Trivia: After graduating from Georgetown University in 1997, Bradley Cooper set his sites on becoming not just a working actor, but a good actor. He enrolled in the Masters of Fine Arts program at the Actors Studio Drama School at New School University and began molding his abilities around a love of the craft, rather than a paycheck. He made his first onscreen debut while attending the program, with an appearance on Sex and the City in 1998, as well as a starring role on the short-lived Darren Star series The $treet. Cooper kept his life well-balanced, however, spending time teaching acting to inner-city children through the Learning through the Expanded Arts Program and taking a job as host of the Discovery Channel show Extreme Treks in a Wild World, which took him on journeys to Peru and British Colombia. His first feature film role came in 2001 with a part in the absurdist comedy Wet Hot American Summer. Near this time, Cooper was cast as Will Tippin in the ABC series Alias, which he stayed with for two seasons. He was also cast in a number of canceled series such as Miss Match, Touching Evil, and Kitchen Confidential. Cooper would find greater and greater success with comedy, however, landing a part in 2005's Owen Wilson comedy The Wedding Crashers that exposed him to a wider audience, as well as roles in 2006's Failure to Launch, and 2008's Yes Man . But of course, Cooper's breakthrough film turned out to be the explosively successful 2009 comedy The Hangover. Cooper's starring role as the smartest friend in a misguided trio, searching for their buddy after losing track of him during his extremely wild bachelor party made him an instant household name, and he would reprise the role for 2011's The Hangover 2. In the meantime, Cooper would nab starring roles in more and more films, like the thriller Limitless and the big screen adaptation of The A-Team.He scored his biggest critical hit to date with 2012's Silver Linings Playbook where his portrayal of a bi-polar man trying to pull his life back together after being released from a mental institution garnered him a number of year-end accolades including a nomination for Best Actor from the Screen Actors Guild and at the Academy Awards. He returned to the Oscar race in 2014 playing the title role in Clint Eastwood's 21st century war drama American Sniper, for which he also was nominated for Best Picture, having served as a producer on the film.

Trivia: Kentucky-born actress Jennifer Lawrence began her career as a teenager, appearing on shows like Monk and The Bill Engvall Show from 2006 through 2009. In 2008, she appeared alongside Charlize Theron in the critically acclaimed film The Burning Plain, for which she won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for the best young emerging actor/actress. She next made waves starring as the daughter of a troubled mother in 2010's Winter's Bone, which garnered her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. In 2011 she appeared in the well-reviewed romantic drama Like Crazy, joined the X-Men franchise as Mystique and she won the coveted lead role in the highly anticipated adaptation of The Hunger Games, which would become one of the biggest smash hits of 2012. As if that weren't heady enough for an actress only 22 years old, Lawrence earned stellar reviews for her work opposite Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook, a critical and popular hit at the end of that year that earned Lawrence the Oscar for Best Actress. The next year followed the same successful pattern, with the second installment of the Hunger Game series, Catching Fire, capturing the number one spot at the domestic box office for 2013, and grabbing another Oscar nomination, for American Hustle.In 2014, she reprised her role as Mystique in X-Men: Days of Future Past and starred in the third Hunger Games film, Mockingjay - Part 1. She wrapped up the series the following year, and also won acclaim (and yet another Oscar nomination) for Joy, playing Miracle Mop inventor Joy Mangano. The film reteamed her with director David O. Russell, making it their third collaboration. Her Oscar nomination for the film made her the youngest person, at age 25, to nab four acting nominations.

