomore effort, Adaptation. Her supporting roles offering but a glimpse into her engagingly offbeat talent, Gyllenhaal truly came into her own with her breakthrough performance as a mentally unstable secretary in director Steven Shainberg's 2002 dark comedy Secretary. Cast opposite former '80s wonder boy James Spader, Gyllenhaal displayed a careful balance of unshielded vulnerability and mild sadomasochism as the film's troubled lead. Nominated for numerous awards including a Golden Globe and Independent Spirit for Best Actress, Secretary found the disarming actress branded the "it" girl to watch for in the coming years. While subsequent supporting performances in such films as Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Casa de Los Babys, and Mona Lisa Smile may not have offered fans the large dose of Gyllenhall that they sought after Secretary, audiences could see her in a starring role opposite John C. Reilly in the 2004 George Clooney/Steven Soderbergh-produced remake Criminal. Gyllenhaal kept up her status as an independent film icon in 2005 with major parts in The Great New Wonderful and earning praise for her work in Don Roos' Happy Endings where she got to show off her vocal talents performing a selection of Billy Joel songs. 2006 would be a very busy year for the actress. She co-starred in Oliver Stone's 9/11 film World Trade Center, gave an award winning performance as a drug addict in SherryBaby, played opposite Will Ferrell in the comedy Stranger Than Fiction, and lent her voice to the Steven Spielberg produced animated film Monster House. That same year she announced that she was expecting her first child with her longtime boyfriend actor Peter Sarsgaard. In 2008, Gyllenhaal appeared in the record-breaking box-office smash sequel The Dark Knight, taking over the role played by Katie Holmes in Batman Begins. She followed that up in 2009 with a hilarious supporting turn in Away We Go as an overly-involved mother. But it was her appearance that same year in the low-key drama Crazy Heart opposite Jeff Bridges that earned her some of the best reviews of her career as well as a Best Supporting Actress nominations from the Academy.

Trivia: Breathes there a theatergoer or film fan on Earth who has not, at one time or another, fallen in love with the sublimely brilliant British comedic actress Dame Maggie Smith? The daughter of an Oxford University pathologist, Smith received her earliest acting training at the Oxford Playhouse School. In 1952, she made her professional stage bow as Viola in Twelfth Night. Four years later she was on Broadway, performing comedy routines in Leonard Sillman's New Faces of 1956; that same year, she made her first, extremely brief screen appearance in Child in the House (she usually refers to 1959's Nowhere to Go as her screen debut).In 1959, Smith joined the Old Vic, and in 1962 won the first of several performing honors, the London Evening Standard Award, for her work in the West End production The Private Ear/The Public Eye. Her subsequent theatrical prizes include the 1963 and 1972 Variety Club awards for Mary Mary and Private Lives, respectively, and the 1990 Tony Award for her performance in the Broadway play Lettice and Lovage. In addition, Smith has won Oscars for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and California Suite (1978), and British Film Academy awards for A Private Function (1985), A Room With a View (1986), and The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987).These accolades notwithstanding, Smith has had no qualms about accepting such "lightweight" roles as lady sleuth Dora Charleston (a delicious Myrna Loy takeoff) in Murder By Death (1976), the aging Wendy in Steven Spielberg's Peter Pan derivation Hook (1991), and the Mother Superior in Whoopi Goldberg's Sister Act films of the early '90s. During the same decade, she also took more serious roles in Richard III (1995), Washington Square (1997), and Tea With Mussolini (1999). On a lighter note, her role in director Robert Altman's Gosford Park earned Smith her sixth Oscar nomination. She earned a whole new generation of fans during the first decade of the next century when she was cast as Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, a part she would return to for each of the film's phenomenally successful sequels. She worked in other films as well including Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Becoming Jane, and Nanny McPhee Returns. In 2010 she earned rave reviews for her work in the television series Downton Abbey.Made a Dame Commander in 1989, Smith was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1994. Previously married to the late actor Sir Robert Stephens, she is the wife of screenwriter Beverly Cross and the mother of actors Toby Stephens and Chris Larkin.

