Trivia: Internationally known for his charisma and smoldering good looks, Antonio Banderas is the ultimate manifestation of the Latin heartthrob. Born in Málaga, Spain on August 10, 1960, Banderas wanted to become a professional soccer player until a broken foot sidelined his dreams at the age of fourteen. He went on to enroll in some drama classes, eventually joining a theatre troupe that toured all over Spain. His work in the theatre, and his performances on the streets, eventually landed him a spot with the National Theatre of Spain. While performing with the theatre, Banderas caught the attention of director Pedro Almodóvar, who cast the young actor in his film debut, Laberinto de Pasione (Labyrinth of Passion) (1982). He went on to appear in the director's La Ley del Deseo (Law of Desire) (1984), making headlines with his performance as a gay man, which required him to engage in his first male-to-male onscreen kiss. After Banderas appeared in Almodóvar's Matador (1986), the director cast him in his internationally acclaimed Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) (1988). The recognition Banderas gained for his role increased two years later when he starred in Almodóvar's controversial Atame! (Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) as a mental patient who kidnaps a porn star (Victoria Abril) and keeps her tied up until she returns his love.Banderas made his first stateside appearance as an unwitting object of Madonna's affections in Truth or Dare (1991). The following year, still speaking next to no English, he starred in his first American film, The Mambo Kings. It was a testament to his acting abilities that, despite having to learn all of his lines phonetically, Banderas still managed to turn in a critically praised performance as a struggling musician. He broke through to mainstream American audiences as the gay lover of AIDS-afflicted lawyer Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) in Philadelphia (1993). The film's success earned Banderas wide recognition, and the following year he was given a substantial role in Neil Jordan's high-profile adaptation of Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, which allowed him to share the screen with the likes of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Banderas subsequently appeared in a number of films of widely varying quality, doing particularly strong work in Desperado (1995), Evita (1998), and The Mask of Zorro (1998). In 1999, he made his first foray into directing with Crazy in Alabama, a black comedy starring Melanie Griffith, to whom he had been married since 1996. The following year he starred as an aspiring boxer opposite Woody Harrelson in Play It to the Bone, portrayed a Cuban tycoon with a bad seed bride (Angelina Jolie) in Original Sin, and starred alongside Bob Hoskins and Wes Bentley in The White River Kid. Well established as a hearthrob and a talented dramatic actor by the end of the 1990s, the fact that Desperato director Robert Rodriguez was the only director to have expolored Banderas' comic potential (Banderas provided one of the few memorable performances in Rodriguez's segment of the otherwise abysmal Four Rooms (1995)) hinted at a heretofore unexplored but potentially lucrative territory for the actor. Later approached by Rodriguez to portray the super-spy patriarch in the family oriented adventure comedy Spy Kids (2001), Banderas charmed children and adults alike with his role as a kidnapped agent whose children must discover their inner stregnth in order to rescue their mother and father. After reprising his role in the following year's Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, Banderas would next return to more adult oriented roles in both Brian DePalma's Femme Fatale and the ill-fated Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (both 2002). After essaying a more historic role in the dramatic biopic Frida (also 2002), the remarkably diverse actor would one again team with Rodriguez for the sprawling Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003). In 2004 he joined the highly successful Shrek franchise voicing Puss In Boots, and the character became so popular that he appeared in each of the following sequels, and was the subject of his own feature in 2011. In 2005 he played Zorro again, and he had a major part in the dance film Take the Lead. In 2011 he reteamed for the first time in two decades with Pedro Almodovar in the Hitchcock-inspired The Skin I Live In, and the next year he appeared as a mysterious international espionage figure in the action film Haywire. He appeared in a small role in Rodriguez's Machete Kills (2013) and later appeared in The Expendables 3 (2014).

Trivia: A native of Sarasota, FL, Gugino spent most of her youth being shuttled by her mother to various locations in California. At age 15, she and her mom were living in San Diego, when Gugino was convinced to try a modeling career in New York City. She succeeded, but soon found the fast pace of high-fashion modeling too much for her and moved to Los Angeles, where she took advice from an aunt, model Carol Merril, and enrolled in acting classes to study under drama coach Gene Bua. Gugino soon made her film debut in the comedy Troop Beverly Hills (1986). More features followed, until she got her first supporting major role, that of Norma in the Robert De Niro/Leonardo Di Caprio drama This Boy's Life (1993), and later scored a co-starring role on the Michael J. Fox sitcom Spin City. As her star continued to rise, Gugino would spend the subsuquent years appearing in a wide variety of high profile projects, like Spy Kids, Out of Sight, Sin City, Night at the Museum, Sucker Punch, Watchmen, and Mr. Popper's Penguins. Gugino would also find major success on the small screen, with roles on shows like Entourage and Californication.

Trivia: Child actor Daryl Sabara was propelled to stardom at the age of eight with a leading role in Spy Kids and Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams, the family action franchise written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. Sabara plays the intuitive and creative spy kid Juni Cortez, younger sibling of the fearless teen spy Carmen Cortez (Alexa Vega). Well-suited for physically demanding action-adventures, he joined the South Bay Ballet Company at the age of four and continued to train in dance, gymnastics, and tae kwon do. Along with his twin brother, Evan Sabara, he got started in acting with television guest-starring roles, including Love & Money, Roswell, and Will & Grace. Sabara's next film, Spy Kids 3D: Game Over, is scheduled for release in 2003.

Trivia: A former engineer, Mike Judge achieved animation renown for his dead-on idiot savant satire of American suburban teen culture in the MTV phenomenon Beavis and Butt-Head.Born in Ecuador and raised in Albuquerque, NM, Judge got a degree in physics at U.C. San Diego. Relocating to Texas, Judge worked as an engineer and also tried to forge a career as a musician, but found that animation was his preferred calling. After a Dallas animation festival, Judge's 1991 short Office Space was picked up by Comedy Central. His 1992 short Frog Baseball, featuring two sadistic teen cretins voiced by Judge, subsequently led to a 1993 MTV animated series revolving around the heavy metal-loving adolescents Beavis and Butthead.Anchored by the pair's witty critiques of music videos ("this blows, huh-huh-huh"), Beavis and Butt-Head attracted devout fans with its astutely low-brow take on the teen boy culture of raging hormones, loud music, fast food, and pyromania. Despite fierce criticism of its overt idiocy and a 1993 scandal involving its influence on a fire-setting viewer, Beavis and Butt-Head ran for several years, spawning lucrative merchandising and Judge's first big-screen feature, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996). Judge branched out into network TV in 1997 with Fox's popular, Emmy-nominated animated comedy series King of the Hill, featuring executive producer Judge as the voice of laconic Texas propane salesman and family man Hank Hill. Bringing his sweetly jaundiced view of American suburbia to live-action film, Judge expanded his early short into the full-length feature Office Space (1999). Humorously chronicling the myriad forms of office cubicle and chain-restaurant hell, with visually clever detours into the suburban white male affection for gangsta rap, Office Space wickedly celebrated one man's revolt against 1990s corporate culture and became a small hit. Despite his initial success with live action, Judge became somewhat dormant as a writer-director of feature films in the years following Office Space's initial release. Over the next decade, Judge continued his work with small-screen animation via King of the Hill, and made vocal contributions to the outrageously tasteless yet intelligent blockbuster South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999). He nonetheless remained conspicuously absent from megaplexes for almost a decade, which made Office Space cultists increasingly impatient for a follow-up to that earlier hit. It eventually arrived in the form of 2006's Idiocracy -- a satirical sci-fi comedy produced for Fox Searchlight that Judge scripted along with Etan Cohen, whom he had previously worked with on Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill. In the film, the U.S. military recruits the "most average man in the Army" (Luke Wilson) to take part in a secret experiment in which he will be cryogenically frozen for one year. He wakes up 500 years later to find out that he was forgotten about when the base closed; now in the year 2505, he discovers that he is the most intelligent person on Earth, as society has been dumbed down to the point where a former porn star/wrestler is the President of the Unites States.In summer 2009, Judge released his next live-action feature film, Extract, starring Jason Bateman as the owner of a flavor-extract manufacturing company who struggles with his factory workers and dreams of selling off his business -- a reversal of the dynamic and setting of his previous workplace comedy Office Space, wherein cubicle drones dream of rebellion against their insufferable boss and corporate overlords. Extract also featured Mila Kunis, Ben Affleck, Gene Simmons, Kristen Wiig, among others. Shortly thereafter, Judge wrapped up his long-running King of the Hill series after completing its 13th season.