Trivia: Considered one of the best actors of his generation, Robert De Niro built a durable star career out of his formidable ability to disappear into a character. The son of artists, De Niro was raised in New York's Greenwich Village. The young man made his stage debut at age 10, playing the Cowardly Lion in his school's production of The Wizard of Oz. Along with finding relief from shyness through performing, De Niro was also entranced by the movies, and he quit high school at age 16 to pursue acting. Studying under Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, De Niro learned how to immerse himself in a character emotionally and physically. After laboring in off-off-Broadway productions in the early '60s, De Niro was cast alongside fellow novice Jill Clayburgh in film-school graduate Brian De Palma's The Wedding Party (1969). He followed this with small movies like Greetings, Hi, Mom!, Sam's Song, and Bloody Mama.De Niro's professional life took an auspicious turn, however, when he was re-introduced to former Little Italy acquaintance Martin Scorsese at a party in 1972. Sharing a love of movies as well as their neighborhood background, De Niro and Scorsese hit it off. De Niro was immediately interested when Scorsese asked him about appearing in his new film, Mean Streets, conceived as a grittier, more authentic portrait of the Mafia than The Godfather. De Niro's appearance in the film made waves with critics, as did his completely different performance as a dying simple-minded catcher in the quiet baseball drama Bang the Drum Slowly (1973). Francis Ford Coppola was impressed enough by Mean Streets to cast De Niro as the young Vito Corleone in the early 1900s portion of The Godfather Part II. Closely studying Brando's Oscar-winning performance as Don Corleone in The Godfather, and perfecting his accent for speaking his lines in subtitled Sicilian, De Niro was so effective as the lethally ambitious and lovingly paternal Corleone that he took home a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for the role.De Niro next headed to Europe to star in Bernardo Bertolucci's opus, 1900 (1976) before returning to the U.S. to collaborate with Scorsese on the far leaner (and meaner) production, Taxi Driver. After working for two weeks as a Manhattan cabbie and losing weight, De Niro transformed himself into disturbed "God's lonely man" Travis Bickle. One of the definitive films of the decade, Taxi Driver earned the Cannes Film Festival's top prize and several Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and De Niro's first nod for Best Actor. Controversy erupted about the film's violence, however, when would-be presidential assassin John W. Hinckley cited Taxi Driver as a formative influence in 1981.De Niro and Scorsese would reteam for the lavish musical New York, New York (1977), and though the film was a complete flop, De Niro quickly recovered with another risky and ambitious project, Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978). One of the first wave of Vietnam movies, The Deer Hunter starred De Niro as one of three Pennsylvania steel-town friends thrown into the war's inferno who emerged as profoundly changed men. Though the film provoked an uproar over its portrayal of Viet Cong violence as (literally) Russian roulette, The Deer Hunter won several Oscars.Returning to the realm of more personal violence, De Niro followed The Deer Hunter with his and Scorsese's masterpiece, Raging Bull, a tragic portrait of boxer [%Ray La Motta]. Along with his notorious 60-pound weight gain that rendered him unrecognizable as the middle-aged Jake, De Niro also trained so intensely for the outstanding fight scenes that La Motta himself stated that De Niro could have boxed professionally. Along with his physical dedication, De Niro won over critics with his ability to humanize La Motta without softening him. Raging Bull received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.Though he was well suited to star in Sergio Leone's epic homage to gangster films, Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Leone's tough, transcendent vision couldn't survive the studio's decision to hack 88 minutes out of the American release version. De Niro next took a breather from films to return to the stage, playing a drug dealer in the New York Public Theater production Cuba and His Teddy Bear. During his theater stint, De Palma made De Niro a movie offer he couldn't refuse when he asked him to play a small role in his film version of The Untouchables (1987). As the rotund, charismatic, bat-wielding Al Capone, De Niro was a memorable adversary for Kevin Costner's upstanding Elliot Ness, and The Untouchables became De Niro's first hit in almost a decade. De Niro followed The Untouchables with his first comedy success, Midnight Run (1988), costarring as a bounty hunter opposite Charles Grodin's bail-jumping accountant.Though he earned an Oscar nomination for his touching performance as a patient in Penny Marshall's popular drama Awakenings (1990), movie fans were perhaps more thrilled by De Niro's return to the Scorsese fold, playing cruelly duplicitous Irish mobster Jimmy "The Gent" opposite Ray Liotta's turncoat Henry Hill in the critically lauded Mafia film Goodfellas (1990). De Niro worked with Scorsese again in the thriller remake Cape Fear (1991), sporting a hillbilly accent and pumped-up physique. It was Scorsese and De Niro's biggest hit together and earned another Oscar nod for the star. De Niro subsequently costarred as a geeky cop in the Scorsese-produced Mad Dog and Glory (1993).De Niro also revealed that he had learned a great deal from his work with Scorsese with his own directorial debut, A Bronx Tale (1993). A well-observed story of a boy torn between his father and the local mob, A Bronx Tale earned praise, but De Niro was soon back to working with Scorsese, starring as Vegas kingpin Sam Rothstein in Casino (1995) -- based on the story of real-life handicapper Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal -- staged with Scorsese's customary visual brilliance and pairing De Niro with his Raging Bull brother and Goodfellas associate Joe Pesci.Appearing in as many as three films a year after 1990, De Niro was particularly praised for his polished reserve in Michael Mann's glossy policer Heat (1995), which offered the rare spectacle of De Niro and Pacino sharing the screen, if only in two scenes. After indifferently received turns in The Fan (1996), Sleepers (1996), and Cop Land (1997), De Niro stepped outside his comfort zone to play an amoral political strategist in Barry Levinson's sharp satire Wag the Dog (1997) and a dangerously dimwitted crook in Quentin Tarantino's laid-back crime story Jackie Brown (1997). De Niro was front and center -- and knee deep in self-parody -- in the comedy Analyze This (1999), aided and abetted by a nicely low-key Billy Crystal as his reluctant psychiatrist. De Niro would continue to lampoon his own tough-guy image in the sequel Analyze That, as well as the popular Meet the Parents franchise. As the decade wore on, De Niro took on roles that failed to live up to his acclaimed earlier work, such as with lukewarm thrillers like The Score, Godsend, Righteous Kill, and Hide and Seek. However, De Niro continued to work on his ambitious and long-planned next foray behind the camera, the acclaimed CIA drama The Good Shepherd.He continued to work steadily in a variety of projects including Stardust, What Just Happened, and Everybody's Fine. He became a Kennedy Center honoree in 2009. He reteamed with Ben Stiller for Little Fockers in 2010, and played a corrupt politician in Machete that same year. In 2011 he appeared opposite Bradley Cooper in the thriller Limitless, which seemingly laid the groundwork for their reteaming as father and son in the 2012 comedy Silver Linings Playbook. For his work in that movie, De Niro earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Trivia: Lead actress, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: There is nothing tranquil about comedian/actor Chris Tucker. A limber, wiry fellow with a high-pitched voice and a delivery as fast as a mosquito's wing beats, he seems energy incarnate. In regard to his acting, some have hailed him the next Eddie Murphy; indeed, Murphy was one of Tucker's icons while growing up. A native of Atlanta, GA, Tucker's proclivity for comedy has been lifelong, beginning when he, the youngest of six children, used humor as an attention-getting device and as a way to get his brothers to allow him to hang around them. In addition to Eddie Murphy's comedy, Tucker was heavily influenced by that of Richard Pryor. In high school, Tucker was one of those class clowns who was able to make even his teachers laugh and it was one of his instructors who suggested Tucker display his gifts in a school talent show. He proved a roaring success and following graduation, decided to become a professional. His classmates, having voted him "Most Humorous," supported his efforts. Tucker made his debut at a local comedy club. Because he was underage, Tucker had to sneak in and then do some real fast talking to be allowed to perform. He succeeded and his routine garnered a tremendous response. More local successes followed and this emboldened the then 19-year-old Tucker to try his luck in Los Angeles. Soon after arriving on the West Coast, Tucker had established himself in the major comedy clubs and, after appearing on HBO's Def Comedy Jam found himself a bona fide rising star.Tucker made his film debut with a small but memorable role in House Party 3 (1994). The following year, Tucker appeared in F. Gary Gray's crazy comedy Friday, playing Smokey, a lazy pot-smoking drug dealer who could be quite rich if only he'd stop using the merchandise himself. Tucker's hilarious improvisation during filming helped to make the film a sleeper hit. In his next film, Dead Presidents, directed by brothers Allen Hughes and Albert Hughes, Tucker hinted at some real talent as a dramatic actor. In regard to movies, 1997 proved a very good year for Tucker who was given his first showcase film in the action comedy Money Talks, which he executively produced. He also had a small but memorable role in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown and played a hyper-manic intergalactic DJ in Luc Besson's The Fifth Element. In 1998, Tucker had his second starring role, working opposite international action superstar Jackie Chan in the action-packed comedy Rush Hour. For reasons known only to him, Tucker abruptly put a stop to his film career appearing only in Rush Hour 2 and 3 in the ten years after the original.

