Trivia: For audiences around the world whose ears ring with the haunting and fateful revelation of a child tortured by terrifying visions of the afterlife, Haley Joel Osment may forever be linked to his role in what would rank among the most popular supernatural thrillers ever made, The Sixth Sense (1999). An Oscar nominee at the age of 11, Osment quickly became one of the most recognized and versatile young actors working in film, proving to audiences that his talents exceeded typecasting by constantly tackling new and challenging roles and characterizations.Born in Los Angeles, CA, on April 10, 1988, Osment set his acting career into motion, as many actors do, by appearing in commercials and taking small roles on television. Accompanied by his father to an audition for a Pizza Hut commercial and initially discouraged by the overwhelming amount of children vying for the role, Osment eventually stuck out the wait at his father's request and landed the role that would launch his career. Soon making his feature debut as the son of the titular shrimp slinger in the phenomenally successful Forrest Gump in 1994, Osment alternated between television (Murphy Brown and The Jeff Foxworthy Show) and film (Mixed Nuts and Bogus) while frequently appearing in such made-for-TV movies as The Ransom of Red Chief before making his breakthrough in director M. Night Shayamalan's The Sixth Sense.Following the success of The Sixth Sense with the well-intended but fatally flawed feel-good failure Pay It Forward, Osment escaped relatively unscathed as critics recognized the young actor's exceptional performance in what was otherwise a flop with critics and audiences alike. Imagination was the key to Osment's next project: director Steven Spielberg's long-anticipated, much-hyped A.I. An elaborately futuristic tale of an android that aspires to experience human emotion, A.I. was the first and only collaboration of two of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century, the late Stanley Kubrick (who conceived the story based on Brian Aldiss' short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long) and Spielberg. In addition to appearing onscreen, Osment lent his voice to a number of animated films in 2000 and 2001, including the Disney sequels The Hunchback of Notre Dame II and The Jungle Book II. After once again providing voice work for the comedy musical The Country Bears, Osment returned to the screen body intact with Secondhand Lions in 2003. Cast as an intorverted youngster whose irresponsible mother sends him off to spend his summer with his eccentric uncles in Texas, Osment's onscreen abilities were key in making his character's transformation from withdrawn child to responsible young man believable.

Trivia: Born Walter Willis -- an Army brat to parents stationed in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany -- on March 19, 1955, Bruce Willis grew up in New Jersey from the age of two. As a youngster, he developed a stutter that posed the threat of social alienation, but he discovered an odd quirk: while performing in front of large numbers of people, the handicap inexplicably vanished. This led Willis into a certified niche as a comedian and budding actor. After high-school graduation, 18-year-old Willis decided to land a blue-collar job in the vein of his father, and accepted a position at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deep Water, NJ, but withdrew, shaken, after a co-worker was killed on the job. He performed regularly on the harmonica in a blues ensemble called the Loose Goose and worked temporarily as a security guard before enrolling in the drama program at Montclair State University in New Jersey. A collegiate role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof brought Willis back in touch with his love of acting, and he instantly decided to devote his life to the profession.Willis made his first professional appearances on film with minor roles in projects like The First Deadly Sin, starring Frank Sinatra, and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict. But his big break came when he attended a casting call (along with 3000 other hopefuls) for the leading role on Moonlighting, an ABC detective comedy series. Sensing Willis' innate appeal, producers cast him opposite the luminous Cybill Shepherd. The series, which debuted in 1985, followed the story of two private investigators working for a struggling detective agency, with Willis playing the fast-talking ne'er-do-well David Addison, and Shepherd playing the prim former fashion model Maddie Hayes. The show's heavy use of clever dialogue, romantic tension, and screwball comedy proved a massive hit with audiences, and Willis became a major star. The show ultimately lasted