Trivia: Bearing sharp, blue-eyed features and the outward demeanor of an everyday Joe, Ed Harris possesses a quiet, charismatic strength and intensity capable of electrifying the screen. During the course of his lengthy career, he has proven his talent repeatedly in roles both big and small, portraying characters both villainous and sympathetic.Born Edward Allen Harris in Tenafly, NJ, on November 28, 1950, Harris was an athlete in high school and went on to spend two years playing football at Columbia University. His interest in acting developed after he transferred to the University of Oklahoma, where he studied acting and gained experience in summer stock. Harris next attended the California Institute of the Arts, graduating with a Fine Arts degree. He went on to find steady work in the West Coast theatrical world before moving to New York. In 1983, he debuted off-Broadway in Sam Shepard's Fool for Love in a part especially written for him. His performance won him an Obie for Best Actor. Three years later, he made his Broadway debut in George Firth's Precious Sons and was nominated for a Tony. During the course of his career, Harris has gone on to garner numerous stage awards from associations on both coasts. Harris made his screen debut in 1977's made-for-television movie The Amazing Howard Hughes. The following year, he made his feature-film debut with a small role in Coma (1978), but his career didn't take off until director George Romero starred Harris in Knightriders (1981). The director also cast him in his next film, Creepshow (1982). Harris' big break as a movie star came in 1983 when he was cast as straight-arrow astronaut John Glenn in the film version of Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. Twelve years later, Harris would again enter the world of NASA, this time playing unsung hero Gene Krantz (and earning an Oscar nomination) in Ron Howard's Apollo 13.The same year he starred in The Right Stuff, Harris further exhibited his range in his role as a psychopathic mercenary in Under Fire. The following year, he appeared in three major features, including the highly touted Places in the Heart. In addition to earning him positive notices, the film introduced him to his future wife, Amy Madigan, who also co-starred with him in Alamo Bay (1985). In 1989, Harris played one of his best-known roles in The Abyss (1989), bringing great humanity to the heroic protagonist, a rig foreman working on a submarine. He did further notable work in David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, and turned in a suitably creepy performance as Christof, the manipulative creator of Truman Burbank's world in Peter Weir's The Truman Show (1998). Harris earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his work. The following year, he could be seen in The Third Miracle, starring as a Catholic priest who finds his faith sorely tested.The new millennium found Harris' labor of love, the artist biopic Pollock, seeing the light of day after nearly a decade of development. Spending years painting and researching the modernist painter, Harris carefully and lovingly oversaw all aspects of the film, including directing, producing, and starring in the title role. The project served as a turning point in Harris' remarkable career, showing audiences and critics alike that there was more to the man of tranquil intensity than many may have anticipated; Harris was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for his work. 2001 saw Harris as a German sniper with his targets set on Jude Law in the wartime suspense-drama Enemy at the Gates, and later as a bumbling Army captain in the irreverent Joaquin Phoenix vehicle Buffalo Soldiers. With his portrayal of a well known author succumbing to the ravages of AIDS in 2002's The Hours, Harris would recieve his fourth Oscar nominattion. 2004 found the actor working with Zooey Deschanel for Winter Passing, a psychological drama in which he played a one-time popular novelist who claims he is working on one last book. Harris was praised for his work in Empire Falls (2005), a two-part miniseries from HBO chronicling a middle-aged man who is concerned he has wasted his life, though his work as a scarred stranger with a score to settle in David Cronenberg's award-winning psychological thriller A History of Violence was his biggest success in 2005. In 2007, Harris played a Boston police detective in Ben Affleck's adaptation of author Dennis Lehane's Gone, Baby, Gone. A year later, Harris wrote, starred, directed, and produced Appaloosa, a western following a small town held under the thumb of a ruthless rancher and his crew, and continued to work throughout 2009 and 2010 in films including Once Fallen, Virginia, and The Way Back. Praise came his way once more in 2011's What I Am, a gentle coming-of-age comedy in which Harris plays a teacher who is a catalyst for the friendship of two young boys. In 2012, he earned Emmy and SAG nominations and a Golden Globe award for playing John McCain in the HBO movie Game Change. The next year had him appearing in six films, including playing a detective in Pain & Gain and voicing mission control in Gravity, a throwback to his earlier work in Apollo 13.