Trivia: As the son of broadcast journalist Nick Clooney and the nephew of chanteuse Rosemary Clooney, George Clooney entered the world with show business coursing through his veins. Born May 6, 1961 in Lexington, Kentucky, the future E.R. headliner appeared at the tender age of five on his father's Cincinnati talk program, The Nick Clooney Show. In his youth, Clooney honed a sharp interest in sports - particularly baseball - but by adulthood, Clooney launched himself as an onscreen presence, seemingly without effort. Beginning with a string of television commercials, then signed with Warner Brothers Entertainment as a supporting player. By the time Clooney had paid his dues, he'd appeared in single episodes of The Golden Girls, Riptide, Crazy Like a Fox, Street Hawk and Hunter.After regular gigs on TV shows like The Facts of Life, Roseanne, and Sisters, Clooney scored a role on the NBC medical drama E.R., which proved his breakthrough to superstardom. When that program shot up to #1 in prime time ratings, Clooney carried it (much more, in fact, than a first-billed Anthony Edwards) - his inborn appeal to women and his onscreen grace and charm massive contributing factors. This appeal increased as his character - initially something of a callous womanizer - matured with the show, eventually evolving into a kind and thoroughly decent, if somewhat hotheaded, human being.The performer's newfound star power led to big screen opportunities, like an acid-mouthed, rifle-wielding antihero (one of the Gecko Brothers, alongside Quentin Tarantino) in the Robert Rodriguez-directed, Tarantino-scripted horror comedy From Dusk Till Dawn (1995). Not long after, Clooney shifted gears altogether, co-headlining (with Michelle Pfeiffer) in the charming romcom One Fine Day (1996). Though he would notoriously misstep in accepting the role of Bruce Wayne in the 1997 attempted Batman reboot Batman & Robin, Clooney's honesty about the part being a bad fit was refreshing to audiences, and he took little flack for the movie, moving on to critically acclaimed movies like the action-laced crime comedy Out of Sight, and Terrence Malick's adaptation of The Thin Red Line. Out of Sight represented a massive watershed moment for Clooney: the first of his numerous collaborations with director Steven Soderbergh. In 1999 -- following his much-talked-about departure from E.R. - Clooney continued to work on a number of high-profile projects. He would star alongside Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube as an American soldier reclaiming Kuwaiti treasure from Saddam Hussein in David O. Russell's Three Kings, and eventually win a 2000 Golden Globe for his portrayal of a pomade-obsessed escaped convict in the Coen brothers' Odyssey update O Brother Where Art Thou?. It was around this time that Clooney, now an established actor equally as comfortable on the big screen as the small, began to branch out as the Executive Producer of such made-for-TV efforts as Killroy (1999) and Fail Safe (2000). Soon producing such features as Rock Star (2001) and Insomnia (2002), Clooney next re-teamed with Soderbergh for a modern take on a classic Rat Pack comedy with Ocean's Eleven (2001). After the dynamic film duo stuck together for yet another remake, the deep-space psychological science-fiction drama Solaris (2002), busy Clooney both produced and appeared in Welcome to Collinwood and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind later the same year.Confessions marked Clooney's behind-the-camera debut, and one of the most promising actor-turned-director outings in memory. Adapted by Charlie Kaufman from Gong Show host Chuck Barris's possibly fictionalized memoir, the picture exhibited Clooney's triple fascinations with politics, media and celebrity; critics did not respond to it with unanimous enthusiasm, but it did show Clooney's promise as a director. He went on to star alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones in the Coen Brothers movie Intolerable Cruelty. The small film was a major sleeper hit among the lucky few who got to see it, and it proved to be a great showcase for Clooney's abilities as a comedian. He moved on to team up with Zeta-Jones again, along with almost the entire cast of Ocean's Eleven, for the sequel, Oceans Twelve, which earned mixed critical reviews, but (like its predecessor) grossed dollar one at the box office. By 2005, Clooney achieved his piece-de-resistance by writing, directing, and acting a sophomore outing: the tense period drama Good Night, and Good Luck.. Shot in black-and-white by ace cinematographer Robert Elswit, the picture followed the epic decision of 1950's television journalist Edward R. Murrow (played by David Strathairn) to confront Senator Joseph McCarthy about his Communist witch hunt. The picture drew raves from critics and received nominations for Best Picture and Best Director.Clooney next appeared in the harshly explicit and openly critical Syriana. He took the lead in this ensemble political thriller about the oil industry, directed by Stephen Gaghan of Traffic and heralded by critics as a disturbingly real look at a hopelessly flawed and corrupt system. Clooney won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as a veteran CIA officer. Never one to rest for very long, Clooney then joined the cast of The Good German. Directed by longtime collaborator Steven Soderbergh, German unfolds in post-WWII Berlin, where Clooney plays a war correspondent who helps an ex-lover (Cate Blanchett) search for her missing husband. The actor-director team would pair up again the following year for the third installment in the Ocean's saga, Ocean's Thirteen. Next turning towards a more intimate, individualized project, Clooney earned yet more acclaim playing the title role in Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton, where his portrayal of a morally compromised legal "fixer" earned him strong reviews and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.Complications during the pre-production of the period comedy Leatherheads led to Clooney rewriting the script, as well as starring in and directing the picture. Though the movie made few ripples with audiences or critics, Clooney's adeptness continued to impress. In 2009, he gave voice to the lead character in Wes Anderson's thoroughly charming stop-motion animation feature Fantastic Mr. Fox, played a soldier with ESP in the comedy The Men Who Stare at Goats, and earned arguably the best notices of his career as corporate hatchet man Ryan Bingham in Jason Reitman's Up in the Air. His work in that well-reviewed comedy/drama earned him nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, the Golden Globes, and the Academy. In the midst of awards season, Clooney again produced a successful telethon, this time to help earthquake victims in Haiti.In 2011 Clooney would, for the second time in his already impressive career, score Oscar nominations for writing and acting in two different films. His leading role in Alexander Payne's The Descendants earned him a wave of critical praise, as well as Best Actor nods from the Screen Actors Guild and the Academy, as well as capturing the Best Actor award from the Golden Globes. The film he co-wrote and directed that year, the political drama The Ides of March garnered the heartthrob a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination from BAFTA, the Academy, and the Golden Globes. In 2012 he earned his second Oscar as one of the producers of that year's Best Picture winner, the Ben Affleck-directed political thriller/Hollywood satire Argo. The following year, he appeared in the critically-acclaimed, box office smash Gravity, and also produced August: Osage County. In 2014, he co-wrote and co-produced (with Grant Heslov) and starred in The Monuments Men, but the film was delayed from a late-2013 release and didn't score well with critics or at the box office.