four years and wrapped on May 14, 1989. During the first year or two of the series, Willis and Shepherd enjoyed a brief offscreen romantic involvement as well, but Willis soon met and fell in love with actress Demi Moore, who became his wife in 1987.In the interim, Willis segued into features, playing geeky Walter Davis in the madcap 1987 comedy Blind Date. That same year, Motown Records -- perhaps made aware of Willis' experiences as a musician -- invited the star to record an LP of blue-eyed soul tracks. The Return of Bruno emerged and became a moderate hit among baby boomers, although as the years passed it became better remembered as an excuse for Willis to wear sunglasses indoors and sing into pool cues.Then in 1988, Willis broke major barriers when he convinced studios to cast him in the leading role of John McClane in John McTiernan's explosive action movie Die Hard. Though up until this point, action stars had been massive tough guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, execs took a chance on Willis' every-guy approach to the genre - and the gamble paid off. Playing a working-class cop who confronts an entire skyscraper full of terrorists when his estranged wife is taken hostage on Christmas Eve, Willis' used his wiseacre television persona to constantly undercut the film's somber underpinnings, without ever once damaging the suspenseful core of the material. This, coupled with a smart script and wall-to-wall sequences of spectacular action, propelled Die Hard to number one at the box office during the summer of 1988, and made Willis a full-fledged movie star.Willis subsequent projects would include two successful Die Hard sequels, as well as other roles the 1989 Norman Jewison drama In Country, and the 1989 hit comedy Look Who's Talking, in which Willis voiced baby Mikey. Though he'd engage in a few stinkers, like the unsuccessful Hudson Hawk and North, he would also continue to strike told with hugely popular movies like The Last Boyscout , Pulp Fiction, and Armageddon.Willis landed one of his biggest hits, however, when he signed on to work with writer/director M. Night Shyamalan in the supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense. In that film, Willis played Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist assigned to treat a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) plagued by visions of ghosts. The picture packs a wallop in its final minutes, with a now-infamous surprise that even purportedly caught Hollywood insiders off guard when it hit U.S. cinemas in the summer of 1999. Around the same time, tabloids began to swarm with gossip of a breakup between Willis and Demi Moore, who indeed filed for divorce and finalized it in the fall of 2000.Willis and M. Night Shyamalan teamed up again in 2000 for Unbreakable, another dark fantasy about a man who suddenly discovers that he has been imbued with superhero powers and meets his polar opposite, a psychotic, fragile-bodied black man (Samuel L. Jackson). The movie divided critics but drew hefty grosses when it premiered on November 22, 2000. That same year, Willis delighted audiences with a neat comic turn as hitman Jimmy the Tulip in The Whole Nine Yards, which light heartedly parodied his own tough-guy image. Willis followed it up four years later with a sequel, The Whole Ten Yards.In 2005, Willis was ideally cast as beaten-down cop Hartigan in Robert Rodriguez's graphic-novel adaptation Sin City. The movie was a massive success, and Willis was happy to reteam with Rodriguez again the next year for a role in the zombie action flick Planet Terror, Rodriguez's contribution to the double feature Grindhouse. Additionally, Willis would keep busy over the next few years with roles in films like Richard Donner's 16 Blocks, Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation, and Nick Cassavetes' crime drama Alpha Dog. The next year, Willis reprised his role as everyman superhero John McClane for a fourth installment of the Die Hard series, Live Free or Die Hard, directed by Len Wiseman. Though hardcore fans of the franchise were not overly impressed, the film did expectedly well at the box office.In the latter part of the decade, Willis would keep up his action star status, starring in the sci-fi thriller Surrogates in 2009, but also enjoyed poking fun at his own persona, with tongue-in-cheek roles in action fare like The Expendables, Cop Out, and Red. He appeared as part of the ensemble in Wes Anderson's quirky Moonrise Kingdom and in the time-travel action thriller Looper in 2012, before appearing in a string of sequels -- The Expendables 2 (2012), A Good Day to Die Hard, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Red 2 (all 2013) and Sin City: A Dame to Die For (2014).

