Trivia: Though perhaps best-known internationally for playing tough-guy roles in Romper Stomper (1993), L.A. Confidential (1997), and Gladiator (2000), New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe has proven himself equally capable of playing gentler roles in films such as Proof (1991) and The Sum of Us (1992). No matter what kind of characters he plays, Crowe's weather-beaten handsomeness and gruff charisma combine to make him constantly watchable: his one-time Hollywood mentor Sharon Stone has called him "the sexiest guy working in movies today."Born in Wellington, New Zealand, on April 7, 1964, Crowe was raised in Australia from the age of four. His parents made their living by catering movie shoots, and often brought Crowe with them to work; it was while hanging around the various sets that he developed a passion for acting. After making his professional debut in an episode of the television series Spyforce when he was six, Crowe took a 12-year break from professional acting, netting his next gig when he was 18. In film, he had his first major roles in such dramas as The Crossing (1990) and Jocelyn Moorhouse's widely praised Proof (1991) (for which he won an Australian Film Institute award). He then went on to gain international recognition for his intense, multi-layered portrayal of a Melbourne skinhead in Geoffrey Wright's controversial Romper Stomper (1992), winning another AFI award, as well as an Australian Film Critics award. It was Sharon Stone who helped bring Crowe to Hollywood to play a gunfighter-turned-preacher opposite her in Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead (1995). Though the film was not a huge box-office success, it did open Hollywood doors for Crowe, who subsequently split his time between the U.S. and Australia. In 1997, the actor had his largest success to date playing volatile cop Bud White in Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential (1997). Following the praise surrounding both the film and his performance in it, Crowe found himself working steadily in Hollywood, starring in two films released in 1999: Mystery, Alaska and The Insider. In the latter, he gave an Oscar-nominated lead performance as Jeffrey Wigand, a real-life tobacco industry employee whose personal life was dragged through the mud when he chose to blow the whistle on his former company's questionable business practices.In 2000, however, Crowe finally crossed over into the public's consciousness with, literally, a tour de force performance in Ridley Scott's glossy Roman epic Gladiator. The Dreamworks/Universal co-production was a major gamble from the outset, devoting more than 100 million dollars to an unfinished script (involving the efforts of at least half a dozen writers), an untested star (stepping into a role originally intended for Mel Gibson), and an all-but-dead genre (the sword-and-sandals adventure). Thanks to an aggressive marketing campaign and mostly positive notices, however, the public turned out in droves the first weekend of the film's release, and kept coming back long into the summer for Gladiator's potent blend of action, grandeur, and melodrama -- all anchored by Crowe's passionate man-of-few-words performance.Anticipation was high, then, for the actor's second 2000 showing, the hostage drama Proof of Life. Despite -- or perhaps because of -- the widely publicized affair between Crowe and his co-star Meg Ryan, the film failed to generate much heat during the holiday box-office season, and attention turned once again to the actor's star-making role some six months prior. In an Oscar year devoid of conventionally spectacular epics, Gladiator netted 12 nominations in February 2001, including one for its lead performer. While many wags viewed the film's eventual Best Picture victory as a fluke, the same could not be said for Crowe's Best Actor victory: nudging past such stiff competition as Tom Hanks and Ed Harris, Crowe finally nabbed a statue, affirming for Hollywood the talent that critics had first noticed almost ten years earlier.Crowe's 2001 role as real-life Nobel Prize-winning schizophrenic mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. brought the actor back into the Oscar arena. The film vaulted past the 100-million-dollar mark as it took home Golden Globes for Best Picture, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, and Actor and racked up eight Oscar nominations, including a Best Actor nod for Crowe. The film cemented Crowe as a top-tier leading man, and he would spend the following years proving this again and again, with landmark roles in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Cinderella Man, A Good Year, 3:10 to Yuma, Robin Hood, and State of Play.

Trivia: A native of Melbourne, Victoria, glamorous Aussie actress Isabel Lucas ascended to fame on the crest of her portrayal of Tasha Andrews in the long-running, teen-oriented Australian soap Home and Away (1988); she signed with the program in 2003. Like numerous colleagues from the Australian silver screen, Lucas eventually made the crossover to Hollywood stardom, first with a U.S.-Australian co-production of the vampire outing Daybreakers (starring fellow countryman Sam Neill, in addition to A-listers Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe) and then with a substantial role in the effects-heavy Hollywood opus Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009).

Trivia: Named after a character in the 1966 TV series of Tarzan. Made his TV debut in All Saints in 2008. Stepped in, with 24 hours' notice, to play the role of Andrey in Cry Havoc!'s production of Chekhov's Three Sisters in 2010. Breakthrough role was in 2010, as Varros in Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Cast as Jack McClane, the son of Bruce Willis's character, in A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), following a global, months-long casting search. Took Russian language classes before filming A Good Day to Die Hard, set in Russia.

Trivia: American audiences who caught Ukrainian beauty Olga Kurylenko's first major international crossover role will find it difficult to forget her. She played the creepy, unnamed vampire who enters into a blood-soaked love affair with a young American tourist (Elijah Wood) in "Quartier de la Madeleine," Vincenzo Natali's five-minute contribution to the European omnibus film Paris, Je T'Aime (2006). Kurylenko predominantly tackled thriller roles for her next several assignments, with supporting turns in such features as Le Serpent (2006) and Hitman (2007), and made international headlines when she landed the role of Camille in the 22nd installment of the James Bond series, released in the fall of 2008.