Trivia: Has appeared in over 400 films and more than 100 plays. An eight-time Filmfare award winner, four of which were in the Best Comedian category. Won two National Film Special Jury Awards for Daddy (1989) and Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara (2005) respectively. Honoured with the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian award, in 2004. Appointed goodwill ambassador of the Pratham Education Foundation in 2010, which works on improving children's education.

Trivia: A tough and slightly surly character actor most at home in ethnically oriented Hollywood roles, John Ortiz often found himself cast as nefarious hoods and toughs. Ortiz landed one of his earliest assignments with a 1992 guest appearance on Law & Order, then branched out into A-list supporting roles in such features as Carlito's Way (1993), Ransom (1996), Piñero (2001), and Miami Vice (2006). Ortiz essayed two extremely different cinematic assignments in 2007: a part in the Ridley Scott-directed period crime drama American Gangster and one in the sci-fi-horror opus Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem.

Trivia: An athletic, all-American actor whose remarkable audition opposite Colin Farrell led director Joel Schumacher to cast him in his 2000 war drama Tigerland on the spot, Shea Whigham may not be a household name, but with impressive performances in such subsequent features as All the Real Girls and Out of This World, he's certainly become a talent to watch for. Born the son of former Florida State University quarterback Frank Whigham, the young athlete excelled at tennis and soccer in his early years, eventually entering college on a tennis scholarship. It was during his higher education that Whigham discovered a passion for acting, and soon thereafter, the aspiring thespian was accepted into New York's prestigious S.U.N.Y. Purchase Conservatory. A friendship with roommate Kirk Acevedo led the burgeoning actors to co-found the New York-based theater troupe The Rorschach Group, following graduation, with Whigham serving double duty as both performer and artistic director at the downtown Manhattan theater company for three years. After making an impression on audiences with his performance in Tigerland, Whigham went on to appear opposite Sam Neill in the made-for-television nautical drama Submerged, and in the next few years he would continue to gain onscreen momentum by turning in impressive performances in such efforts as All the Real Girls. If the majority of his post-Tigerland roles didn't offer quite the exposure of his impressive debut, appearances in such high-profile Hollywood efforts as Cheer Up and The Lords of Dogtown showed that Whigham was ready and willing to work his way back into the spotlight. He followed through on his potential with a string of mostly indie films including Wristcutters: A Love Story, Splinter, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and Machete. He was cast as the corrupt police officer brother of the scheming prohibition-era gangster Nucky Thompson in HBO's Boardwalk Empire, and he would co-star in Take Shelter with his Boardwalk castmate Michael Shannon. In 2012 Wigham could be seen on the big screen in three big projects, Big Miracle, Oliver Stone's drug drama Savages, and David O Russell's crowd-pleaser Silver Linings Playbook.