Trivia: One of the most compelling actors of her generation, Toni Collette has enjoyed a career that can only be described as unpredictable. Moon-faced, cat-eyed, and possessing a presence that conveys both dignity and eccentricity, Collette had her breakthrough in P.J. Hogan's hit 1994 comedy Muriel's Wedding. As the film's title character, an overweight, ABBA-loving woman who is obsessed with getting married, the Australian actor earned both critical raves and audience recognition across the globe. She also earned plenty of opportunities to be typecast into similar roles -- particularly as she had gained over 18 kilos to play the part of Muriel -- but managed to skillfully avoid this by appearing in a variety of films that had nothing to do with ABBA, matrimony, or weight issues.Born in Sydney, Australia, on November 1, 1972, Collette became interested in acting as a child. She made her stage debut at the age of 14 in a school production of Godspell, and went on to attend the National Institute of Dramatic Art. Quitting the prestigious school after less than two years in order to work with a talented stage director, she appeared in a number of plays and in 1991 made her screen debut in Spotswood, acting in the company of Anthony Hopkins and a then unheard-of Russell Crowe.Three years later, Collette had her big break with Muriel's Wedding, a sleeper hit in both Australia and the U.S. Following the hoopla surrounding the film's success, the actor appeared in a number of small films, including the 1996 comedy Cosi and Clockwatchers (1997), a poignant office comedy that featured Collette, Lisa Kudrow, Parker Posey, and Alanna Ubach as dissatisfied temps.Recognized by keen-eyed observers as Gwyneth Paltrow's shy friend Harriet in Douglas McGrath's 1996 adaptation of Emma, and as the Angie Bowie-esque wife of a glam rocker in Todd Haynes' much maligned Velvet Goldmined (1998), Collette found her biggest audience to date -- as well as some of her biggest raves -- in M. Night Shalyaman's The Sixth Sense (1999). Cast as the mother of a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) who sees dead people, Collette earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance. Unfortunately, she followed the film with Shaft (2000), more or less wasting her talents in the role of a woman who the titular private dick has to save from the bad guys. Collette's talents were put to greater use in the made-for-TV movie Dinner With Friends (2001), which cast her as a woman who breaks up with her husband (Greg Kinnear) after 12 years of marriage. The movie, which also starred Andie MacDowell and Dennis Quaid, won warm reviews, particularly for the strong ensemble work of its four principle actors. Collette's subsequent workload reflected her growing popularity; in addition to Stephen Daldry's The Hours (2001), which she starred in alongside a cast that included Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Ed Harris, she also appeared opposite Hugh Grant in the 2002 adaptation of author Nick Hornby's About a Boy. Collette continued to take on small-scale projects like the Hollywood satire The Last Shot. She co-starred with Nia Vardelos in Connie & Carla, a film that came nowhere close to equaling the sleeper success of Vardelos' My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but did showcase Collette's fine singing voice. The next year Collette gave a strong performance opposite Cameron Diaz in the underappreciated In Her Shoes. 2006 found her stretching both her comedic and dramatic muscles by co-starring in the psychological thriller The Night Listener as well as the sleeper hit independent comedy Little Miss Sunshine opposite Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear.The actress would go on to contiunue her reputation, consistently appearing in critically acclaimed films like The Night Listener, Jesus Henry Christ, The Black Balloon, and Towelhead, in addition to finding a suitable outlet for her talents on the small screen, playing a mother with multiple personalities in the Diablo Cody penned HBO series United States of Tara.

Trivia: A struggling stage actress when she was cast in the Kevin Costner epic The Postman (1997), British actress Olivia Williams survived the film's meltdown with her reputation relatively intact. The daughter of lawyers, Williams earned a degree in English at Cambridge University before studying acting for two years with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Her training led to several stage roles, as well as to work with the Royal Shakespeare Company in both Stratford-upon-Avon and London. A four-month tour of Richard III featuring Ian McKellen brought Williams to the United States, and, following a supporting role in the made-for-TV adaptation of Emma (1997), she again found herself stateside to work on The Postman. Fortunately for Williams, she rebounded from The Postman with her role as Miss Cross, the fought-over love interest of a precocious 15-year-old and an embittered millionaire in the acclaimed comedy Rushmore (1998). She could be seen the next year starring opposite Bruce Willis in the enormously successful supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense. She continued to work steadily in films such as Born Romantic, The Man from Elysian Fields, A Knight's Tale, and Peter Pan. She was excellent in An Education as a sympathetic teacher, appeared in short-lived Joss Whedon series Dollhouse, and starred in Roman Polanski's politically-tinged thriller The Ghost Writer. In 2011 she had a main role in the action film Hanna and appeared as Countess Vronsky in Joe Wright's 2012 adaptation of the classic Anna Karenina.

