Trivia: Scottish actor Gerard Butler spent seven miserable years studying law before trying his hand at acting on the London stage. Half a decade later, a much happier Butler had over a dozen theater, movie, and television credits under his belt, including starring roles in the stage version of Trainspotting (1996) and the award-winning film Mrs. Brown (1997).Born on November 13, 1969, in Glasgow, Butler is the youngest of Margaret and Edward Butler's three children; he has a sister and a brother. When Butler was barely six months old, his family relocated to Montréal, Canada, where his father undertook several failed business ventures. A year and a half later, Butler's parents divorced, and his mother took the children back to Scotland. He saw his father once more when he was four years old, and then not again until he was 16. In the meantime, Butler grew up in his mother's hometown of Paisley, where he frequented a nearby movie theater. Enamored with acting, he convinced his mother to take him to auditions, eventually joining the Scottish Youth Theatre and playing a street urchin in Oliver! at the Kings Theatre in Glasgow. An exceptional student, Butler graduated at the top of his class. Hoping to please his family and his teachers, who felt acting was an unrealistic career choice, Butler enrolled in Glasgow University's law program. He served as the president of the school's law society and earned an honor's degree. After finishing college, Butler took a year and a half off to live in Los Angeles, where he appeared as an extra in the Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston vehicle The Bodyguard (1992). He then traveled to Canada to be at his father's bedside as he succumbed to cancer. Shortly after his father's death, Butler returned to Scotland to begin a two-year law traineeship in Edinburgh at one of the country's top firms. But he was bored and discontented as a lawyer, and still dreamed about performing. He went to see Trainspotting on-stage at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh and knew he had made the wrong career choice. Soon enough, Butler's unhappiness began to show in his work, and his firm fired him with only a week left in his training. Two days later, at age 25, he moved to London to begin his acting career. Butler took on a series of odd jobs -- from waiting tables to demonstrating clockwork toys at a trade show -- while looking for work as an actor. He was supposed to be serving as a casting assistant for the play Coriolanus at the Mermaid Theatre when he ran into the show's director, actor Steven Berkoff, at a coffee bar and asked to read for a part. Impressed with the ex-barrister's moxie, Berkoff agreed and Butler secured his first professional acting role. While rehearsing for Coriolanus, he accompanied one of the other actors to an audition for the same stage adaptation of Trainspotting he had seen in Edinburgh and landed the lead part of Mark Renton. In 1997, with his theater career firmly established, Butler made his big-screen debut opposite Billy Connolly and Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown. Sometime later, he had returned to the film's shooting location, Taymouth Castle, for a picnic when he saw a child drowning in the nearby River Tay. Butler dove into the water and saved the boy. The actor received a Certificate of Bravery from the Royal Humane Society for his selfless act. That same year, he earned a small speaking part as a bad guy in the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies before spoofing ex-Wet Wet Wet singer Marti Pellow for the 1998 series The Young Person's Guide to Becoming a Rock Star. Butler finished out the '90s by appearing in the television comedy Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married, as well as returning to the stage to appear opposite Sheila Gish and Rachel Weisz in Suddenly, Last Summer in London's West End. Butler began the new millennium with supporting parts in the gangster film Shooters (2000) and the war drama Harrison's Flowers (2000). He then simultaneously landed the high-profile title roles in Wes Craven's Dracula 2000 (2000) and the USA television movie Attila (2001). Produced by the creators of The Mummy franchise, Attila chronicled the life of the eponymous fifth century barbarian and co-starred veteran actors Tim Curry and Powers Boothe. It also re-teamed Butler with his Coriolanus director, Berkoff, who played his uncle in the film. The hype that surrounded both Dracula 2000 and Attila was fueled by CNN's announcement that Butler was the frontrunner to replace Pierce Brosnan as the next James Bond. The following months, however, were anticlimactic for Butler. Dracula 2000 bombed at the box office and Attila, though one of the year's highest-rated television miniseries, proved to be forgettable. The rumors surrounding his involvement with 007 were quickly quelled when Brosnan announced that he was staying on for at least two more Bond films, and the series' producers never contacted Butler. Determined to get back on his feet, Butler signed on with a new agency. He returned to British television for ITV's miniseries The Jury (2002), which also featured Derek Jacobi and Antony Sher, while simultaneously filming a role as Christian Bale's dragon-slaying best friend in the special-effects spectacle Reign of Fire (2002). He then quickly landed a supporting role in Renny Harlin's Mindhunters with Val Kilmer and LL Cool J, but pulled out of the project to play the lead in Richard Donner's long-awaited adaptation of Michael Crichton's best-selling novel Timeline (2003). Butler also turned heads as Angelina Jolie's hunky love interest in the sequel Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life that same year.Though, to this point in his career, Butler had no doubt displayed immense talent as an actor, the films he had appeared in had almost consistently disappointed in terms of box-office returns. In 2004, that disheartening trend continued as Butler donned the famous mask of the disfigured musical genius made popular on the stage by actor Michael Crawford in the big-screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, with subsequent roles in The Game of Their Lives and Beowulf & Grendel doing little to increase his international recognizability. By 2006, it seemed that Butler was finally poised to break big, and as he prepared to lead the soldiers of Sparta in battle against the overwhelming forces of the Persian Empire in Dawn of the Dead director Zack Snyder's adaptation of Frank Miller's popular graphic novel 300, it appeared as if he was determined to do so in style.The movie was a huge international box-office hit, and Butler followed it up with the Guy Ritchie film RocknRolla the next year. In 2009 he took the starring role in the thriller Law Abiding Citizen, and appeared in the virtual reality action film Gamer. 2010 saw the release of his romantic comedy The Bounty Hunter opposite Jennifer Aniston, and in 2011 he starred in the drama Machine Gun Preacher. That same year he played the arch enemy of Coriolanus in Ralph Fiennes adaptation of that Shakespearean tragedy.