Trivia: Welsh actor Rhys Ifans has not only one of the most distinctive names in the film industry but also one of its most idiosyncratic appearances. Tall, lanky, and snaggletoothed, Ifans can go from raving freak to persuasive romantic interest in less time than it takes to pronounce his name correctly.Ifans got his start acting in a number of Welsh language dramas and comedies, and he made his feature film debut in Anthony Hopkins' August (1996). The following year, he was part of one of the most successful films in Great Britain in 1997 when he starred in Twin Town. As one half of a set of twins (the other was portrayed by his real-life brother, Llyr Evans), he played what was undoubtedly one of the most riveting and revolting characters to come into contact with film audiences in years. The film's success opened the way for more work, and the following year he did a complete about-face, appearing as the charmingly errant father of Catherine McCormack's young son in Dancing at Lughnasa.The year after that, Ifans rejected grooming and general communication skills to play the role that was to give him international recognition, starring as Hugh Grant's hygienically challenged roommate in the romantic comedy Notting Hill. Many a critic agreed that Ifans virtually stole the show from his better-known co-stars, and that same year he had a chance to prove himself further in such diverse features as Heart, a black comedy in which he played a writer; and Rancid Aluminum, in which he starred as a man forced into business with the Russian mob after his father's death. Following an unlikely appearance as a football player in The Replacements (2000) and a turn as the son of Old Scratch in Little Nicky (2000), Ifans' role as a socially challenged forest dweller turned opera-loving socialite in the eccentric Human Nature provided audiences with abundant laughs and a further glimpse into the quirkiness of a truly unique actor.Of course the ever-eccentric Ifans was only warming up, and after supporting roles in such efforts as The 51st State, The Shipping News and Once Upon a Time in the Midlands Ifans once again took the lead in the 2003 comedy Donnie Deckchair. Cast as a man whose desperate attempt to escape the monotony of suburban life includes a bundle of large helium balloons and a lightweight deck chair, Ifans charmed Australian audiences in the family-friendly effort. Outside of his film work, Ifans briefly served as lead singer of the band Super Furry Animals before they struck the big time in the late 1990s.In 2006 he voiced McBunny in Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, but had major roles the next year in two very different projects -- Hannibal Rising and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. He appeared in 2009's Pirate Radio, reteaming with Notting Hill screenwriter Richard Curtis. Ifans had a strong supporting turn in Greenberg in 2010, and was center stage in Roland Emmerich's Shakespearean drama Anonymous in 2011. The next year he was part of the cast of the Spider-Man reboot, and was the romantic rival to Jason Segel in the comedy The Five-Year Engagement.

Trivia: Grew up in Buckhurst Hill, Epping Forest District of Essex, London, United Kingdom. Likes boxing sports. Is a fan of the Leyton Orient football team. Appeared in the music video of one of his favorites rock bands, Feeder, in 2012. Participated in the BGC Charity Day representing the Haven House Children's Hospice in September 2019.

