Trivia: One who graduated from obscure actor to Hollywood icon in just a few years, Matt Damon became an instant sensation when he co-wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting with longtime buddy and collaborator Ben Affleck. A native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was born on October 8, 1970, Damon grew up in prosperous surroundings with his tax preparer father, college professor mother, and older brother. At the age of ten, he befriended Affleck, a boy two years his junior who lived down the street. Educated at Cambridge's Rindge and Latin School, Damon landed his first role in a Hollywood production before the age of 18, with a one-scene turn in Mystic Pizza (1988). Not long after, Damon gained acceptance to Harvard University, where he studied for three years before dropping out to pursue his acting career. During his time there, he had to write a screenplay for an English class, that served as the genesis of Good Will Hunting. Arriving in Hollywood, Damon scored his first big break with a plum role in School Ties opposite Affleck. As the film was a relative flop, Damon's substantial role failed to win him notice, and he was back to laboring in obscurity. It was around this time, fed up with his Hollywood struggles, that Damon contacted Affleck, and the two finished writing the former's Harvard screenplay and began trying to get it made into a film. It was eventually picked up by Miramax, with Gus Van Sant slated to direct and Robin Williams secured in a major role, opposite Damon as the lead. Before Good Will Hunting was released in late 1997, Damon won some measure of recognition for his role as a drug-addicted soldier in Courage Under Fire; various industry observers praised his performance and his dedication to the part, for which he lost forty pounds and suffered resulting health problems. Any praise Damon may have received, however, was overshadowed the following year by the accolades he garnered for Good Will Hunting. His Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, Best Screenplay win alongside Damon, and strong performance in the film virtually guaranteed industry adulation and steady employment, a development that became readily apparent the following year with lead roles in two major films. The first, John Dahl's Rounders, cast Damon as a card shark with a serious gambling addiction, who risks his own personal safety when he becomes entangled with a reckless loser buddy (Edward Norton). Damon's second film in 1998, Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, brought him even greater recognition. As Ryan's title character, Damon headlined an all-star line-up and received part of the lavish praise heaped on the film and its strong ensemble cast. The following year, Damon signed for leads in two more highly anticipated films, Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr. Ripley and Kevin Smith's Dogma. The former cast the actor against type as the title character, a psychotic bisexual murderer, with a supporting cast that included Cate Blanchett, Jude Law, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Dogma also allowed Damon to cut against the grain of his nice-guy persona by casting him as a fallen angel. One of the year's more controversial films, the religious comedy reunited him with Affleck, as well as Smith, who had cast Damon in a bit role in his 1997 film, Chasing Amy. Damon next delivered noteworthy performances in a pair of low-grossing, low-key dramas, The Legend of Bagger Vance and All the Pretty Horses (both 2000), before appearing in director Steven Soderbergh's blockbuster remake of the Rat Pack classic Ocean's Eleven the following year. 2002 found the actor vacillating between earnest indie projects and major Hollywood releases. Behind the camera, Damon joined forces with filmmaker Chris Smith for the Miramax-sponsored Project Greenlight, a screenplay sweepstakes that gave the winner the opportunity to make a feature film and have the process recorded for all to see on an HBO reality series of the same name. Toward the end of 2001, Damon scored a box office triumph with director Doug Liman's jet-setting espionage thriller The Bourne Identity. With this effort, Damon proved once again that he could open a film with just as much star power as his best friend and colleague. Better yet, Bourne reinforced Damon's standings with the critics, who found his performance understated and believable. The press responded less favorably, however, to Damon's reunion project with Van Sant, the experimental arthouse drama Gerry (2003). Also in 2003, Damon starred opposite Greg Kinnear in the Farrelly Brothers' broad comedy Stuck On You, as the shy half of a set of conjoined twins.In 2004, Damon reprised the