Trivia: The daughter of first generation Italian-Americans, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was born in Oak Park, IL. Oak Park was also the home town of Ernest Hemingway; some of his "don't mess with me" spirit seems to have been passed on by osmosis to Mastrantonio, who has made her career playing a number of feisty, strong-willed women. Trained for an operatic career, she studied voice at the University of Illinois, Champaign, and had one of her first gigs in an Opryland production of Showboat. Once in New York, Mastrantonio was hired for the 1981 revival of West Side Story, and was lauded in the press for her peppery portrayal of Viola in a New York Shakespeare Festival staging of Twelfth Night.Mastrantonio's first film was Scarface (1983), in which she played Al Pacino's sister (the incestuous subtext was just as pronounced here as in the original 1931 version). She then essayed the role of Benito Mussolini's embittered daughter Edda in the TV miniseries Mussolini: The Untold Story, which starred George C. Scott in the title role. In both of these productions, Mastrantonio tended to be overshadowed by her male co-stars, but she more than held her own opposite such heady company as Paul Newman and Tom Cruise in The Color of Money (1986), an assignment which won her both a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe nomination.After appearing in a few more films -- most notably The Abyss, in which she played Ed Harris' estranged engineer wife -- she starred as Maid Marian in Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in 1991. As a mark of the impression the actress had made in strong, self-reliant roles, her transformation into a damsel in distress during the film's final scenes were greeted with audible audience groans. Unfortunately, following the huge commercial -- if not critical -- success of the film, Mastrantonio's visibility receded; over the next few years she could be seen in a number of relatively obscure films, perhaps the most notable of which was Two Bits (1995) with Al Pacino. However, in 1999 Mastrantonio reemerged in the public -- or at least art house -- consciousness, thanks to lead roles in My Life So Far, in which she played Colin Firth's wife, and John Sayles' Limbo, in which she portrayed another strong-willed woman, an itinerant lounge singer who meets an uncertain fate in deepest, darkest Alaska.In the years to come, Mastrantonio would appear in many successful projects to come, most notably on the TV series Without a Trace and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Trivia: As a child, Michael Biehn moved from his Alabama hometown to Nebraska and finally Arizona, where he graduated high school. He went to college and later moved to Los Angeles to begin a film career, making his professional stage debut after two years of intensive training. In 1978, Biehn was cast as Mark Johnson, the hard-veneered but vulnerable ward of psychiatrist Robert Reed in the TV series Operation: Runaway. For the next few years, malevolence was Biehn's onscreen strong suit, first as the psycho title character in 1981's The Fan, then as the neofascist military-school upperclassman in The Lords of Discipline (1982). After switching gears with the sympathetic role of futuristic android-hunter Kyle Reese in James Cameron's The Terminator, Biehn became a member of Cameron's informal stock company, playing colorful leading roles in Aliens (1986) and The Abyss (1989). Biehn would remain a prolific actor and a cult favorite for the next few decades, appearing most notably in movies like The Rock, Clockstoppers, and Grindhouse, as well as TV shows like The Magnificent Seven and Hawaii. Biehn would also inhabit the director's chair, helming thrillers like The Victim.

Trivia: Todd Graff has been a working actor ever since graduating from the State University of New York in the early 1980s. One of his first movie assignments was the kibbutz-based drama Not Quite Paradise (1984). Subsequent credits include such street-smart dramas as Five Corners (1988) and Dominic and Eugene (1988). Todd Graff has also appeared off the street on occasion, notably as oil-rigger crewman Alan "Hippy" Carnes in the 1989 sci-fier The Abyss.With Used People (1992), Graff added screenwriting and producing to his list of talents.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the late '80s.

Trivia: Supporting player, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: After building a career as a character actor playing dozens of military men and cops, Ken Jenkins founds steady work and notoriety in 2001 when he was cast as Chief of Medicine Dr. Bob Kelso on NBC's Scrubs. Born in New Boston, OH, Jenkins began acting on the stage in the 1960s and continued to be a presence in the theater world throughout the '70s and into the '80s before transitioning to a screen career. His film roles included such varying and prominent features as Matewan and The Abyss, and his TV work included work on everything from Newhart to Star Trek: The Next Generation. In 1991, Jenkins got his first taste of regular series work when he was cast on the acclaimed family drama Homefront, which lasted two seasons. More supporting work followed before the creators of Scrubs came knocking and offered the role for which he would come to be best known. He would appear on the show until 2010, after which he took on a recurring role on the series Cougar Town.