Trivia: Ewan McGregor rocketed to fame over a short period of time, thanks to a brilliant turn as a heroin addict in Trainspotting and the good fortune of being selected by George Lucas and co. to portray the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace. Because Menace arrived amid concomitant fanfare and massive prerelease expectations in early summer 1999, McGregor's appearance in the new trilogy drew a whirlwind of media attention and elicited a series of roles in additional box-office blockbusters, launching the then 28-year-old actor into megastardom. Born on March 31, 1971, in the Scottish town of Crieff, on the southern edge of the Highlands, McGregor joined the Perth Repertory Theatre after high school graduation and subsequently trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His studies at Guildhall led to a key role in Dennis Potter's 1993 Lipstick on Your Collar, a made-for-television musical comedy set during the Suez Crisis. That same year, McGregor received first billing in the British television miniseries Scarlet & Black, an adaptation of Henri Beyle Stendhal's 1830 period novel about a young social climber in post-Napoleonic, late 19th century Europe. McGregor made a well-pedigreed cinematic debut, with a bit part in Bill Forsyth's episodic American drama Being Human (1993), starring Robin Williams. The picture, however, undeservedly flopped and closed almost as soon as it opened, rendering McGregor's contribution ineffectual. The actor continued to turn up on television on both sides of the Atlantic until late 1996; some of his more notable work during this period includes his turn as a beleaguered gunman in an episode of ER and the Cold War episode of Tales From the Crypt, in which he plays a vampiric thief. McGregor landed his cinematic breakthrough role with Danny Boyle's noirish, heavily stylized Shallow Grave (1994). In that film, he essays the role of Alex, a journalist who finds himself in a horrendous position after a murder. He appeared in Carl Prechezer's little-seen British surfing parable Blue Juice (1995) and Peter Greenaway's The Pillow Book (1996) before losing almost 30 pounds and shaving his head for his turn as heroin addict Mark Renton in Trainspotting, his sophomore collaboration with Danny Boyle, which gained the attention of critics and audiences worldwide. McGregor then took a 180-degree turn (and projected unflagging versatility) by portraying Frank Churchill in the elegant historical comedy Emma (1996).McGregor continued to work at an impressive pace after Emma, with appearances in Brassed Off (1996), Nightwatch (1998), The Serpent's Kiss (1997), and yet another project with Danny Boyle, the 1997 fantasy A Life Less Ordinary. (The latter film concludes on a raffish note, with an animated puppet of Ewan McGregor dressed in a kilt that bears the McGregor family tartan). In 1998, the actor signed to appear in the Star Wars prequels. (Lucas' decision to hire McGregor for Obi-Wan in the Star Wars prequels was hardly capricious; his uncle, Denis Lawson, had appeared as Wedge Antilles, decades earlier, in the original three installments of the series.) That same year, McGregor contributed a fine performance to Todd Haynes' Velvet Goldmine, with his portrayal of an iconoclastic, Iggy Pop-like singer during the 1970s glam rock era.As the new millennium dawned, McGregor had a full slate of projects before him, including several for his own production shingle, Natural Nylon, co-founded by McGregor and fellow actors Jude Law, Sean Pertwee, Sadie Frost, and fellow Trainspotter Jonny Lee Miller. Pat Murphy's biopic Nora (2000, co-produced by Wim Wenders' banner Road Movies Filmproduktion and by Metropolitan pictures), represented one of the first films to emerge from this production house. As a dramatization of the real-life relationship between James Joyce and Nora Barnacle, Nora stars McGregor as Joyce and Susan Lynch as the eponymous Nora. The actor stayed in period costume for his other film that year, Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge. Set in 1899 Paris, it stars McGregor as a young poet who becomes enmeshed in the city's sex, drugs, and cancan scene and embarks on a tumultuous relationship with a courtesan (Nicole Kidman). Following a turn in Black Hawk Down (2001), McGregor reprised his role as a young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the eagerly anticipated Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones. 2003 saw McGregor taking advantage of an odd quirk. Years prior, a magazine had commented on the uncanny resemblance between the young Scotch actor and the legendary Albert Finney as a young man. In dire need of a twenty- or thirty-something to portray Finney's younger self for his fantasy Big Fish, Tim Burton cast McGregor in the role; he fit the bill with something close to utter perfection. In that same year's erotic drama Young Adam (directed by David Mackenzie and originally screened at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival), McGregor plays one of two barge workers unlucky enough to dredge up the nearly naked corpse of a young woman. The young actor also starred alongside Renée Zellweger, who, fresh from the success of Chicago, played the unlikely love interest of McGregor's preening, sexist Catcher Block in Down With Love, director Peyton Reed's homage to '60s romantic comedies. McGregor returned to the role of Obie-Wan Kenobi once again in 2005 for Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith, the final film in George Lucas' epic saga. That same year, he lent his voice to the computer-animated family film Robots and starred opposite Scarlett Johansson in Michael Bay's big-budget sci-fi actioner The Island. He also secured the lead role of Sam Foster, a psychiatrist attempting to locate a suicidal patient, in Finding Neverland director Marc Forster's follow-up to that earlier hit, the mindbender Stay. Though that picture died a quick death at the box office, McGregor returned the following year as Ian Rider, a secret agent whose assassination sparks the adventure of a lifetime for his young nephew, in Geoffrey Sax's Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker. The film only had a limited run in the U.S., and was panned by critics.In late 2006, McGregor once again demonstrated his crossover appeal with turns in two much artier films: Scenes of a Sexual Nature and Miss Potter. The former -- Ed Blum's directorial debut, from a script by Aschlin Ditta -- is an ensemble piece about the illusions and realities in the relationships of seven British couples over the course of an afternoon on Hampstead Heath. The latter -- director Chris Noonan's long-awaited follow-up to his 1995 hit Babe -- is a biopic on the life of the much-loved children's author Beatrix Potter (played by Renée Zellweger). McGregor portrays Norman, her editor and paramour.McGregor was next cast in Marcel Langenegger's 2007 thriller The Tourist as Jonathan, an accountant who meets his dream girl at a local strip club but immediately becomes the prime suspect when the woman vanishes, and is accused of a multimillion-dollar theft. Over the coming years, McGregor would appear in a number of successful films, like Incendiary, Cassandra's Dream, I Love You, Phillip Morris, Amelia, Beginners, and Haywire.McGregor married French-born production designer Eve Mavrakis in 1995, with whom he has three children.

Trivia: Began writing and performing stand-up comedy at age 8. Practiced his craft while enrolled in the Comedy Club 4 Kids, a U.K.-based children's comedy academy. In 2007, landed his first acting role playing a sick patient in the U.K. drama series Casualty. Performed at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival in Scotland.

Trivia: Born in 1980, fair-haired British actress Sinead Matthews attended London's exclusive Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and thereafter divided her efforts between film, television, and the stage. Theatrically, her efforts include work in productions of The Wild Duck, The Crucible, The Women of Troy (at the National Theatre), and innumerable other plays. On television, Matthews placed her strongest emphasis on small-screen features including Terry Pratchett's Hogfather and Viva Las Blackpool. Matthews took one of her first major big-screen bows with a small supporting turn as one of schoolteacher Poppy's (Sally Hawkins) carefree friends, in Mike Leigh's critically praised seriocomedy Happy-Go-Lucky (2008).

Trivia: Of Jewish descent.Named Edmund after the poet Edmund Gosse.Studied at a boarding school.His father's reaction to him pursuing acting was discouraging at first.Met wife Amie Stoppard on the set of the film Rogue Trader (1999).

Trivia: Parents came to England from Nigeria in the 1970s to go to school. Was one of the youngest actors to portray King Lear when he appeared in a Royal Shakespeare Company production in 2002. Won the Ian Charleston Award for his work as the title character in the Cheek by Jowl theatre company's production of Othello in 2005.