Trivia: Widely considered to be the first Mexican actress to become a Hollywood movie star since Dolores Del Rio, Salma Hayek is known for bringing a fiery presence and striking, dark-eyed beauty to the screen. A soap star in her native Mexico, Hayek risked her entire career to come to L.A., where she struggled to be taken seriously. Her discovery by director Robert Rodriguez, who cast her in his 1995 film Desperado, gave Hayek her breakthrough, and she subsequently gained a reputation as one of Hollywood's sexiest and busiest actresses.The daughter of a Spanish mother and Lebanese father, Hayek was born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico, on September 2, 1966. Raised in a devoutly Catholic family, she was sent to a Louisiana boarding school at the age of 12. After getting into trouble for terrorizing the nuns, Hayek returned to Mexico, but she was eventually sent to Houston, Texas, to live with her aunt, where she stayed until she was 17. She subsequently moved to Mexico City, where she studied International Relations as a university student, but, to the chagrin of her family, decided to drop out in order to pursue a career as an actress. Starting out in local theatre productions, she eventually moved to television and landed a starring role in the popular soap opera Teresa. The show's success made Hayek a celebrity in her native country, but, desiring something more, she shocked her fans by deciding to quit the show in order to pursue a career in L.A.After taking a year to learn English and study acting with Stella Adler, Hayek got her first break when Allison Anders cast her in a supporting role in Mi Vida Loca (1993). The role allowed Hayek to obtain a Screen Actors Guild card, and after doing so, she continued to audition until she appeared on a Spanish-language cable access talk show that happened to count director Robert Rodriguez amongst its viewers. Rodriguez tracked Hayek down and promptly cast her in Desperado, his bigger-budget 1995 sequel to El Mariachi. The film, which also starred Antonio Banderas, succeeded in giving the actress her own plot on the Hollywood map, and Rodriguez again demonstrated his faith in her when he cast her in his next project, the vampire extravaganza From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). Unfortunately for Hayek, the film, which also starred George Clooney, failed to do as well as expected, and Hayek's next few projects were similarly lackluster. The Faculty (1998), a teen thriller that cast Hayek as a teacher who turns into an alien, was an exception, and Kevin Smith's Dogma (1999), which featured her as a celestial muse, was fairly successful with critics and audiences. Also in 1999, Hayek had a starring role in what was to be her biggest film to date, Barry Sonnenfeld's Wild Wild West, which also starred Will Smith and Kevin Kline. Unfortunately for all involved, the film was a turkey. In 2000, Hayek could be seen in smaller, edgier ventures, including the independent comedy Chain of Fools, in which she played a centerfold-turned- cop, and Mike Figgis' experimental Time Code, which cast her as Jeanne Tripplehorn's lover. If these films ultimately didn't provide Hayek with a role that would draw attention to her genuine talent, this would soon change with the long awaited biography of tragic artist Frida Kahlo. With her role as the epnoymous character in Frida (2002), Hayek disappeared into her subject so convincingly that not only would she return to the good graces of critics, but earn an Oscar nomination as well.Hayek would spend the coming years enjoying superstar status with everything from comedic turns on sitcoms like Ugly Betty (which she produced) and 30 Rock, to meaty roles in dramatic thrillers like Savages.

Trivia: Philadelphia-born actress Holland Taylor majored in drama at Bennington College, and arrived in New York in 1966, hoping to take the theater world by storm. That didn't quite happen, despite Taylor making her Broadway debut in The Devils, starring Anne Bancroft, and working with Alan Bates in Butley (she was also in that notorious failure, Moose Murders). A protégée of legendary acting teacher Stella Adler, Taylor endured 14 years of disappointments interspersed with the occasional success, and played in one heavily hyped television series (CBS's Beacon Hill) that failed in less than a season, all of it broken up by work in the daytime drama The Edge of Night. Finally, in 1980, lightning struck when Taylor was cast in the series Bosom Buddies in the role of Ruth Dunbar, the acid-tongued advertising agency executive employing the two protagonists of the program, played by Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari. Taylor accepted the part despite some initial reluctance, mostly thanks to Adler's urging, but she proved almost as much of a breakout personality onscreen as Hanks and Scolari. Taylor took lines written with venom and added her own wry twists to their meanings and inflections, and made all of her scenes memorable. The series only lasted two full seasons, but when it folded, Taylor was being offered television and movie roles on a steady basis. Most of her subsequent series didn't last more than a season each, but Taylor's parts, usually as charmingly acerbic middle-aged women, stayed big and got larger, up through programs such as The Naked Truth, starring Téa Leoni. Taylor's big-screen appearances have included supporting roles in such diverse films as The Truman Show, Spy Kids 2, Legally Blonde, George of the Jungle, Romancing the Stone, The Jewel of the Nile, How to Make an American Quilt, Fame, She's Having a Baby, and To Die For. She's also had some choice parts in made-for-television movies, including playing Nancy Reagan in The Day Reagan Was Shot, but Taylor's most successful medium remains the television series. In recent years, she has proved a mainstay of producer David E. Kelley's stable of actors, taking on the recurring role of Judge Roberta Kittleson, a Boston jurist whose sex-drive is a match for her legal intellect, in the series The Practice (with a cross-over appearance in the same role on Ally McBeal), winning an Emmy for her work on the show's 1999 season. That series, which has included an episode featuring Taylor in a semi-nude scene, has not only given the middle-aged actress a chance to explore sides of her screen persona that other producers never even considered, but has transformed her into a sex symbol among the ranks of mature actresses, right up there with Kathleen Turner as Mrs. Robinson in the stage version of The Graduate.As the new century began she continued to work steadily in both movies and TV in projects such as Happy Accidents, playing the first-lady in The Day Reagan Was Shot, Legally Blonde, and Spy Kids 2. She returned to series television with a recurring role on Two and a Half Men, which was the most-watched sitcom on TV during part of its successful run. She also appeared in the big screen comedy Baby Mama.