Trivia: Donnie Wahlberg is one of the few performers who has been able to go from early stardom as a teen idol to a respected career as a dramatic character actor. Born Donald Edmund Wahlberg in Dorchester, MA, on August 17, 1969, Donnie came from a large family (he has five brothers and three sisters), and first became interested in performing as a way of getting attention in a busy household. Wahlberg developed an interest in music early on, and was only ten years old when he joined his first band, a local group called Risk. Wahlberg became a passionate hip-hop fan, learning how to breakdance and write his own raps; a few years later, Wahlberg joined an R&B-styled group called the Kool Aid Bunch, which also featured singer Danny Wood. In 1986, producer and entrepreneur Maurice Starr, who had guided the R&B harmony group New Edition to platinum success, decided to form a similar act with young white singers, and Wahlberg and Wood were both tapped to become members of what would become New Kids on the Block. While their first album made little impact in the marketplace, New Kids on the Block's second LP, 1988's Hanging Tough, made them into one of the biggest pop music phenomena of the 1980s and '90s. Wahlberg's persona in the group was that of the "bad boy," and true to form he had a few minor brushes with the law, including a widely reported incident at a Kentucky hotel in which he was charged with using alcohol to start a fire. But Wahlberg also established himself as one of the musical forces behind New Kids on the Block, helping to write and produce material for the group, and going on to produce recordings for other artists, most notably Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, featuring his brother Mark Wahlberg. In 1994, New Kids on the Block broke up, and while Wahlberg continued to work in music as a songwriter and producer, he soon set his sights on a career in acting. In 1995, Wahlberg snagged a small role in an action film called Bullet opposite Mickey Rourke and Tupac Shakur, and a year later he won a much showier role as a kidnapper with a conscience in the Mel Gibson vehicle Ransom. In 1998, Wahlberg did double duty as leading man and executive producer for the independent drama Southie, and in 1999 he surprised critics with his turn as Vincent Gray in the runaway hit The Sixth Sense. Wahlberg has also enjoyed a successful career on television; he played 2nd Lt. Lipton on the acclaimed HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, starred in the action series Boomtown, and played a recurring role on the well-reviewed but short-lived police drama Big Apple. In 2005, Wahlberg joined the Saw movie franchise, appearing as Detective Eric Matthews in Saw II and later reprising his role in Saw III (2006) and Saw IV (2007). Continuing his trend of playing police officers, Wahlberg joined the CBS drama Blue Bloods in 2010 as Detective Danny Reagan. In addition to his careers in acting and music, Wahlberg also co-owns a restaurant in the Boston area with several of his brothers called Wahlburgers which was featured on an A&E reality series of the same name.

Trivia: Gaining notice for his bullying role opposite Haley Joel Osment in the massively popular 1999 supernatural sleeper hit The Sixth Sense, Trevor Morgan has quickly risen through the ranks to appear in some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters. Born in Chicago, IL, in November 1986, Morgan found his calling early in life when, at the age of six, he told his parents that he wanted to become an actor. Soon after his family relocated to California in order to pursue his youthful dreams, young Morgan began to win roles in television commercials and in such popular series as Baywatch and Touched By an Angel in 1997. Making his feature debut in Family Man the same year, he began to realize his dreams, taking roles in Barney's Big Adventure and the made-for-television In the Doghouse the year before his role in The Sixth Sense gained him positive notice and widespread recognition. Nominated for Best Performance in TV Movie or Pilot at the Young Artist Awards for his turn as a child genius leading a double life in Disney's Genius the same year, Morgan appeared again alongside Osment in I'll Remember April (1999) before turning up as Mel Gibson's son in The Patriot in 2000. Soon after, Morgan would have his biggest adventure yet, facing off against dinosaurs in Jurassic Park III (2001).

