Trivia: A handsome actor whose skills on stage and screen are only rivaled by his remarkable voice, Patrick Wilson made a name for himself in theater before making a gradual transition to the silver screen. The Norfolk, VA, native pursued his higher education at the famed Carnegie Mellon University, where he stood out from the pack when he was awarded the Charles Willard Memorial Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Music Theatre before earning his B.F.A. in drama in 1995. The next year, Wilson took the lead for a national tour of Carousel, followed by a performance in a Goodspeed Opera House production of Lucky in the Rain. After a memorable turn as pianist Erwin "Chopin" Boots in a La Jolla Playhouse production of Barry Manilow's Harmony, Wilson performed in the nonmusical, six-hour stage version of The Cider House Rules. Though his supposed "breakthrough" role in a stage production of Bright Lights, Big City failed to cement his career, the rising star made his Broadway debut in The Gershwin's Fascinating Rhythm shortly thereafter. Wilson's true breakthrough did eventually come when he took the lead for a stage version of the popular film The Full Monty, and in 2001, he made his screen debut in Dark Stories: Tales from Beyond the Grave. Though that film went largely unseen, a role in HBO's acclaimed miniseries Angels in America found his transition to the big screen moving along smoothly. The following year, Wilson tackled his biggest role to date in the eagerly anticipated historical drama The Alamo (2004) before gearing up for a key part in Joel Schumacher's Phantom of the Opera (also 2004).

Trivia: Though Australian-born actress Rose Byrne made her film debut in 1994, when she played a supporting role in the eccentric drama Dallas Doll alongside Sandra Bernhard and Jake Blundell, her breakout performances within her native country were both on the small screen; namely, in the soap opera Echo Point and the long-running drama series Heartbreak High. After developing a fan base and gaining some critical recognition, Byrne was cast alongside fellow Aussie Heath Ledger in Two Hands (1999), which featured the actress playing an innocent country girl whose would-be suitor has unwittingly found himself in the midst of a mafia scandal. Though she undoubtedly caught the eye of American filmmakers after Two Hands' premiere at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, Byrne wouldn't appear in an American film until several years later, when she made a very small appearance in a very big movie -- Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones. However, before Star Wars, Byrne starred in two little-known, but nonetheless significant, Australian parts, including her first lead role in The Goddess of 1967 (2000), in which she portrayed a blind, emotionally unstable orphan, and My Mother Frank, which featured her as the unrequited love interest of a pining college student. After the 2002 release of Attack of the Clones, Byrne could be seen in a minor but indelible supporting role in Matt Dillon's City of Ghosts. Byrne went on to perform in two critically acclaimed Australian features -- The Rage in Placid Lake (2003) and The Night We Called It a Day (2003) -- as well as the U.K. release I Capture the Castle (2003), in which she co-starred as the beautiful daughter of a once-grand English family. In 2004, Byrne played a supporting role in Wolfgang Petersen's big-budget historical epic Troy, and went on to star with Josh Hartnett, Matthew Lillard, and Troy alumna Diane Kruger in director Paul McGuigan's thriller Wicker Park. In 2006 she was cast in a supporting role in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. In 2007 she had a hit on the small-screen as one of the leads in the series Damages. Although she continued to work steadily in movies as well, she didn't find herself in a big hit until 2011 when she was one of the main characters in the Oscar nominated comedy Bridesmaids. That same year she also appeared in X-Men: First Class as Dr. Moira MacTaggert.Byrne soon became a mainstay in the comedy world, appearing in The Internship, Neighbors and Spy. She also appeared in the 2014 remake of Annie, playing Grace, and reprised her role of in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016).

Trivia: Ty Simpkins caught audiences' attention at the tender age of five, when he appeared in the acclaimed drama Little Children in 2006. He would go on to appear as the son of Colin Farrell's character in the 2008 crime drama Pride and Glory, before reteaming with his Little Children costar Patrick Wilson for the 2011 thriller Insidious.