Trivia: An icon of machismo and Hollywood action heroism, Sylvester Stallone is responsible for creating two characters who have become a part of the American cultural lexicon: Rocky Balboa, the no-name boxer who overcame all odds to become a champion, and John Rambo, the courageous soldier who specialized in violent rescues and revenge. Both characters are reflections of Stallone's personal experiences and the battles he waged during his transition from a poor kid in Hell's Kitchen to one of the world's most popular stars. According to Stallone, his was not a happy childhood. On July 6, 1946, in the aforementioned part of Manhattan, Sylvester Enzio Stallone was born to a chorine and an Italian immigrant. A forceps accident during his birth severed a facial nerve, leaving Stallone with parts of his lip, tongue, and chin paralyzed. In doing so, the accident imprinted Stallone with some of the most recognizable components of his persona: the distinctively slurred (and some say often nearly incomprehensible) speech patterns, drooping lower lip, and crooked left eye that have been eagerly seized upon by caricaturists. To compound these defects, Stallone was a homely, sickly child who once suffered from rickets. His parents were constantly at war and struggling to support Stallone and his younger brother, Frank Stallone (who became a B-movie actor). The elder brother spent most of his first five years in the care of foster homes. Stallone has said that his interest in acting came from his attempts to get attention and affection from those strangers who tried to raise him. When he was five, his parents moved their family to Silver Spring, MD, but once again spent their time bickering and largely ignored their children. Following his parents' divorce in 1957, the 11-year-old Stallone remained with his stern father. The actor's teen years proved even more traumatic. As Stallone seemed willing to do just about anything for attention, however negative, he had already been enrolled in 12 schools and expelled several times for his behavior problems. His grades were dreadful and his classmates picked on him for being different. Stallone coped by becoming a risk taker and developing elaborate fantasies in which he presented himself as a brave hero and champion of the underdog. At age 15, Stallone moved to Philadelphia to be with his mother and her new husband. By this time, he had begun lifting weights and took up fencing, football, and the discus. He also started appearing in school plays. Following graduation, Stallone received an athletic scholarship for the American College of Switzerland. While there he was a girls' athletic coach and in his spare time starred in a school production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. The experience inspired him to become an actor and after returning stateside, he started studying drama at the University of Miami until he decided to move to New York in 1969. While working a variety of odd jobs, Stallone auditioned frequently but only occasionally found stage work, most of which was off-Broadway in shows like the all-nude Score and Rain. He even resorted to appearing in the softcore porn film, Party at Kitty's and Studs, which was later repackaged as The Italian Stallion after Stallone became famous. Stallone's face and even his deep voice were factors in his constant rejection for stage and film roles. He did nab a bit role in Woody Allen's Bananas (1971), but after he was turned down for The Godfather (1971), Stallone became discouraged. Rather than give up, however, Stallone again developed a coping mechanism -- he turned to writing scripts, lots of scripts, some of which were produced. He still auditioned and landed a starring role in Rebel (1973). During his writing phase, he married actress Sasha Czack in late 1974 and they moved to California in the hopes of building acting careers. His first minor success came when he wrote the screenplay for and co-starred in the nostalgic Lords of Flatbush (1974) with Henry Winkler. The film's modest success resulted in Stallone's getting larger roles, but he still didn't attract much notice until he penned the screenplay for Rocky. The story was strong and well written and studios were eager to buy the rights, but Stallone stipulated that he would be the star and must receive a share of the profits. Producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff accepted Stallone's terms and Rocky (1976) went on to become one of the biggest movie hits of all time. It also won several Oscars including ones for Best Picture, Best Director for John Avildsen, and a Best Actor nomination for Stallone. Suddenly Stallone found himself on Hollywood's A-list, a status he has largely maintained over the years. In addition to writing four sequels to Rocky, he penned three Rambo films (First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part II, and Rambo 3) and F.I.S.T. (1979). Stallone made his directorial debut with Paradise Alley, which he filmed in Hell's Kitchen. He also wrote and directed but did not appear in the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, Staying Alive (1983). In addition, Stallone has continued to appear in the films of other directors, notably Demolition Man (1993), Judge Dredd (1995), and Copland (1997), a film in which he allowed himself to gain 30 pounds in order to more accurately portray an aging sheriff. Occasionally, Stallone has ventured out of the action genre and into lighter fare with such embarrassing efforts as Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) and Oscar (1991), which did not fare well at the box office. Following these missteps, Stallone found greater success with the animated adventure Antz (1998), a film in which his very distinctive voice, if not his very distinctive physique, was very much a part. Stallone was back in shape for the 2000 remake of Get Carter and hit the race tracks in the following year in the CART racing thriller Driven. Though the early 2000s found his career sputtering along with such forgettable duds as D-Tox and Avenging Angelo, Stallone took his career into his own hands by returning to the director's chair to resurrect two of his most iconic characters. Lacing his boxing gloves up once again for Rocky Balboa, the veteran action star proved he still had some fight left in him, and venturing into the jungles of Burma as John Rambo just two years later, he proved that hard "R" action could still sell in the era where most filmmakers were playing it "PG-13"safe. That trend continued with Stallone's all-star action opus The Expendables in 2010, with the success of that film leading to a sequel (with Simon West taking over directorial duties) featuring even more action icons in 2012. Incredibly, not even a broken neck suffered during production of The Expendables proved capable of slowing Stallone down, and 2013 found him teaming with Walter Hill for Bullet to the Head -- which followed a cop and a killer as they teamed up to take down a mutual enemy. In 2015, Stallone returned to Rocky Balboa once more, but this time as a supporting character in the spin-off film Creed. He earned rave reviews and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, making him only the sixth performer to be nominated for playing the same character in two separate films.