Trivia: A Brooklyn native, the model-turned-actor Glenn Fitzgerald began his career by doing print ads for such brands as Calvin Klein, then segued into dramatic work in the mid-'90s. Fitzgerald debuted on film with Lisa Krueger's finely wrought Sundance Festival drama Manny & Lo (1996), but his sophomore effort, David O. Russell's Gen-X comedy Flirting With Disaster, marked his watershed moment. The actor's neat comic turn in that film as Lily Tomlin and Alan Alda's acid-pushing son finally made audiences sit up and take notice and virtually established Fitzgerald's career. As a result, he spent the following decade among the casts of the hottest independent and studio-driven American films. These included Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (as the young man at a "key drop" party who attracts the attention of adulterous housewife Sigourney Weaver), The Sixth Sense (1999), 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002), and Igby Goes Down (2002). Fitzgerald made a particularly strong impression in the satire Series 7: The Contenders (2001), as the participant of a twisted reality television show who harbors an extreme desire to end his life. On the small screen, Fitzgerald occasionally worked as a guest actor, appearing on such series as Six Feet Under and Law & Order. In 2007, he scored a regular prime-time role on the soapy drama Dirty Sexy Money, playing Episcopalian priest Brian Darling, a member of the incredibly wealthy Darling clan, who lives a less than holy life, including fathering a secret illegitimate child.

Trivia: Hailed as one of the most talented child actors of the 1990s, Mischa Barton had carved out the beginnings of an enviable career on the screen and stage by the time most kids her age were being allowed to see PG-13 movies on their own. Possessing blonde hair, blue eyes the color and approximate size of Wedgewood saucers, and precocious intelligence, Barton first came to the attention of critics and audiences as the ten-year-old heroine of John Duigan's Lawn Dogs (1997). Born January 24, 1986, in London, England, Barton was raised in the city until the age of four. Following the move, she began working as a child model and taking summer camp acting classes; after being spotted by a talent agent, the aspiring actress got her first professional break on the New York stage in 1994, when she played one of the lead characters in an off-Broadway production of Slavs!. Earning rave reviews for her performance, Barton went on to perform in a number of plays, including the Lincoln Center production of James Lapine's Twelve Dreams and Naomi Wallace's One Flea Spare at the New York Shakespeare Festival's Public Theatre, which cast her in the lead role of a street urchin opposite Dianne Wiest. While she was building a career on the stage and as a model for the likes of Calvin Klein, Barton was also beginning to accumulate a number of screen credits. After doing a year-long stint on the popular soap opera All My Children, she had her first publicized screen role in the little-seen New York Crossing (1996). A starring role as a 13-year-old who holds up a bank alongside her boyfriend followed in 1999, in the independent drama Pups. That same year, Barton appeared in supporting roles in both Notting Hill and M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, the latter of which cast her as the ghost of a sickly girl.Barton's increasing recognition was subsequently reflected by her involvement in a number of screen projects. Included amongst them was Skipped Parts (2000) and the TV series Once and Again (2002). Barton's breakthrough would come in 2003 however, with a starring role in the phenomenally poular night-time soap The O.C. The show's three year run would make Barton a household name, and she would follow it up with appearances in films like Homecoming, Assassination of a High School President, and You and I. A critically lauded appearance in Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain would make waves for the actress in 2012, followed by the horror film Apartment 1303 3D.

Trivia: Many filmgoers first caught delicately beautiful Georgian actress KaDee Strickland via her portrayal of Kristen, one of the vivacious young woman who accompany world-weary playboy Jack Nicholson at the outset of the Nancy Meyers romantic comedy Something's Gotta Give (2003). This marked the beginning of a long sequence of small roles for the rising star, in such A-listers as The Grudge (2004), Fever Pitch (2005), and The Flock (2007). On the small screen, in 2007, Strickland had a regular role on the very short-lived comedy drama The Wedding Bells, which she quickly followed up with another regular part, this time on the highly successful Grey's Anatomy spin-off, Private Practice, playing Dr. Charlotte King. That same year she could be seen on the big screen in American Gangster, and the next year she appeared in Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys.