Trivia: Detroit native Lin Shaye studied art history at the University of Michigan before moving to New York to focus on acting. She started landing film and TV roles in the late '70s and early '80s with appearances in movies like The Long Riders, Alone in the Dark, and Brewster's Millions, and began earning a reputation as a memorable character actress. She would become a familiar face for her memorable roles as Mrs. Nuegeboren in 1994's Dumb and Dumber and Magda in 1998's There's Something About Mary, and would continue to take on quirky projects in the years that followed, like in 2006's Snakes on a Plane and 2010's Insidious.

Trivia: While a prolific screen presence from the late-'60s onward, Barbara Hershey did not truly attain star status until two decades later, finally blossoming to become one of the most acclaimed American actresses of her generation. Born Barbara Herzstein on February 5, 1948, in Hollywood, CA, she studied drama during high school and in 1965 made her professional debut in the teen television romp Gidget. From 1966 to 1967, she was a regular on the series The Monroes and subsequently guest starred in a number of other programs. Hershey made her film bow in 1968's With Six You Get Eggroll, followed by the Western Heaven With a Gun and Last Summer. After a number of other lesser projects, she starred as the title heroine in 1972's Boxcar Bertha, the first major theatrical release from a then-unknown Martin Scorsese. David Carradine, Hershey's onscreen partner in crime, became her offscreen companion as well. Carradine directed them both in Americana (filmed in 1973 but not shown until eight years later), and together they had a child, Free.In another nod to the counterculture, Hershey rechristened herself "Barbara Seagull" and traveled to the Netherlands to film the 1973 drama Angela, winning Best Actress honors for her work at the Berlin Film Festival. Still, box-office success continued to elude her, and her resumé remained littered with undistinguished projects including the 1974 heist drama Diamonds, the 1976 comedy A Choice of Weapons, and the Western The Last Hard Men. By 1977, Hershey -- having dropped the "Seagull" surname -- turned to television, where she appeared in the Irwin Allen disaster production Flood! as well as the miniseries A Man Called Intrepid and the 1979-1980 weekly program From Here to Eternity. The 1980 comedy The Stunt Man, actually shot two years earlier, marked Hershey's return to feature films, and was followed by 1981's Take This Job and Shove It and the 1982 horror picture The Entity. By this point, Hershey -- once viewed as a rising star -- had been largely written off by the Hollywood powers-that-be. However, in 1983, she accepted a small role in Philip Kaufman's acclaimed The Right Stuff which garnered her considerable notice. She followed it with another small but pivotal role in Barry Levinson's 1984 baseball fable The Natural, and after a pair of well-regarded television projects -- the 1985 Errol Flynn bio My Wicked, Wicked Ways and 1986's Passion Flower -- Hershey's name was back on the map. After years of low-budget and low-brow projects, suddenly she was a fixture of high-profile features including Woody Allen's masterful 1986 effort Hannah and Her Sisters, David Anspaugh's Hoosiers, and Levinson's 1987 comedy Tin Men. Also in 1987, Hershey's turn in Andrei Konchalovsky's Shy People won Best Actress honors at the Cannes Film Festival, an award she again took home the following year for her performance in Chris Menges' A World Apart.Hershey also excelled in more mainstream affairs, appearing opposite Bette Midler in the weeper Beaches. In 1988, she and Scorsese reunited for the first time since Boxcar Bertha in The Last Temptation of Christ, in which she appeared as Mary Magdalene, winning a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. In 1990, Hershey returned to television to star in the movie A Killing in a Small Town, for which she won an Emmy. Back in the movies, she remained noted for her performances in offbeat fare like 1990's Tune in Tomorrow, 1993's Falling Down, and 1996's The Pallbearer. For her supporting performance in Jane Campion's 1996 adaptation of The Portrait of a Lady, Hershey also earned an Academy Award nomination. In 1998, the actress won further praise for her role as Kris Kristofferson's bohemian wife in A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries. The same year, she appeared as a struggling actress in Amos Poe's Frogs for Snakes, and then went on to play Bruce Willis' wife in the highly anticipated 1999 adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. She appeared in the drama Lantana in 2001, and had major parts in 11:14 and Paradise. She spent a few years away from the spotlight, but in 2007 she returned in Love Comes Lately and The Bird Can't Fly. She appeared as the title character in 2008's Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning, and played the mother to Natalie Portman in Black Swan.