Trivia: Though perhaps best remembered for playing the suave, mysterious Mr. Roarke on the popular television series Fantasy Island (1978-1984), and for his car commercials in which he seductively exhorted the pleasures of the upholstery ("Rich, Corinthian leather") in his distinctive Spanish accent, Ricardo Montalban once played romantic leads in major features of the '40s and '50s. He also had a successful career on-stage. Born Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalban y Merino in Mexico City, Montalban spent part of his youth in the U.S. The tall, dark, handsome, and curly haired actor first worked as a bit player on Broadway before returning to Mexico in the early '40s and launching a film career there. By 1947, he had returned to the States and signed with MGM. That year, Montalban played his first leading role opposite Cyd Charisse in the romantic musical Fiesta (1947). It would be the first of many roles in which he would play a passionate singing and dancing "Latin Lover." He and Charisse again teamed up as dancers in the Esther Williams musical water extravaganza in On an Island With You (1948). At one point, it was a toss-up between Montalban and fellow MGM "LL" Fernando Lamas as to which was more popular. It would not be until 1949 before Montalban had the opportunity to play a non-romantic role as a border agent who gets revenge upon the killers of his partner in Border Incident. His second serious role in Battleground (1949) ranks among his best performances. By the late '50s, he had become a character actor, often cast in ethnic roles, notably that of a genteel Japanese Kabuki actor in Sayonara (1957). He had occasionally appeared on television since the late '50s, but did not appear regularly until the mid-'70s. In 1976, Montalban earned an Emmy for his portrayal of a Sioux chief in the television miniseries How the West Was Won. In the early '70s he was part of a touring troupe that read dramatic excerpts from Shaw's Don Juan in Hell. In 1982, Montalban reprised a role he had made famous on the original Star Trek TV series as the ruthless Khan to star in the second Star Trek feature, The Wrath of Khan. In the '80s, Montalban only sporadically appeared in feature films. His television career also slowed, though he occasionally appeared on series such as The Colbys (1985-1987) and Heaven Help Us! (1994). Montalban has written an autobiography, Reflections: A Life in Two Worlds (1980). Confined to a wheelchair after a 1993 spinal operation left him paralyzed from the waist down, Montalban remiained in good health despite being in constant pain, and continued to play an active role in promoting Nostros - a non-profit organization founded by Montalban in 1970 and dedicated to improving the image of Latinos within the entertainment industry. In the late 1990s and early 2000s Moltalban's career recieved something of a second wind when he began performing vocal work on such animated television series' as Freakazoid!, Dora the Explorer, and Kim Possible, with a role as the kindly grandfather in Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over even giving the wheelchair-bound actor an opportunity to triumphantly rise once again thanks to the magic of special effects. Additional vocal work in the 2006 animated family adventure The Ant Bully continued to keep Montalban busy despite his physical limitations. His brother, Carlos Montalban, was also an actor.

Trivia: The son of a Los Angeles police officer, American actor/director Richard "Cheech" Marin earned his nickname through his fondness for the Chicano food, specialty cheecharone. An excellent student (if something of a class cutup), Marin entered California State University, only to drop out and hightail it to Canada to avoid the draft. While working as an improvisational comedian with Vancouver's City Work troupe, Marin teamed with Tommy Chong; the Hispanic/Asian duo created the characters of Cheech and Chong, a pair of zoned-out dopers ever in search of the "perfect joint." On the strength of their bestselling record albums, Cheech and Chong were signed for the inexpensive comedy film Up in Smoke (1978), which wound up as one of Warner Bros.' highest-grossing films (not to mention one of its highest, period). As the drug culture lost its momentum, so did the film career of Cheech and Chong, with each of the team's subsequent films making less money than its predecessor. By the time C & C headlined the atrocious The Corsican Brothers (1984), the jig was up. Cheech and Chong split up in 1984 (though they remained friends) and went off to their own projects. While it was Chong who directed many of the team's features, Marin sat in the director's chair for the best of his post-team projects, the 1987 film Born in East L.A, inspired by Cheech's own parody music video. Marin's starring film is Shrimp on the Barbie (1990) contained no drug jokes and fewer laughs (an indication of its quality is the fact that the director had his name removed from the credits in favor of the pseudonymous "Alan Smithee"). Lately regarded as an elder statesman of the counterculture, Marin has kept busy with cameo roles, cartoon voice-overs (Oliver and Company, Ferngully, The Lion King), and a brief stint as a costar of the 1992 TV sitcom "Golden Palace." In 1996, he began co-starring opposite Don Johnson in the television drama Nash Bridges. Around this time he began a fruitful collaboration with independent filmmaker Robert Rodriguez. Marin had a part in Desperado, and played multiple characters in the vampire film From Dusk 'til Dawn for the Austin based maverick. Marin was cast as Kevin Costner's best friend in the golf comedy Tin Cup in 1996. The beginning of the next decade brought Marin an unexpected new audience as he began a series of humorous appearances in family films and lent his vocal talents to a number of animated films. He appeared in all three segments of Rodriguez's Spy Kids series, did vocal work in Good Boy, and voiced one of the Cars in Pixar's film. He also played small parts in John Sayles Silver City, and Bob Dylan's Masked & Anonymous.

Trivia: Scottish, versatile, and for a long time underappreciated, Alan Cumming is chameleon-like in both his choice of roles and his ability to inhabit them convincingly. Born January 27, 1965, in Perthshire, Scotland, Cumming studied drama at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama before embarking on a career that would have its roots on the stage. For years, Cumming worked steadily in the theater as a member of repertory companies, such as the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1992 he had his film debut in the largely unheard of Prague, which was essentially a historical overview of the city. In 1994 American audiences were introduced to the sound of Cumming's voice thanks to his role as the narrator of Black Beauty, but it wasn't until 1995 (Cumming's other 1994 film, Second Best notwithstanding) that they actually saw him, this time via his small but memorable role as a Russian computer programmer in Goldeneye.Wider exposure followed, thanks to two successful films. The first, Circle of Friends (1995), featured Cumming as Minnie Driver's slimy, unwelcome suitor, and the second, 1996's Emma, saw Cumming playing yet another unwelcome suitor, this time to Gwyneth Paltrow. More sympathetic roles followed in For My Baby, Buddy, and Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (in which he played a sweetly awkward nerd with a crush on Lisa Kudrow), all released in 1997. Work in Spice World came next in 1998, as did the stage role that was to give Cumming critical acclaim, a host of awards, and the wider respect he deserved. That role was Cabaret's Emcee, and Cumming managed to make the character -- previously the sole territory of Joel Grey -- all his own, giving a wickedly delicious performance that was unabashedly dark, sly, androgynous, and altogether terrifying. His performance won him all three New York theater awards: a Tony, a Drama Desk, and an Outer Critics Circle. This triumph resulted in a new range of opportunities for the actor, one of which was the chance to be a part of what was to be Stanley Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Although Cumming's role as a hotel desk clerk was a small one, the actor turned in a sly and insinuating performance that reflected his ability to make the most out of even the most limited opportunities.Cumming was subsequently given almost unlimited opportunities to showcase his flamboyance in Julie Taymor's Titus, her 1999 adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. In his role as the queen's (Jessica Lange) debauched lover, he gave a performance that was as over-the-top and rococo as the film itself, leading some critics to say his portrayal had a little too much in common with a Christmas ham.Fortunately, Cumming surprised critics and audiences alike when he directed, with Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Anniversary Party (2001), a marital comedy-drama that starred him and Leigh as a husband and wife whose anniversary party exposes the many flaws of their fragile marriage. Featuring a cast that included Kevin Kline, Phoebe Cates, Gwyneth Paltrow, John C. Reilly, and Jennifer Beals, the film, which was shot on digital video, earned a fairly warm reception from critics, many of whom praised Cumming for his work both behind and in front of the camera.Cumming took the part of the bad guy in the first Spy Kids movie, a role he would repeat in the film's first two sequels. He also played the evil corporate manipulator in Josie and the Pussycats. He appeared in the musical remake of Reefer Madness in 2004, and that same year voiced a cat in the live action Garfield the movie. He worked steadily in a variety of projects including Gray Matters, Eloise: Eloise in Hollywood, and Dare, but found his biggest critical success on the small screen as part of the cast in the highly-respected CBS drama The Good Wife which began its run in 2009.