role of Jason Bourne in The Bourne Supremacy. As the actor's biggest leading-man success to date, it reinforced Damon's continued clout with audiences. Staying on the high-powered sequel bandwagon, he reunited with Brad Pitt and George Clooney for the big-budget neo-rat pack sequel Ocean's Twelve later that year. 2005 was somewhat lower-key for the actor, as he toplined Terry Gilliam's disappointing The Brothers Grimm and joined the sprawling ensemble of Syriana. After working seemingly non-stop for a few years, Damon claimed only a call from Martin Scorsese would get him to give up his resolve to take some time off. Sure enough, that call came. The Departed, an American remake of the Hong Kong mob-mole thriller Infernal Affairs, co-starred Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio. Playing the squirmy, opportunistic cop to DiCaprio's moral, tormented mobster, Damon underplayed his part to perfection while holding his own opposite his two co-stars. Damon then took the lead role in the Robert De Niro-directed CIA drama The Good Shepherd. In 2007, the actor once again returned to box office franchises for the sequels Ocean's Thirteen and The Bourne Ultimatum, the latter of which netted him -- by far -- the largest opening-weekend take of his career to that point. 2009 was another great year for the hard-working star. His turn as the unstable federal informant in Steven Soderbergh's wicked comedy The Informant! earned him rave reviews, and his supporting work in Clint Eastwood's Invicus, as the leader of the South African rugby team, earned Damon nominations from the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Academy. In 2010 he reteamed with Eastwood for the supernatural drama Hereafter, and continued working with the best filmmakers of his time by landing a supporting role in the Coen brothers remake of True Grit. Meanwhile, Damon tried his hand at small screen work with a memorable recurring role as Carol, an airline pilot and sometime boyfriend of Liz Lemon, on the NBC situation comedy 30 Rock and a lauded turn opposite Michael Douglas' Liberace in the TV movie Behind the Candelabra. Damon had long since established himself as an A-list movie star, however, and would continue to star in big screen projects for years to come, including notable titles like Contagion, The Adjustment Bureau, and We Bought a Zoo. Damon next turned in performances in three films set in outer space: Neill Blomkamp's Elysium (2013), a supporting role in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar (2014) and an Oscar-nominated spin in Ridley Scott's The Martian (2015).

Trivia: With the handsome looks and winning sarcasm that befit a late-night television talk show host, it is no surprise that Greg Kinnear first shot to stardom as the host of the E! channel's Talk Soup. More surprising, and thus more impressive, has been Kinnear's success in making the leap from television to the big screen. With only his fourth major celluloid outing, As Good As It Gets, Kinnear scored his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, effectively establishing himself as someone whose scope included screens small and large.Born June 17, 1963, in Logansport, IN, as the youngest of three sons, Kinnear led a peripatetic childhood. His father was a Foreign Services diplomat for the State Department, and his family accompanied him to places as far-flung as Beirut and Athens. While a student in Athens, Kinnear first ventured into the role of talk show host with his radio show School Daze With Greg Kinnear. Returning to the States for a college education, Kinnear attended the University of Arizona in Tucson, where he graduated in 1985, with a degree in broadcast journalism. From Arizona, he headed out to Los Angeles, where he landed his first job as a marketing assistant with Empire Entertainment. It was there that Kinnear got his first taste of show business, creating promotional campaigns for such films as Space Sluts in the Slammer. Following this stint, Kinnear found a job with the Movietime cable channel. Using an audition tape from a failed attempt at an MTV VJ position, Kinnear became a host and on-location reporter for the channel. All went swimmingly until he was fired, when Movietime became the E! Entertainment Network, and Kinnear soon found himself taking bit parts on such television shows as L.A. Law and Life Goes On.His luck began to change, however, when he became the creator, co-executive producer, and host of Best of the Worst, which aired from 1990 to 1991. In a more ironic and satisfying twist of fate, Kinnear was then hired back by E! to host Talk Soup, the network's new talk show. The show proved to be hugely popular, and Kinnear acted as its host and eventual executive producer