Trivia: Born in 1977 and raised in Melbourne, Aussie screenwriter, producer, and occasional actor Leigh Whannell alternated between work as a reporter and assignments as a TV-based movie critic on his native continent prior to his decision to attend film school in the early 2000s. As a production student, Whannell met aspiring director James Wan; the two forged a tight creative bond and quickly devised the premise for a new slasher franchise, Saw, co-authoring the screenplay of the premier installment. The by-now infamous story of Saw concerns the plight of two successful men who black out, regain consciousness, and find themselves chained to rusty pipes in a subterranean bathroom. They are then tortured in unspeakable manners by an evasive predator in clown makeup, known alternately as The Jigsaw Killer and simply Jigsaw. To sell this genre effort, Whannell and Wan followed a marketing strategy identical to the one that Joel and Ethan Coen used to sell their debut, Blood Simple, 20 years prior: the budding filmmakers shot a "trailer" that showcased the film's atmosphere of relentless tension and high-wire suspense to secure a production deal. The gamble paid off; Lionsgate green-lit the project and sent it into production between 2003 and 2004. Meanwhile, Whannell embarked on an acting career; he joined the ensemble cast of 2003's Wachowski Bros. sequel The Matrix Reloaded (as Axel) and assumed the lead role of Adam in Saw. With Wan in the director's chair and Stacey Testro, Peter Block, and Jason Constantine as executive producers, Saw became a massive runaway hit and -- as predicted -- yielded two successful sequels in 2005 and 2006 that further detail the exploits of Jigsaw. The boys scripted the second and third installments, though Wan declined the offer to direct either. Saw II, which debuted in late 2005, has eight people -- instead of the original two -- locked up by the diabolical Jigsaw in a dungeon and attempting to escape. In Saw III, Jigsaw -- now on his deathbed -- instructs his protégé, Amanda (Shawnee Smith), in the ways of evil, ordering her to kidnap and torture a physician and another victim, Jeff (Angus MacFadyen). Mirroring the innumerable A-budget horror franchises that preceded Saw, the first sequel did astonishing box office but was eviscerated by critics, and Saw III echoed this response on both critical and commercial fronts. Meanwhile, instead, of directing Saw II or Saw III, Wan and Whannell set to work on a Saw follow-up, 2007's Dead Silence (aka Shhhh...). The suspenser stars Donnie Wahlberg and supermodel Amber Valletta (Hitch), and concerns a recently widowed young man who returns to his hometown to unearth the shadowy details surrounding his beloved's demise. Universal Pictures slated the release for January 2007.

Trivia: In 2002, graduated from AWARD School, a course designed for aspiring copywriters and art directors. Played the role of Sweets in a stage production of Jez Butterworth's Mojo at the Storeroom in 2003. Gained fame in Australia through appearances on many of the country's television series, including Wilfred, Paper Giants, The Librarians and Underbelly. Named in Who magazine's list of Sexiest People in 2007. Performed in a one-man show titled Shadow Boxing in support of a non-profit boxing club in 2008. Co-wrote, co-directed, co-produced and starred in the 2014 film The Mule. Has done extensive voice-over work for television and radio commercials for brands that include Nissan, Snickers, Cadbury and Red Rooster.

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: As a young child, her mother enrolled her in singing, acting and dance classes after noticing her enthusiasm for the performing arts. After college, made TV debut in HBO's The Wire in 2003, and later worked with the same creative team again on the network's Treme (2010-13). Lived with friend Viola Davis for a brief time after moving to Hollywood in 2009. Stage work includes Henry VI, Cyrano de Bergerac and Gee's Bend, which earned her an Outstanding Lead Actress in a Play nomination for a 2008 production of Gee's Bend in Philadelphia. With husband, Kelvin Dickerson, founded AbundantLifeU, which offers life and career coaching to up-and-coming artists in the entertainment industry.

Trivia: Is of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent.Is the fourth of six children.Began acting at the age of 9.In 2017, starred in Jacob Sartorius's music video for "Chapstick."Is the voice of Princess Isabel in the Disney Channel animated television series Elena of Avalor.