Trivia: A uniquely gifted and versatile actor possessing the distinct ability to immerse himself in a role so convincingly that he becomes almost unrecognizable -- from a quality obsessed restaurateur (Big Night, 1996) to a master criminal bent on world domination (Spy Kids, 2001) -- one can always count on Tony Shalhoub to deliver a memorable performance no matter how small his role may be.Well-known to television audiences for his extended stint as a self-deprecating cabbie on the long-running series Wings, Shalhoub made the often-painful transition from television to film with a grace seldom seen. Born on October 9th, 1953 in Green Bay, WI, Shalhoub developed his passion for theater at the youthful age of six when he volunteered via his sister to play an extra in a high-school production of The King and I. Shalhoub was hooked. After earning his master's degree from the Yale Drama School and spending four seasons at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, MA, Shalhoub packed his bags for New York where he began a luminous career on Broadway. Broadway brought Shalhoub success not only in his career, but in his personal life as well: he was nominated for a Tony for his role in Conversations With My Father and he met his future wife, actress Brooke Adams, while acting in The Heidi Chronicles. It was not long after his Broadway success that Shalhoub made his feature debut, as a doctor in the 1990 AIDS drama Longtime Companion.Shalhoub's film career has been a testament to his range and a compliment to his abilities. Though prone to comedy, his dramatic roles have gained him just as much, if not more, recognition than his comedic roles. Winning the Best Supporting Actor award from the National Society of Film Critics for his well-researched role in Big Night (1996), Shalhoub expanded his dramatic film repertoire with roles in A Civil Action and The Siege (both 1998), while always maintaining his knack for humor (1997's Men in Black). Shalhoub's role as the ultra-mellow "anti-Scottie" in the Star Trek send-up Galaxy Quest (1999) proved that his comic persona was indeed still as sharp as ever. Sticking in the sci-fi/fantasy mold for his roles in Imposter and Spy Kids (both 2001), Shalhoub once again proved that he could do 180-degree character turnarounds with ease.Though Shalhoub would stay in sci-fi mode for his role in Men in Black 2, he would return to solid ground with his role as an obsessive-compulsive detective in the well-received television pilot Monk (2002). Directed by Galaxy Quest helmer Dean Parisot, the pilot for Monk successfully paved the way for the curiously innovative USA series to follow and found the actor warmly re-embracing the medium that had propelled him to stardom. As Monk's popularity continued to grow, Shaloub found success on the big screen in the role of a gifted psychologist for The Great New Wonderful (2005), and voiced the lovable Luigi in Cars (2006) and Cars 2 (2011). In 2007, he worked alongside John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson for the supernatural horror film 1408.

Trivia: One of the most important character actors of the 1990s, Steve Buscemi is unmatched in his ability to combine lowlife posturing with weasely charisma. Although active in the cinema since the mid-'80s, it was not until Quentin Tarantino cast Buscemi as Mr. Pink in the 1992 Reservoir Dogs that the actor became known to most audience members. He would subsequently appear to great effect in other Tarantino films, as well as those of the Coen Brothers, where his attributes blended perfectly into the off-kilter landscape.Born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 13, 1957, Buscemi was raised on Long Island. He gained an interest in acting while a senior in high school, but he had no idea of how to pursue a professional career in the field. Working as a fireman for four years, he began to perform stand-up comedy, but he eventually realized that he wanted to do more dramatic theatrical work. After moving to Manhattan's East Village, he studied drama at the Lee Strasberg Institute, and he also began writing and performing skits in various parts of the city. His talents were eventually noticed by filmmaker Bill Sherwood, who was casting his film Parting Glances. The 1986 drama was one of the first feature films to be made about AIDS (Sherwood himself died from AIDS in 1990), and it starred Buscemi as Nick, a sardonic rock singer suffering from the disease. The film, which was a critical success on the independent circuit, essentially began Buscemi's career as a respected independent actor.Buscemi's resume was given a further boost that same year by his recurring role as a serial killer on the popular TV drama L.A. Law; he subsequently began finding steady work in such films as New York Stories and Mystery Train (both 1989). In 1990, he had another career breakthrough with his role in Miller's Crossing, which began his longtime collaboration with the Coen brothers. The Coens went on to cast Buscemi in nearly all of their films, featuring him to particularly memorable effect in Barton Fink (1991), in which he played a bell boy; Fargo (1996), which featured him as an ill-fated kidnapper; and The Big Lebowski (1998), which saw him portray a laid-back ex-surfer. Although Buscemi has done his best work outside of the mainstream, turning in other sterling performances in Alexandre Rockwell's In the Soup (1992) and Tom Di Cillo's Living in Oblivion (1995), he has occasionally appeared in such Hollywood megaplex fare as Con Air (1997), Armageddon (1998), Big Daddy (1999), and 28 Days (2000), the last of which cast him against type as Sandra Bullock's rehab counselor. Back in indieville, Buscemi would next utilize his homely persona in a more sympathetic manner as a soulful loner with a penchant for collecting old records in director Terry Zwigoff's (Crumb) Ghost World. Despite all indicators pointing to mainstream prolifieration in the new millennium, Buscemi continued to display his dedication to independent film projects with roles in such efforts as Alaxandre Rockwell's 13 Moons and Peter Mattei's Love in the Time of Money (both 2002). Of course there are exceptions to every rule, and Buscemi's memorable appearances in such big budget efforts as Mr Deeds and both Spy Kids 2 and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over served to remind audiences that Buscemi was still indeed at the top of his game, perhaps now more than ever. In 1996, Buscemi made his screenwriting and directorial debut with Trees Lounge, a well-received comedy drama in which he played a down-on-his-luck auto mechanic shuffling through life on Long Island. He followed up his directorial debut in 2000 with Animal Factory, a subdued prison drama starring Edward Furlong as a young inmate who finds protection from his fellow prisoners in the form of an older convict (Willem Dafoe). Moving to the small screen, Buscemi would next helm an episode of the acclaimed HBO mob drama The Sopranos. Called Pine Barrens, the episode instantly became a fan-favorite.In 2004, Buscemi stepped in front of the camera once again to join the cast of The Sopranos, costarring as Tony Blundetto, a recently paroled mafioso struggling to stay straight in the face of temptation to revert back to his old ways. In 2005 Buscemi reteamed with Michael Bay for The Island in the same year that he directed another low-budget film, Lonesome Jim, with a stellar cast that included Seymour Cassel, Mary Kay Place, Liv Tyler, Casey Affleck, and Kevin Corrigan. He also played one of the leads in John Turturro's musical Romance & Cigarettes. His very busy 2006 included an amusing cameo in Terry Zwigoff's Art School Confidential, and continued work in animated films, with vocal appearances in Monster House and Charlotte's Web (2006). His contributions to those projects earned critical acclaim; Buscemi achieved an even greater feat, however, that same year, when he mounted his fifth project as director, Interview (2007). Like Trees Lounge (1996), Lonesome Jim (2005) and other Buscemi-helmed outings, this searing, acerbic comedy-drama spoke volumes about Buscemi's talent and intuition, and arguably even suggested that his ability as a filmmaker outstripped his ability as a thespian. With great precision and insight, the narrative observed a roving paparazzi journalist (Buscemi) during his unwanted yet surprisingly pretension-stripping pas-de-deux with a manipulative, coke-addled prima donna actress (Sienna Miller).At about the same time, the quirky player geared up for a host of substantial acting roles including parts in We're the Millers (2008), Igor (2008) and Keep Coming Back (2008). He appeared as the father of a deceased soldier in The Messenger in 2009, and the next year he landed the lead role of Nucky Thompson, an Irish gangster, in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire. His work on that show would earn him Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe awards.