Trivia: Chris Elliott may have been born with a funny spoon in his mouth -- he's the son of Bob Elliott, the more deadpan half of the famous comedy duo Bob and Ray -- but he's developed his own offbeat brand of humor and gained his own substantial cult following. Elliott began his show business career as a standup comic, but he first gained public attention as a writer and performer on Late Night With David Letterman, helping that show define a new age of ironic comedy, and winning two Emmys as part of Letterman's writing team. Elliott played the sarcastic firebrand to Letterman's perturbable Midwestern reserve. He starred in sketches as the Panicky Guy, the Fugitive Guy, and the Guy Under the Seats, a character who lived in a cramped passageway underneath the audience, and would occasionally interrupt the show to chat with Letterman. As a result of Elliott's growing popularity on Late Night, his acting career took off. Or, to be more precise, he got bit parts in Michael Mann's Manhunter, James Cameron's The Abyss, and the Francis Ford Coppola segment of New York Stories. Elliott also went on to star in two hilarious, but little-seen half-hour comedy shows for Cinemax. FDR -- A One Man Show featured Elliott playing Chris Elliott, a pompous egomaniacal actor portraying FDR in a one-man show of tremendous historical inaccuracy, while Action Family economically combined satire of TV police dramas with a satire of a typical living room family sitcom. Around this time, Elliott published a Mommy Dearest-style mock exposé about his childhood, Daddy's Boy: A Son's Shocking Account of Life With a Famous Father, which featured chapter-by-chapter rebuttals from his father, Bob, and a foreword by David Letterman.In 1990, Elliott, with help from talented collaborators like David Mirkin, Bob Odenkirk, and Adam Resnick, starred in a bizarrely funny sitcom, Get a Life. The character Elliott played, Chris Peterson, a 30-year-old paperboy, was not a far cry from his previous television personae. Peterson was a dimwitted, balding, doughy, sarcastic, celebrity-worshipping dolt, with a hilariously high degree of self-regard. He was an utter failure who somehow convinced himself he was doing great. Bob Elliott played Chris Peterson's father on the show. The mucky mucks at the fledgling Fox network didn't understand the show, and were hoping Peterson would be cuddlier. Elliott would later remember a network exec optimistically comparing the character to "Tom Hanks in Big." The show had disastrous ratings. Despite support from savvier TV critics, Fox gave up on the show quickly, and canceled Get a Life after two seasons. The show had gained a passionate cult following and some episodes were eventually released on DVD and syndicated briefly on the USA Network. Get a Life was later recognized for its influence on other, more successful programs, including The Simpsons and South Park.Elliott also had key supporting roles in the smash hit Groundhog Day, opposite Bill Murray, and in the unsuccessful rap mockumentary CB4 with Chris Rock. In 1994, he joined the cast of Saturday Night Live. Despite the addition of other talented comic actors (Randy Quaid, Michael McKean, and Janeane Garofalo), it was a dismal season, and Elliott was put off by the lack of collaborative spirit among some of the long-term cast members. He moved on after one season.This was also the period of Elliott's greatest professional disappointment -- the failure of the feature film he co-wrote and starred in, Cabin Boy. His frequent collaborator Adam Resnick co-wrote the film, and, at the urging of producer Tim Burton, also directed it. Letterman makes a brief, but very funny cameo appearance. The film has developed a small cult following, particularly among devotees of Get a Life, but it was a box-office flop. While the filmmakers themselves have acknowledged that Cabin Boy fell short of their expectations, Elliott was stung by the viciousness of the reviews. Elliott went through a creative dry spell after this, appearing in a recurring role in the Tea Leoni sitcom Flying Blind, and gaining more national visibility as a spokesman for Tostitos snack chips. He also continued making guest appearances on a variety of sitcoms. Since then, Elliott has appeared in supporting roles in a number of silly comedies (Snow Day, sequels to The Nutty Professor, and Scary Movie) and has developed a fruitful relationship with the Farrelly brothers, appearing in Kingpin, Osmosis Jones, and, most notably, in their smash hit, There's Something About Mary. He was also heard as the voice of Dogbert on the short-lived animated series, Dilbert, and he was a regular on the appropriately named, ill-fated Steven Weber series, Cursed.

Trivia: Trained at Juilliard, actor Michael Beach worked in regional theater and off-Broadway productions before moving to Los Angeles to work on television and film. His stage credits include Much Ado About Nothing and Ascension Day. Though he appeared on television a lot in the late '80s, his film breakthrough came in Carl Franklin's 1991 crime thriller One False Move. He played the ex-con Pluto opposite Billy Bob Thornton, who also co-wrote the script. Thornton later wrote the role of Virgil for Beach in the 1996 drama A Family Thing, starring James Earl Jones. In 1993, he was a part of the ensemble cast in Robert Altman's award-winning feature Short Cuts. After playing opposite Laurence Fishburne in the crime thriller Bad Company (1995), Beach went on to play several unfaithful husbands. He cheated on Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale (1995), Vanessa Williams in Soul Food (1997), and Gloria Reuben on ER. Fellow ER cast member Eriq La Salle cast Beach in his sports drama Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996) for HBO. Back on television, Beach earned an Image Award for his role of Monte 'Doc' Parker on the NBC dramatic series Third Watch. In 2002, he re-teamed with actor/director La Salle for the lead role of Dr. Ty Adams in the thriller Crazy as Hell.

Trivia: American supporting actor Brad Sullivan trained at the University of Maine and at the American Theatre Wing in New York. His off-Broadway debut was in 1961's Red Roses for Me, after which he appeared in the London company of South Pacific. On Broadway, Sullivan headlined in The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Working. Brad Sullivan's film work commenced in the late '70s, embracing such pictures as Slap Shot (1977) (as Wanchuk), Tin Men (1987), The Untouchables (1987) and Guilty By Suspicion (1991).

Trivia: After an apprenticeship as a documentary cameraman, Manhattan-born cinematographer Michael Chapman became another of the many talented lensmen given a professional leg-up by legendary cinematographer Gordon Willis. Chapman was a camera operator on such well-regarded 1970s films as The Godfather (1972) and Jaws (1975); in 1973, he finally attained director of photography status on The Last Detail. Some of his best work in the '80s was in old-fashioned but highly stylish black-and-white: Raging Bull (1980) and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982). In 1983, Chapman gave directing a try with the laudable All the Right Moves; his next and (thus far) last directorial gig was the beautifully lensed but dramatically threadbare Clan of the Cave Bear (1986). Chapman subsequently returned almost solely to cinematography, lensing a number of popular Hollywood films that included Kindergarten Cop (1990) and Andrew Davis' successful The Fugitive (1993).