Trivia: When she took her on-camera bow in the early 2000s, Brazilian-born actress Morena Baccarin maintained equal footing in the film and television arenas, typically filling parts that called for an exotic ingenue with an undercurrent of raw intelligence. Feature roles included the evocation of a gifted and brilliant young actress typecast by gender at the hands of sexist casting directors in Daniel Kay's ensemble comedy drama Way Off Broadway (2001) and a bit part in the 2002 comedy Roger Dodger (as a pickup). Baccarin's regular small-screen role on the 2002 sci-fi-Western hybrid series Firefly -- as Inara, a "companion" (a well-respected courtesan) on board a futuristic spaceship -- yielded an assignment to reprise that characterization in the big-screen adaptation of that series, Serenity (2005). After taking on guest roles on such small-screen programs as The O.C., Justice League, and Stargate SG-1, Baccarin landed regular billing as a nurse on the series medical drama Heartland (2007), opposite Treat Williams and Dabney Coleman. She continued to find steady work on the small screen with supporting roles in the reboot of ABC's sci-fi series V, as well as in the award-winning spy series Homeland; she later recurred on The Flash before joining the cast of Gotham

Trivia: Ex-marine and ex-newspaper reporter Scott Glenn was ideally suited to the action-oriented films that would become his lot in the 1980s and 1990s. After learning the rudiments of his craft at the Actors Studio and appearing off-Broadway, Glenn made his film bow in 1970's The Baby Maker. He was rescued from low-budget cycle flicks by director Robert Altman, who cast Glenn as Pfc. Glenn Kelly in Nashville (1975). As rangy and rugged off-camera as on, Glenn was one of the few film actors of recent years to flourish in western roles: among his more impressive credits within this genre are Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1981), Silverado (1985), My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys (1993), and, stretching a point a bit, Urban Cowboy (1980). Glenn has been equally laudable in such suit-and-tie roles as Jodie Foster's FBI chief in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), in "military" assignments like astronaut Alan Shepard in The Right Stuff (1981) and the U.S. sub commander in Hunt for Red October (1990). As a tribute to Robert Altman, the director who elevated him to "A" pictures back in 1975, Scott Glenn accepted a drastic cut in salary to portray "Himself" in Altman's The Player (1992). Over the next several years, Glenn remained active on screen, appearing in films like Training Day, The Virgin Suicides, The Bourne Ultimatum, W., and The Paperboy.