Trivia: Possessing a special talent for totally immersing himself in his roles, Bill Paxton did not always get the recognition he deserves. Tall, rangy, and boyishly good looking, Paxton's career was a curiosity that found the character actor-turned-filmmaker succeeding in intermittently pulling the rug from under filmgoers' feet with a constantly expanding sense of maturity and range.Paxton's interest in films emerged during his teens when he began making his own movies with a Super-8 camera. He formally entered the entertainment industry in 1974 as a set dresser for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. Paxton made his acting debut as a bit player in Crazy Mama (1975), and afterward, the young thespian moved to New York to hone his skills. Following performances in a couple of horror quickies, Paxton formally launched his Hollywood career with a tiny part in Ivan Reitman's Stripes (1981) and this led to a steady if not unremarkable career in film and television during the '80s. In addition to acting, Paxton made short independent films such as Fish Heads, (1982) which became a favorite on NBC's Saturday Night Live. Paxton's acting career got a much-needed boost in 1985 when he was cast as Ilan Mitchell-Smith's obnoxious big brother Chet Donolley in John Hughes' Weird Science. Some of Paxton's more memorable subsequent roles include that of a cocky intergalactic soldier in James Cameron's Aliens (1986), a crazed vampire in Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark, and sickly astronaut Freddie Hayes in Ron Howard's Apollo 13. In 1996, Paxton landed a starring role, opposite Helen Hunt, in the special-effects blockbuster Twister; his career took an upward turn and Paxton got more leads than ever. Though few audiences saw it in its limited release, critics were quick to praise Paxton's turn as con-artist Traveler in the 1997 movie of the same name. Following a doomed voyage on the Titanic the same year, the workhorse actor once again intrigued filmgoers as a small-town dweller struggling with his conscience after stumbling into over a million dollars in usually flamboyant director Sam Raimi's strikingly subdued A Simple Plan. A quiet and intense performance enhanced by a talented cast including Billy Bob Thornton and Bridget Fonda, the psychological crime drama once again provided further proof that Paxton's impressive range of emotion stretched beyond what many filmgoers may have previously suspected. Though subsequent performances in Mighty Joe Young (1998) and U-571 (2000) did little to backup the promise shown in A Simple Plan, Paxton still had a few tricks up his sleeve, as evidenced by his directorial debut Frailty (2002), a surprisingly competent and genuinely frightening tale of religious fervor and questionable sanity. Though cynical filmgoers may have initially viewed the trailer-touting praises of former collaborators Raimi and James Cameron as favors from old friends, the taut tale of a father who claims that God has provided him with a list of "demons" that he and his sons must cast from the earth blind-sided critics and filmgoers with its disturbingly minimalistic yet complex psychological thriller that recalled the thematic elements of previous efforts as Michael Tolkin's The Rapture (1991). His performance as a loving father who reluctantly embarks on God's mission was a vital component of the films emotional impact, and was once again proof that this former supporting player still had a few tricks up his sleeve.Though he hadn't paid much attention to television since his early career, in 2006, Paxton took on the lead role in HBO's Big Love, playing a polygamous husband with three wives. The show was a hit and garnered critical acclaim, including three Golden Globe nominations for Paxton. When the show wrapped up after five seasons, Paxton joined the miniseries Hatfields & McCoys, earning his only Emmy nomination of his career for the role. In 2014, Paxton took on a recurring role in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., playing the villainous John Garrett. He also played Sam Houston in 2015 miniseries Texas Rising. In 2017, his new network show Training Day (a small-screen version of the film) aired only three episodes before Paxton suddenly died of complications from surgery at age 61.

Trivia: Born January 28, 1981, Elijah Wood has grown up to be one of the most well-respected and steadily employed actors of his generation. Born in Cedar Rapids, IA, Wood modeled and did local commercials before moving with his family to Los Angeles in 1988. It was there that Wood got his first break, a small role in a Paula Abdul video. Film work almost instantly followed, with a bit part in the 1989 Back to the Future II. It was Wood's role as Aidan Quinn's son in Barry Levinson's 1990 Avalon (the third film in the Baltimore trilogy containing Diner [1982] and Tin Men [1987]) that first gave Wood attention, as the film received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for four Academy Awards. After a small part in the Richard Gere potboiler Internal Affairs (1990), Wood secured his first starring role in Paradise (1991), in which he played a young boy who brings estranged couple Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson back together. He received good reviews for his performance -- some said it was one of the best things about the film -- and from there went on to co-star with Mel Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis in Forever Young and in Radio Flyer (both 1992). In 1993, Wood co-starred with Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son, which was a failure both at the box office and with filmgoers who couldn't stomach the idea of the little blond boy from Home Alone as a pre-teen psychopath. In casting Wood as the good to Culkin's evil, the film helped further establish the kind of characters Wood was to become known for: thoughtful, well meaning, and perhaps a bit confused. Wood's next film, the same year's The Adventures of Huck Finn, provided a departure from this type of character, but The War (1994) with Kevin Costner marked something of a return. Also in 1994, Wood had the title role in North, a film remarkable for the volume of bad reviews and bad box office it received, but also for the fact that practically every bad review contained a positive assessment of Wood's performance. Wood's follow-up, the 1996 Flipper, was hardly an improvement, but the subsequent critical and financial success of Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (1997) provided a positive development in the young actor's career. As the soulfully dazed and confused Mikey Carver, Wood gave a portrayal remarkable for its rendering of the thoughtfulness and exquisite hopelessness inherent in the character. 1998's Deep Impact and The Faculty did not allow Wood the same degree of character development, but were great financial successes and further stepping stones in Wood's evolution from winsome child star to impressive young actor. Following a brief turn as the boyfriend of a wannabe hip-hop groupie in James Toback's problematic Black and White (1999), Wood further evolved as an actor in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the first installation of director Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. His most hotly anticipated project, the 2001 film gave Wood top billing as Frodo Baggins alongside a glittering cast that included Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, and Liv Tyler. That same year the young actor could be seen in less mystical surroundings courtesy of Ed Burns' Ash Wednesday, a crime drama that also featured Oliver Platt and Rosario Dawson. In 2002, Wood let his vocal chords for Disney's straight-to-video release of The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina. Of course, his most substantial role of 2002 is unarguably his return to the role of hobbit Frodo Baggins in the second installment of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy; specifically, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.2003 proved to be a similar year for Wood -- after two relatively small jobs (his role credited only as "The Guy" in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and his stint as First Assistant Director in Sean Astin's The Long and Short of It served purely as a break for Elijah), the young actor once again resumed his role for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Though Return of the King is the last in the Tolkien trilogy, 2004 nonetheless looks to be a significant year for Wood, as he is slated to star in soccer flick Hooligans, as well work alongside Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in director Michel Gondry's fantasy feature Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In the latter, Wood significantly stretched his image by playing the Machiavellian Patrick, who slimily attempts to wheedle Kate Winslet away from Jim Carrey by trading on insider knowledge of the couple's sweet nothings. Riding high on the quadruple successes of the three Rings films and Eternal Sunshine, Wood projected wisdom and demonstrated great care in selecting his projects over the course of 2005 - his three features from that year scored with reviewers and at the box. Those included: Robert Rodriguez's critical darling Sin City, a testosterone-infused, live action adaptation of a comic book; Green Street Hooligans, where Wood tackles the challenging role of an expulsionary Harvard student thrust into the brutality of English football; and Liev Schrieber's bittersweet comedy-drama Everything is Illuminated, as Jonathan, a young man who travels to the Ukraine on a quest to find the woman who saved his grandmother's life. Over the course of 2006, Wood's fans can catch him in the period piece Bobby (on the assassination of RFK), the animated feature Happy Feet, and the military drama Day Zero, on the reinstatement of the USAF draft. He voiced the lead role in Happy Feat, and had a major role for internationally respected director Alex de la Iglesia in The Oxford Murders. He lent his voice to the title character in the movie 9, and starred again in the sequel Happy Feet Two. In 2011 he took the leading part on the odd FX series Willard which concerns a man who sees his next door neighbor's canine as a man in a dog suit. In 2012 he returned to his iconic role playing Frodo Baggins for director Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Hobbit.