Trivia: First film role was playing Simon Roberts in the short comedy Opraholic (2003). In 2003, launched television career playing Matthew McDougah in the drama series The Sleepover Club. Was awarded the prestigious Heath Ledger Scholarship in 2011. In 2012, was named Cleo's Bachelor of the Year. GQ Australia named him the breakthrough actor of 2015. Played Septimus Hodge in the Sydney Theatre Company's 2016 production of Arcadia.

Trivia: Breakout film role came in 1992's Romper Stomper as Russell Crowe's love interest; she received the Stockholm International Film Festival's Best Actress award for her performance. Won two awards in 1995 from the Australian Film Institute for her performances as a multiple-personality sufferer in an episode of the Australian TV series Halifax F.P. and a schizophrenic in the film Angel Baby. Starred in a 2001 production of Proof at the Sydney Opera House. Took up painting after she was encouraged to help decorate the set of an artist's studio for Paul Cox's independent film Human Touch. Contributed a song called "Shy Baby" to the soundtrack of her USA Network series The 4400.

Trivia: An Australian supermodel-turned-actress, Megan Gale was "discovered" in her teens and became a sensation on the catwalks of her native Perth, as well as the chief spokeswoman for the David Jones chain of department stores. She took one of her earliest film bows in the 2000 Vacanze di Natale 2000 and followed it up with a role in the 2005 thriller Stealth.

Trivia: Aussie actor James Fraser debuted as a child star in his native country, with one of the lead roles in the gently felt coming-of-age drama December Boys (2007). The saga concerns a clique of young orphan boys who find their friendship threatened when they learn that one is to be adopted.

Trivia: Began appearing in TV commercials when he was 8 years old. At age 10, landed the role of Frank Errol in the Australian series The Sullivans; he received three Logie nominations for his work on the show. Appeared alongside his father, Noel Herriman, in Candy (2006). Appeared in the Sydney Theatre Company's Tot Mom, directed by Steven Soderbergh, in 2009.

Trivia: New Zealand-born Michael Dorman scored his first big break in 2002 when he was cast in the Australian series The Secret Life of Us. He would stick with the show until 2005 before going on to appear in a number of other Australian projects, like the 2008 horror film Acolytes and 2009's Prime Mover. In 2010, Dorman made the transition to American cinema, with a role in the vampire movie Daybreakers.

Trivia: With nearly two decades' worth of time behind the camera in Australia and Hollywood, cinematographer Andrew Lesnie captured images that captivated audiences' imaginations and brought the most impossible feats to life on the big screen. Beginning his career as an assistant cameraman and a focus puller for such films as Patrick (1978) and Now and Forever (1983), Lesnie soon began taking a more involved role and by the mid-'80s was well on his way to an established career in motion picture photography. While the films he worked on were more prominent down under, stateside audiences didn't really get a taste of Lesnie's work until the release of Babe in 1995. An affectionate tale of a curious piglet finding his place in the world, Lesnie's photography allowed the natural warmth of the story to shine through the camera lens and onto the screen for all to enjoy. Continuing to work in the states on such films as Two if By Sea (1996) and Babe: A Pig in the City, Lesnie would next take on his biggest career challenge to date with his involvement with director Peter Jackson's massive Lord of the Rings adaptation. Nominated for 13 Oscars, the trilogy's initial installment, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, found Lesnie taking home an Oscar for Best Cinematography. With as many as nine photography units operating during production at any given time, Lesnie and his crew helped to give vision to one of the most eagerly anticipated literary adaptations in the history of film. Lesnie was the DP on all three films in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and was Jackson's DP on King Kong (2005), The Lovely Bones (2009) and all three films in the Hobbit trilogy (2012, 2013 and 2014). Lesnie last film was The Water Diviner (2014), directed by Russell Crowe. He died in 2015, at age 59.

Trivia: The only child to Jewish parents in Miami, FL, Brett Ratner was accepted to N.Y.U. at the age of 16. Attending the Tisch School for the Arts, he received funding from Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment for his senior project Whatever Happened to Mason Reese?, a documentary about a child star. After forming a friendship with Def Jam producer Russell Simmons, Ratner began directing music videos for stars such as Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, and Madonna. It was Simmons who helped him get his first big break, directing Money Talks with Chris Tucker and Charlie Sheen. Ratner worked with Tucker again for his sophomore effort, Rush Hour, a Jackie Chan comedy that broke box-office records for New Line Cinema. A brief departure into romantic comedy with The Family Man was not very well received, but the wild success of Rush Hour 2 brought him back into the limelight, and he soon landed the director's chair for The Silence of the Lambs prequel Red Dragon. He helmed the pilot of the FOX drama Prison Break, and was behind the camera for the superhero sequel X-Men: The Last Stand before returning to familiar territory in 2007 with Rush Hour 3. He created one of the segments for the omnibus film New York, I Love You, and directed Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller in the ensemble action comedy Tower Heist in 2011. He was tapped to direct the 2012 Oscar telecast, but was fired from the job, allegedly after making a series of insensitive statements.

Trivia: Has had no formal training in acting. First movie role was playing Frank Fletcher in 1992's Spotswood. Has performed extensively on the stage including the 1999 national and international tour of Cloudstreet, the Belvoir St Theatre's 2003 production of The Lieutenant of Irishmore, the Melbourne Theatre Company's 2007 production of The Pillowman. Although widely believed to be a harelip, the scar on his top lip was caused by a car accident when he was 18.