until 1994, when he left the show for the NBC late-night talk show Later With Greg Kinnear. It was also in 1994 that he had his first big-screen role, as -- wait for it -- a talk show host in the Damon Wayans comedy Blankman. In 1995, he snared the part that was to give him more prominence among film audiences -- that of the irresponsible David Larrabee in Sydney Pollack's remake of Billy Wilder's 1954 classic romance Sabrina. The film was less than a success, but it did nothing to prevent Kinnear from getting the lead role in the 1996 comedy Dear God. That film, too, had a somewhat unfortunate fate, but Kinnear (now resigned from Later) more than rebounded with his next effort, James L. Brooks' As Good As It Gets (1997). The film was an unqualified hit, netting seven Oscar nominations and winning two, a Best Actor for Jack Nicholson and a Best Actress for Helen Hunt. Kinnear himself had the honor of both a Best Supporting Actor nomination and a Golden Globe nomination. Kinnear's next film, the romantic comedy A Smile Like Yours, had him starring opposite Lauren Holly as one-half of a couple trying to have a baby. The film met with lukewarm reviews and fairly anemic box-office results, but Kinnear's subsequent film, 1998's You've Got Mail, struck gold. He played Meg Ryan's significant other, a newspaper columnist wholly unlike what was to be his next character, that of Captain Amazing in the 1999 summer action film Mystery Men. With a stellar cast, including Ben Stiller, William H. Macy, Janeane Garofalo, Lena Olin, and Tom Waits, Kinnear was indeed in good company, further proof of how far he had come in a short amount of time. Unfortunately, both Mystery Men and the subsequent Garry Shandling comedy What Planet Are You From (in which Kinnear amusingly portrayed Shandling's sleazy co-worker) fared poorly with both critics and audiences, and by the time he landed the role of a much-desired soap-opera star in Nurse Betty, it seemed that his star may have faded a bit. His role as a smug, one-dimensional college professor in the 2000 comedy Loser seemed near the bottom of the barrel for the formerly Oscar-nominated actor. Despite the fact that none of these failures were necessarily the fault of everyone's favorite smirky former talk-show host, his choice of projects left many wondering what had become of Kinnear. Of course, where there's darkness there will always be room for hope, and thankfully for Kinnear, the choices he was making began to pay off.In 2000, Kinnear essayed the role of a missing woman's grieving fiancé in the dark Sam Raimi thriller The Gift; the film seemed to mark the beginning of a comeback. His next role as the catalyst for an investigative report into the nature of male behavioral patterns in Someone Like You (2001) proved a step in the right direction, and following supporting performances in Dinner With Friends (2001) and We Were Soldiers (2002), Kinnear's comeback had been primed. Cast as ill-fated television star Bob Crane in Paul Schrader's disturbing 2002 biopic Auto Focus, Kinnear's spot-on performance was so eerie that it made the film almost discomforting to watch. The spotlight was somewhat stolen however, by co-star Willem Dafoe's indescribably creepy turn as the man generally believed to have caused Crane's untimely death. The following year Kinnear lightened the mood considerably when he was cast (literally) alongside Matt Damon as one-half of a pair of conjoined twins in the Farrelly Brothers' comedy Stuck on You. Intent on following his dreams of becoming an actor, Kinnear's character drags his reluctant brother to Hollywood to hilarious results.Kinnear's next role would come as the grieving father of a dead son who goes to desperate lengths to recapture his former happiness in the horror flavored Godsend (2004).A fun turn as a salesman who becomes involved with in hitman in the Golden Globe-nominated crime comedy The Matador went largely unseen despite generally favorable critical response, and after lending his voice to the animated Robots and berating little-league players in The Bad News Bears, Kinnear later join an impressive ensemble cast to investigate America's love affair with burgers and fries in director Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation. Later that same year, Kinnear would take family dysfunction to a whole new level as a motivational speaker attempting to get his daughter to a beauty pageant in Little Miss Sunshine, with a role as NFL coach Dick Vermeil following shortly thereafter in the inspirational sports drama Invincible. Kinnear would spend the following years maintaining his status as a bankable actor, appearing in films like Baby Mama, Green Zone, I Don't Know How She Does It, and the mini series The Kennedys.