Trivia: The younger sister of screen star Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense, A.I.), Emily Osment followed in the footsteps of her sibling by essaying an acting career early in life; she officially debuted at the age of five (in 1997), in an FTD florist commercial, then bowed dramatically two years later, with a small role opposite Linda Hamilton and Eugene Levy in the teen picture The Secret Life of Girls (1999). Osment subsequently enjoyed a recurring role as Gerti Giggles in the second and third installments of the Spy Kids series, but garnered her biggest fan base among teenage and preteen girls for her portrayal of Lilly Truscott, the best friend of the title character in the blockbuster Disney Channel series Hannah Montana. She provided numerous voices for the direct-to-video sequel Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 in 2011, and that same year starred in the movie Cyberbully.

Trivia: With his intimidating, tattooed, muscle-bound appearance, character actor Danny Trejo has formed a successful career as the all-purpose hard case over his curious and enduring cinematic career. Beating the odds of repeat offender syndrome after being released from prison, Trejo has risen through the ranks to find himself in high demand as an actor, and has even expanded his talents to include a producer credit to his resumé. His life story is just about as pristine an example of rehabilitation as one could ask for.Raised in the mean streets of East L.A., Trejo spent many of his early years incarcerated in such legendary prisons as Folsom and San Quentin on drug and robbery convictions. Channeling his intense energy into the boxing ring and winning numerous lightweight and welterweight titles, Trejo was released as a new man after completing a life-changing 12-step rehabilitation program to overcome his addictions. Applying the ideas that changed his life in an attempt to help others headed down a similar path, upon release Trejo became involved with numerous rehabilitation and counseling programs. A chance meeting with a young man who asked for his support at a Cocaine Anonymous meeting in 1985 later found the sympathetic ex-con meeting the struggling addict on the set of Runaway Train, and Trejo was quickly offered a role as a convict presumably based on his threatening appearance. Chance piled upon chance found an old prison buddy/screenwriter who remembered Trejo's hard-hitting boxing skills on the same set, and Trejo was then offered a chance to train Eric Roberts for a film, and was eventually offered the role as his opponent in the ring. Following with roles in The Hidden (1987), and later Lock-Up (1989), Marked for Death (1990), Mi Vida Loca (1993), and Heat (1995), Trejo formed an alliance with director Robert Rodriguez with Desperado in 1995, and soon graduated to such bigger-budget films as Con Air (1997) and The Replacement Killers (1998) in the latter 1990s. The Rodriguez-Trejo twosome found the actor taking on the role of Uncle Isadore "Machete" Cortez in the director's 2001 smash hit Spy Kids, and was later cast in both the film's sequel and Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2002). Trejo continued to work steadily on the big and small screens in a variety of projects such as Alias, Monk, The Devil's Rejects, Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror, the indie drama SherryBaby, and Smiley Face. He enjoyed one of his rare big-screen starring vehicles when Robert Rodriguez made Machete -- a feature-length version of the trailer he created for Grindhouse -- in 2007. He went on to appear in Valley of Angels, Saint John of Las Vegas, A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, and Bad Ass.

Trivia: After signing for a bit part in the Robert Rodriguez-directed fantasy adventure Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003), actress Selena Gomez tackled one of her first leads. She played Alex Russo, a Manhattanite adolescent grappling with the magical powers of her wizardly ancestry, in the Disney Channel sitcom Wizards of Waverly Place (2007). Disney soon helped her launch a successful pop music career, which she nurtured alongside ongoing roles in such tween-centric fare as Another Cinderella Story (2009), Ramona and Beezus (2010), Monte Carlo (2011), and Spring Breakers (2012). In 2010 she began a high-profile relationship with teen pop sensation Justin Bieber.

Trivia: Played football and lacrosse early in life and saw acting as just a hobby. Appeared in his first major feature film The Great Debaters alongside Denzel Washington while still a senior in high school. Took dieting tips from Jason Statham while on the set of The Expendables 3. Although based in Hollywood, he frequently returns to his family's ranch outside of Dallas, Texas.

Trivia: Father is accomplished actor Bill Paxton. As a 9-year-old, first acted in the 2003 film Spy Kids 3 alongside his father. Majored in journalism in college but later found a passion for acting. Learned about British theater and film in London. Studied acting under the tutelage of esteemed acting coach Vincent Chase.

Trivia: Is half Colombian. Lived on a farm in Florida as a child. Recorded three songs on the Spy Kids soundtracks-–"Isle of Dreams" on Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, and "Game Over" and "Heart Drive" on Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over. Performs many of her own movie stunts. Was given away by Robert Rodriguez, her Spy Kids director, at her first wedding.

Trivia: Maryland-born actor Ryan Pinkston's interest in competitive karate predated his devotion to acting, but all of that changed at the age of 13 when a performance on the Ed McMahon-hosted Star Search lifted him into the national spotlight, and not long after, when Ashton Kutcher featured Pinkston on the MTV candid camera series Punk'd. The sequences in question found Pinkston approaching unsuspecting celebrities and hurling insults at them in front of a hidden camera (as a self-described correspondent for a "kid's interview show"). Taking the success of this as a cue, Pinkston gravitated to a full-time career in acting, and specialized in comedic films that mirrored the Punk'd bits in tone and mood. These included the raunchy Billy Bob Thornton comedy Bad Santa (2003), the urban farce Soul Plane (2004), the sex comedy spoof Extreme Movie (2007), and the teen-oriented sex comedy College (2008).