Trivia: A popular television actress who has also found success on the silver screen, Merrin Dungey has been entertaining audiences since strapping on her ballet shoes at the age of four. Always quick on her feet, the talented dancer moved from ballet to ice skating before discovering her talent as an actress while hosting a local teen talk show at 18. Commercial work was quick to follow, and shortly thereafter, Dungey enrolled as a theater major at U.C.L.A. During her sophomore year at college, Dungey became the youngest person ever to win the U.C.L.A. School of Theater's top acting prize at the Annual Acting Awards Ceremony. Following her graduation, the up-and-coming actress developed a one-woman show entitled Black Like Who? for the HBO Comedy Workspace. It didn't take long for Dungey's reputation as a talent to watch spread through Hollywood, and on the heels of Black Like Who?, she signed with the William Morris Agency. Television roles were quick to follow, and after guest appearances on Martin and Living Single, Dungey landed a recurring role on the television series Party Girl (an adaptation of the 1995 Parker Posey indie). After making her film debut with a small role in the 1998 disaster flick Deep Impact, Dungey returned to the small screen in supporting capacity with The King of Queens in 1998. With roles in EDtv (1999) and The Sky Is Falling (2000), Dungey seemed to be balancing films and television nicely, and following a memorable turn on Malcolm in the Middle, she was cast on the small-screen spy drama-thriller series Alias in 2001. In addition to continuing roles on television on such popular shows as Curb Your Enthusiasm, Dungey still appearred in such features as Scream at the Sound of the Beep (2002). In 2004, Dungey took on a role in the made-for-television drama Summerland. In 2007 she was cast in the Grey's Anatomy spinoff Private Practice as Dr. Naomi Bennett.

Trivia: Displaying a sort of weary Botticelli beauty and a crisp brand of intelligence, Hope Davis has made a name for herself portraying good women wronged by bad men. Playing such characters in her two breakthrough films, The Daytrippers and Next Stop Wonderland, Davis displayed a remarkable blend of lovable bitterness and cynical charm, endearing herself to legions of art house filmgoers who recognized an unmistakable ring of truth in her performances.Born in Englewood, NJ, Davis had a childhood that was notable in part for her friendship with her neighbor across the street, Mira Sorvino. Davis' first brush with acting came when the two girls -- then eight or nine -- wrote a play and performed it for their neighbors. The actress' next encounter with fame came some years later, in the rather dubious form of her bit part as one of Billy Baldwin's used-and-abused girlfriends in the 1990 film Flatliners. Following a bit role as a French ticket agent in the same year's Home Alone, Davis had yet another dubious brush with fame in Kiss of Death (1995), in a role memorable for the sole reason that it required Davis to be bench-pressed by co-star Nicolas Cage. The following year brought with it more auspicious work in The Daytrippers, an independent comedy in which Davis played the suspicious wife of philandering Stanley Tucci. Co-starring Parker Posey, Liev Schreiber, and Anne Meara, the film was a hit on the independent circuit, but Davis would strike even more indie gold in 1998 with her starring role in Brad Anderson's Next Stop Wonderland. Critics adored her performance as Erin, a nurse recovering from a major -- and bitterly hilarious -- breakup with her activist boyfriend (played with joyful loathsomeness by Philip Seymour Hoffman).By this time, the actress had established a niche for herself in the realm of quirky, independently minded films, and she would continue to appear in similar films over the years, like Mumford, About Schmidt, American Splendor, Proof, Charlie Bartlett, The Lodger, and Synechdoche, New York. Davis would also make succesful runs on the small screen, with Six Degrees, In Treatment, and the HBO mini series Mildred Pierce.

Trivia: Appeared in theatrical productions of Bus Stop and The Tempest. Made his big-screen debut in the 2000 comedy The Replacements. Portrayed the demon Skip in the Angel series. Cites Henry V as the work that inspired him to become an actor.

Trivia: Parents are Jamaican, and are both accountants. Was a high jump star athlete in college where his personal best jump was 7 feet 2.5 inches and he consistently ranked among the top 15 High Jumpers in NCAA. Created sketch comedy series King Bachelors Pad in 2012 and landed recurring roles in The Mindy Project, House of Lies and Black Jesus. Entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2016 for Most Followers on Vine with 16,066,791 followers. Founded non-profit organization The RuJohn Foundation, to provide the necessary tools for education to rural and inner-city schools throughout Jamaica and the United States, with his sister Christina in 2003.

Trivia: At 14, ran away from home and took a Greyhound bus to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an actor, but his parents tracked him down and sent him to a boarding school in Ireland. After graduating from high school in Omaha, he studied French, art history and theatre in Paris. Was cast as an understudy in the Broadway production of Biloxi Blues. As a 46-year-old training for the lead role in the FX series Lights Out, McCallany fulfilled a lifelong dream to fight in an amateur boxing competition, winning a three-round decision against a German heavyweight.