Trivia: A former teacher, burly Irish actor Brendan Gleeson spent the 1990s earning an increasing amount of acclaim for his work in a variety of films, most notably John Boorman's The General (1998). Gleeson, who made his feature film debut in Jim Sheridan's The Field (1990), first made an impression on audiences in the role of Hamish, William Wallace's hulking ally in Braveheart (1995).In 1997, the actor was given his first crack at a starring role in I Went Down, a likeable black comedy that cast him as a thick-skulled hitman. The role brought him a greater dose of recognition and respect on both sides of the Atlantic, but it was Boorman's The General (shot right after I Went Down wrapped) that truly demanded -- and received -- international attention. The story of real-life Irish criminal Martin Cahill, the film featured Gleeson in its title role, and his cocky, assured portrayal of Cahill was widely deemed the best part of an altogether excellent film. The numerous plaudits he won for his performance included awards from Boston and London film critics.His career flourishing, it was only a matter of time before Gleeson had the opportunity to expand his resumé to include the occasional Hollywood blockbuster. That opportunity came by way of John Woo's Mission: Impossible 2 (2000), which cast Gleeson, surprisingly enough, as one of the film's resident villains. After carefully balancing his roles between the mainstream and the more low-key, character-driven films in later 2000 and into 2001 (he gained notice for his starring role as a philanderous, boozing TV chef turned sensitive amnesiac in the romantic comedy Wild About Harry [2000]), Gleeson headed back to Hollywood with his lively turn as Lord Johnson-Johnson in Steven Spielberg's A.I. Appearing in Trainspotting director Danny Boyle's zombie thriller 28 Days Later the following year, it wasn't long before Gleeson was once again gracing stateside cinemas with appearances in such high-profile films as Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002) and the Kurt Russell police detective thriller Dark Blue (2003).Gleeson remained a presence in high-profile films over the ensuing two years. In 2004 he could be seen in both the M. Night Shyamalan brain-bender The Village and the sweeping historical epic Troy. The following year found the actor in another pair of big-budget Hollywood films, the box-office dud Kingdom of Heaven and the fourth installment in the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Subsequent years found him re-teaming with 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy for the Neil Jordan comedy Breakfast on Pluto and reprising his role of Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007).He had a memorable turn in the Irish comedy In Bruges in 2008. Two years later he returned as Mad Eye for the final Harry Potter movie. That same year he turned in one of his best performances in The Guard. He played opposite the Oscar nominated Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs in 2011, and enjoyed roles in a couple of high-profile Hollywood films - The Raven and Safe House the next year.

Trivia: The capable and effective actress Amy Ryan proved herself adept at a myriad of portrayals in many genres. Ryan was often, though not always, cast as a solid and dependable housewife, mother, or girlfriend, per her contributions to the 2004 Keane (as the impoverished single mother of a young girl, who unwittingly entrusts her daughter to a schizophrenic), the 2006 Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (as Albert Brooks' wife and straight man), and the 2005 Capote (as the wife of Chris Cooper's no-nonsense sheriff). On television, Ryan gained notice as Officer Beatrice "Beadie" Russell on the critically acclaimed HBO drama series The Wire. In 2007, Ryan ascended several notches in terms of feature billing with her portrayal of Carolyn Cassady, the wife of 1950s icon Neal Cassady, in director Noah Buschel's eponymous biopic of the legendary beatnik. Ryan also tackled a small supporting role in the Steve Carell comedy Dan in Real Life. That same year, her work in two crime films catapulted her even further into the limelight. As the mother of the missing girl in Gone Baby Gone, Ryan earned rave reviews and dominated the year-end critics awards for Best Supporting Actress, garnering Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe, and Oscar nominations in the process. Her work as Ethan Hawke's dissatisfied ex-wife in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead helped cement her new status as a rising star.She appeared in Clint Eastwood's period drama Changeling, and had a major part in the action thriller Green Zone in 2010. She joined the cast of In Treatment for that program's thirds and final season on HBO. Philip Seymour Hoffman cast her as his leading lady for his directorial debut Jack Goes Boating, and she was Paul Giamatti's loving wife in Win Win.