Trivia: A director who struck gold with the 1999 blockbuster The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan came out of almost nowhere to become one of the year's greatest sensations. The second biggest moneymaker of 1999 (the first being Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace), The Sixth Sense also proved to be a critical favorite, earning a slew of Oscar nominations that included Best Director and Best Picture.Born in Madras, India, on August 6, 1970, Shyamalan was raised in the posh Philadelphia suburb of Penn Valley. The son of doctors, he developed a passion for filmmaking when he was given a Super-8 camera at the age of eight. By the time he was 17, Shyamalan -- who idolized Steven Spielberg -- had made 45 home movies, and after receiving a Catholic school education, he studied filmmaking at the Tisch School of the Arts. He graduated in 1992, and that same year he made his first feature film, Praying with Anger, which was based to some extent on his trip back to the country of his birth.Shyamalan's first major theatrical effort was Wide Awake (1998), a film he partially shot in the Catholic school he had attended, as well as Bryn Mawr College. The story of a young Catholic school student attempting to cope with the death of his grandfather (Robert Loggia), the film -- which also starred Rosie O'Donnell, Dana Delany, and Denis Leary -- quickly plummeted into box office oblivion. Shyamalan had considerably better luck with his next project, 1999's The Sixth Sense. A supernatural thriller about a young boy (Oscar-nominated Haley Joel Osment) who is able to communicate with the spirits of dead people, it was a sleeper hit and gave its director his unequivocal career breakthrough. Graced with an understated cast of performers and a twist ending, the film garnered incredible word-of-mouth among audiences and became the must-see film of the late summer, well into the fall. The Academy in turn showered the film with seven Oscar nominations, including nods for Shyamalan's script and direction. He enjoyed further success that same year as the screenwriter for Stuart Little, earning praise for his smart, funny script.Following the success of The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan -- who continued to reside in the Philadelphia suburbs with his wife and daughter -- directed another supernatural thriller, Unbreakable. Starring Bruce Willis (who had also starred in The Sixth Sense) as a man who undergoes mysterious changes following a train accident, the mannered, pensive thriller was released in 2000 to mixed critical reviews and a healthy -- if brief -- box-office run. A curiously low-key film considering its comic-book underpinnings, Unbreakable retained much of The Sixth Sense's sharp direction, though its lukewarm reception found the director hesitant to expand the film into a trilogy as originally planned. Approached by producer Frank Marshall to pen the fourth chapter in the further adventures of Indiana Jones, Shyamalan gracefully turned down the offer citing his reluctance to enter a collaborative effort with Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Harrison Ford, and rejected yet another offer shortly thereafter, this time to direct the third Harry Potter film .Deciding instead on a begin work on an entirely new project, Shyamalan penned a screenplay concerning a rural family who discover crop circles on their farm, selling it to Disney in April of 2001. Though the role of the family patriarch was originally intended for an older actor, Shyamalan made a few minor alterations when Mel Gibson expressed interest in starring in the film, with You Can Count on Me star Mark Ruffalo cast as his brother. Another unforeseen casting change beset the production when Ruffalo pulled out of the film due to health problems, and Joaquin Phoenix stepped in to assume the role with production moving along as planned following the brief delay. If Unbreakable was a subdued hit, then Signs was a full-blown blockbuster, easily exceeding the 200-million-dollar mark.With late-summer firmly established as Shyamalan's most-profitable stomping grounds, he began work on his 2004 project, the buzzed-about period allegory The Village. After many casting rumors and changes -- including the mention of Ashton Kutcher for the lead -- the director locked in a group of talented actors ranging from newcomer Bryce Dallas Howard (daughter of Ron), to the recently Oscar-anointed Adrien Brody, to distinguished Hollywood veterans like William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver. Reuniting with Signs star Joaquin Phoenix for the lead role, Shyamalan wove an intricate -- or convoluted, according to critics -- tale of a remote pioneer-style community where the village residents dress in muted browns and yellows and live in fear of "those we do not speak of," namely, scampering creatures with thorny exoskeletons. Touchstone Pictures' marketing push ensured a colossal opening for the film, but when word-of-mouth spread about The Village's rug-pulling final twist, box office dropped off considerably.Regrouping after the critical drubbing and somewhat lackluster returns of his 2004 film, Shyamalan returned in 2006 with a film he curiously dubbed "a bedtime story," the somber fable Lady in the Water. A subdued take on the mermaid-out-of-water tale put forth in Ron Howard's comedy Splash some twenty years earlier, Shyamalan's film once again starred Howard's daughter Bryce -- this time cast as a water nymph who mysteriously appears one night to a apartment-complex superintendent played by Sideways' schlub laureate Paul Giamatti. Though the film did little to disprove the theory that Shyamalan's career was on a downward slide, it was a virtual masterpiece compared to his laughable 2008 film The Happening. A ham-fisted tale of nature-run-amuck, The Happening became the butt of jokes for critics across the globe, and even had longtime supporters howling with laughter as the film's terrified protagonists attempted to outrun the wind. Fortunately with The Happening, Shyamalan only managed to disappoint his own fans, though with his next film The Last Airbender -- a live action adaptation of the popular animated television series, the director managed to upset a whole new crowd.