Trivia: With a number of high-profile projects, a variety of magazine covers, and a spot on Teen People's 21 Hottest Stars Under 21 list in 1999 under her belt, actress Julia Stiles has come a remarkably long way in a very short time. Born March 28, 1981, in New York City, Stiles was interested in performing from a very young age. When she was eleven years old, she wrote a letter to a Manhattan theater director asking to be cast in a production and was soon acting on-stage in avant-garde plays at both the La Mama and Kitchen Theaters. In 1996, Stiles made her film debut with a small part in I Love You, I Love You Not and the following year had her television debut in the Oprah Winfrey Presents: Before Women Had Wings, in which she played an abused child. The same year, she made a brief appearance as Harrison Ford's daughter in The Devil's Own and followed with roles in two 1998 films, Wide Awake and the Sundance entry Wicked. The year 1999 proved to be Stiles' breakthrough year, as she played a prominent part in the television miniseries The '60s and the lead role in 10 Things I Hate About You, the latest film to mine gold and produce endorsements out of William Shakespeare. The film was a hit, and Stiles was soon being heralded as one of the hottest, young actors of her generation. With her name attached to a number of future projects, it seemed that Stiles would indeed have success in living up to this label.Sure enough, Stiles was almost immediately cast in two modernized-for-MTV-generation Shakespeare flicks, namely director Michael Almereyda's Hamlet (2000) with Ethan Hawke and O, a teen-oriented adaptation of Othello starring Josh Hartnett and Mekhi Phifer. As classic literature once again fell in place behind predictable romantic comedies, Stiles could be found playing the romantic lead in Down to You with teen movie veteran Freddie Prinze Jr., and alongside Sean Patrick Thomas in Save the Last Dance, which featured Stiles in the role of a grieving ballet dancer who attends an inner-city school and eventually finds love within a primarily black high school. Though the film was not a critical success, Save the Last Dance (2001) and 10 Things I Hate About You nonetheless helped construct Stiles a respectable fan base, and the young actress -- now with a Saturday Night Live credit under her belt -- would continue to build her resumé throughout the early 2000s. In the film adaptation of novelist Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity, Stiles had the chance to participate in a film starring Hollywood golden boy Matt Damon and returned to the role in 2004's The Bourne Supremacy. Stiles was praised for holding her own against Stockard Channing in The Business of Strangers (2001), which was shown at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and fared decently in A Guy Thing, a romantic comedy-of-errors co-starring Jason Lee and Stiles' fellow Down to You alumna Selma Blair. In 2003, Stiles would play opposite the Oscar-winning Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile, which finds Stiles playing a conservative '50s college student whose beliefs undergo some serious scrutiny after coming in contact with an uncharacteristically progressive teacher (Roberts). The year 2004 promised more teen-styled roles; Stiles played the eccentric title character in Carolina under the direction of Dutch filmmaker Marleen Gorris and worked with director Martha Coolidge and 28 Days Later's Luke Mably in The Prince & Me. A key role in opposite William H. Macy in director Stuard Gordon's critically lauded but little seen David Mamet adaptation Edmond served well to remind audiences of Stiles acting abilities, and the following year the wholesome-looking beauty would serve as mother to the ultimate evil in the high profile horror remake The Omen. Jumping genres to action with The Bourne Ultimatum the following year, Stiles quickly ventured back into dark territory when she joined the cast of the popular Showtime series Dexter in late 2010. Cast as vengeful rape victim Lumen Ann Pierce, the versatile young actress proved an unlikely partner for the murderous protagonist, and earned an Emmy nomination for her role in the process. In 2012, Stiles had a small role in the award-winning Silver Linings Playbook.

Trivia: Has appeared in 3 films nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture (Goodfellas, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle) Has appeared in 6 films directed by Martin Scorsese and 5 by Woody Allen Has appeared in 16 films that star Robert DeNiro Had recurring roles on two popular HBO series, The Sopranos and Entourage Received a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture for American Hustle in 2014

Trivia: An actor with an undeniably friendly appeal, Dash Mihok was born in New York in 1974. Both of Mihok's parents were active in theater and the arts, and they encouraged their son to explore his creative side. He joined up with the program City Kids while in high school, a production involving Jim Henson puppets that performed all over the city, teaching children about character and self-esteem.Mihok's interest in performance only grew as he got older, and he began auditioning for professional roles after high school, scoring appearances on Law & Order and in the movie Sleepers. Then, still a virtual unknown, Mihok got a callback for a much more prominent role when he was cast as Benvolio, best friend of Leonardo DiCaprio's Romeo in Baz Luhrmann's hallucinatory, modern take on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The project gave Mihok an amazing chance to show his stuff; not only did he impress audiences by handling a serious, emotional acting role complete with difficult, antiquated language, but he also walked around bare-chested in many scenes, wowing viewers with his muscular physique. Mihok continued to pick and choose interesting projects, acting in everything from big-budget blockbusters like The Day After Tomorrow and The Perfect Storm to independent arthouse movies like Johnny Flynton and Mojave. Mihok was a particular delight to audiences in 2006's Hollywoodland and in 2007's family film Firehouse Dog, and over the coming years, he would find success in an ongoing series of films, like I Am Legend, The Longshots, and Trespass.