Trivia: The latest in an illustrious line of actors to convince American audiences that the British make the cinema's most sinister and cold-hearted villains, Jason Isaacs earned the vicarious enmity and disgust of filmgoers everywhere in his role as the vile Colonel Tavington in the 2000 summer blockbuster The Patriot. Actually an incredibly versatile performer whose previous characterizations included a priest, a brilliant scientist, and a drug dealer, the tall, blue-eyed actor won admiration and respect for his performance, and soon found himself being hailed in the American press as one of the most exciting British imports of the early 21st century.The third of four sons of a Liverpool merchant, Isaacs was born in his father's hometown on June 6, 1963. He initially planned to go into law -- a white-collar profession that would have fit nicely with those of his brothers, who became a doctor, lawyer, and accountant -- but was swayed by acting early in the course of his law studies at Bristol University. Although he first became interested in acting in part because "it was a great way to meet girls," Isaacs soon found deeper meaning in the theater (in one interview he was quoted as saying "I could release myself into acting in a way that I was not released socially") and duly dropped out of Bristol to hone his skills at London's Central School of Speech and Drama. Once in London, Isaacs began landing professional work almost immediately, appearing on the stage and on television. He made his big-screen debut in 1989 with a minor turn as a doctor in Mel Smith's The Tall Guy and that same year won a steady role on the TV series Capital City. Isaacs exhibited his versatility in several more TV series and on-stage in such productions as the Royal National Theatre's 1993 staging of Tony Kushner's Pulitzer Prize-winning Angels in America. He also began to find more work onscreen, receiving his first nod of Hollywood recognition in his casting in the Bruce Willis blockbuster Armageddon (1998). Initially called upon to take a fairly substantial role, Isaacs was eventually cast in a much smaller capacity as a planet-saving scientist so that he could accommodate his commitment to Divorcing Jack (1998), a comedy thriller he was making with David Thewlis. After portraying a priest opposite Julianne Moore and Ralph Fiennes in Neil Jordan's acclaimed adaptation of Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, Isaacs got his biggest international break to date when he was picked to portray Colonel Tavington, the resident villain of Roland Emmerich's Revolutionary War epic The Patriot. Starring opposite Mel Gibson, who (naturally) played the film's hero, Isaacs made an unnervingly memorable impression as a man whose pastimes included infanticide, rape, and church- burning, emerging as one of summer 2000s most indelible screen presences. Although his work in the film earned him comparisons to Ralph Fiennes' portrayal of evil Nazi Amon Goeth in Schindler's List and talks of a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, the actor was not content to be typecast in the historical scum mold. Thus, he logically signed on to play none other than a drag queen for his next project, Sweet November (2001), a romantic comedy-drama starring Charlize Theron and Keanu Reeves. For his lead portrayal in the 2007 miniseries The State Within, Isaacs received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance in a Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television. Over the next several years, Isaacs appeared in films like Green Zone and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, Part 2. He would also star in TV series like Case Histories and Awake.

Trivia: Thespian Michael O'Neill grew up in Montgomery, AL, and attended nearby Auburn University as an economics major, then took his first steps toward professional acting work with a move to New York and on-stage roles at Playwrights Horizons. During the '80s, '90s, and 2000s, O'Neill divided his time, more or less equally, between stage, screen, and television; in all of these venues, the actor specialized in portrayals of gently authoritative yet warm and genial everyman types, such as kind fathers, school psychologists, and small-town physicians. Features in which O'Neill appeared included Ghost Story (1981), The Sunchaser (1996), Traffic (2000), and Transformers (2007); memorable television roles include contributions to The West Wing (as the head of presidential detail), 24, and Boston Public.

Trivia: Born in Scotland and raised in England as the son of Egyptian parents, actor Khalid Abdalla drew from his own familial lineage to tackle Middle Eastern roles in Hollywood productions, but made a conscious and aggressive attempt to cut against the grain of associated onscreen stereotypes. He later expressed an understandable reluctance to take his first part when it was offered to him -- that of Ziad Jarrah, the Lebanese hijacker responsible for the takeover of United Flight 93 on September 11th -- in Paul Greengrass' docudrama United 93, but a tête-à-tête with maverick director Greengrass (who had no interest in perpetuating stereotypes or prejudices, but instead sought to capture the human side of each character presented) immediately changed Abdalla's opinion. Indeed, the actor received widespread critical kudos for his work in that acclaimed production. He followed it up with the lead in an equally promising film -- director Marc Forster's much-anticipated Khaled Hosseini adaptation The Kite Runner (2007), about a life-changing friendship that blossoms between two Afghani young men.