Trivia: Primarily a New York-based actor since the '40s, Michael Higgins' film appearances were relatively limited until the late '70s -- but that didn't stop him from doing some exceptional and memorable work on the big and small screens. Born in Brooklyn, he attended St. Michael's High School in the middle and late '30s, which was where he was first bitten by the acting bug -- while in his teens, he ended up joining the Shakespeare Fellowship of America, a semi-professional performing group that performed the Bard's plays in high schools. His theatrical aspirations were interrupted by the Second World War, during which Higgins served with the 337th Infantry in Italy, where he was wounded in combat and achieved the rank of lieutenant, and earned a Bronze Star as well as the Purple Heart. After the war, he resumed his career and made his Broadway debut with Katharine Cornell in Candida in 1946. His subsequent Broadway credits included Antigone, The Lark, and Romeo and Juliet, and he also became a familiar figure on the off-Broadway stage, in productions of Doctor Faustus, White Devil, The First Year, and The Crucible, the latter in the role of John Proctor opposite Barbara Barrie as Elizabeth Proctor. His other theatrical credits included J.B., which he did on tour with Basil Rathbone in 1959 and 1960. Apart from a few isolated instances -- an early appearance in Joseph Henaberry's 1948 documentary Shades of Gray, and a lead performance in Irving Lerner's independently produced crime drama Edge of Fury (1958) -- Higgins didn't start working in movies until he had 25 years under his belt in theater. He did do lots of television, however, including some exceptional performances on anthology shows such as Omnibus, Playhouse 90, Studio One, One Step Beyond, and The Outer Limits ("The Mice," playing the too-trusting lead scientist), and even managed one major sitcom appearance, on The Andy Griffith Show (in "Barney Hosts a Summit Meeting," a much-watched episode that featured a return appearance by co-star Don Knotts). Generally, however, he was associated with more serious vehicles -- John Crosby of the New York Herald Tribune, writing of his portrayal of Hector in The Iliad, in the 1955 season opener of Omnibus, called Higgins "easily the best actor on the premises." He racked up exceptional reviews on the stage throughout the '50s and '60s, including a memorable turn as Macbeth at the 1962 New York Shakespeare Festival. From 1969 onward, starting with Elia Kazan's The Arrangement, Higgins began appearing regularly on the big screen, in important supporting roles and the occasional lead, such as in Barbara Loden's Wanda (1970), working with such diverse talents as Francis Ford Coppola in The Conversation (1974), Bryan Forbes in The Stepford Wives (1975), and Woody Allen in New York Stories (1989), and in cult favorites such as King of the Gypsies (1978) as well as mega-hits like The Black Stallion (1979). All of this was interspersed with occasional returns to television in vehicles such as James Goldstone's Kent State (1981). Indeed, television audiences of the 21st century may know Higgins best for his award-caliber guest performances in two episodes of the series Law & Order, in "In Memory Of," in which he played a man hiding an unspeakably brutal, decades-old crime that he committed against a 10-year-old boy, who is willing to sacrifice even his own daughter's mental health to protect himself; and "Ramparts," playing a retired campus security guard implicated in a 35-year-old shooting who discovers that he was himself an unintended victim of a subterfuge by the very forces of law-and-order that he thought he was protecting. Michael Higgins made both episodes memorable by his presence and performances, in roles evoking widely divergent levels of sympathy.