Trivia: One of Hollywood's sexiest and most magnetic leading men, Denzel Washington's poise and radiantly sane intelligence permeate whatever film he is in, be it a socially conscious drama, biopic, or suspense thriller. More importantly, Washington's efforts, alongside those of director Spike Lee, have done much to dramatically expand the range of dramatic roles given to African-American actors and actresses.The son of a Pentecostal minister and a hairdresser, Washington was born in Mount Vernon, NY, on December 28, 1954. His parents' professions shaped Washington's early ambition to launch himself into show business: from his minister father he learned the power of performance, while hours in his mother's salon (listening to stories) gave him a love of storytelling. Unfortunately, when Washington was 14, his folks' marriage took a turn for the worse, and he and his older sister were sent away to boarding school so that they would not be exposed to their parents' eventual divorce. Washington later attended Fordham University, where he attained a B.A. in Journalism in 1977. He still found time to pursue his interest in acting, however, and after graduation he moved to San Francisco, where he won a scholarship to the American Conservatory Theatre. Washington stayed with the ACT for a year, and, after his time there, he began acting in various television movies and made his film debut in the 1981 Carbon Copy. Although he had a starring role (as the illegitimate son of a rich white man), Washington didn't find real recognition until he joined the cast of John Falsey and Joshua Brand's long-running TV series St. Elsewhere in 1982. He won critical raves and audience adoration for his portrayal of Dr. Phillip Chandler, and he began to attract Hollywood notice. In 1987, he starred as anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko in Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom alongside Kevin Kline, and though the film itself alienated some critics (Pauline Kael called it "dumbfounding"), Washington's powerful performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.Two years later, Washington netted another Best Supporting Actor nod -- and won the award -- for his turn as an embittered yet courageous runaway slave in the Civil War drama Glory. The honor effectively put him on the Hollywood A-List. Some of his more notable work came from his collaboration with director Spike Lee; over the course of the 1990s, Washington starred in three of his films, playing a jazz trumpeter in Mo' Better Blues (1990), the title role in Lee's epic 1992 biopic Malcolm X (for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination), and the convict father of a high-school basketball star in He Got Game (1998).Washington also turned in powerful performances in a number of other films, such as Mississippi Masala (1991), as a man in love with an Indian woman; Philadelphia (1993), as a slightly homophobic lawyer who takes on the cause of an AIDS-stricken litigator (Tom Hanks); and Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), as a 1940s private detective, Easy Rawlins. Washington also reeled in large audiences in action roles, with the top box-office draw of such thrillers as The Pelican Brief (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), and The Siege (1998) attesting to his capabilities. In 1999, Washington starred in another thriller, The Bone Collector, playing a paralyzed forensics expert who joins forces with a young policewoman (Angelina Jolie) to track down a serial killer. That same year, he starred in the title role of Norman Jewison's The Hurricane. Based on the true story of a boxer wrongly accused of murdering three people in 1966, the film featured stellar work by Washington as the wronged man, further demonstrating his remarkable capacity for telling a good story. His performance earned him a number of honors, including a Best Actor Golden Globe and a Best Actor Oscar nomination.After another strong performance as a high-school football coach in Boaz Yakin's Remember the Titans, Washington cut dramatically against his "nice guy" typecast to play a corrupt policeman in Training Day, a gritty cop drama helmed by Antoine Fuqua. Washington surprised audiences and critics with his change of direction, but in the eyes of many, this change of direction made him a more compelling screen presence than ever before. (It also netted him an Oscar for Best Actor.) 2002 marked an uneven year for Washington. He joined the cast of Nick Cassavetes' absurd melodrama John Q., as a father so desperate to get medical attention for his ailing son that he holds an entire hospital hostage and contemplates killing himself to donate his own heart to the boy. Critics didn't buy the film; it struck all but the least-discriminating as a desperate attempt by Washington to bring credulity and respectability to a series of ludicrous, manipulative Hollywood contrivances. John Q. nonetheless performed healthily at the box (it grossed over a million dollars worldwide from a 36-million-dollar budget). That same fall, Washington received hearty praise for his directorial and on-camera work in Antwone Fisher (2002), in which he played a concerned naval psychiatrist, and even more so for director Carl Franklin's 2003 crime thriller Out of Time. Somewhat reminiscent of his role in 1991's crime drama Ricochet, Out of Time casts Washington as an upstanding police officer framed for the murder of a prominent citizen. In 2004, Washington teamed up with Jonathan Demme for the first occasion since 1993's Philadelphia, to star in the controversial remake of 1962's The Manchurian Candidate. Washington stars in the picture as soldier Bennett Marco (the role originally performed by Frank Sinatra), who, along with his platoon, is kidnapped and brainwashed during the first Gulf War. Later that year, Washington worked alongside Christopher Walken and Dakota Fanning in another hellraiser, director Tony Scott's Man on Fire, as a bodyguard who carves a bloody swath of vengeance, attempting to rescue a little girl kidnapped under his watch. Washington made no major onscreen appearances in 2005 -- and indeed, kept his activity during 2006 and 2007 to an absolute minimum. In '06, he joined the cast of Spike Lee's thriller Inside Man as a detective assigned to thwart the machinations of a psychotically cunning burglar (Clive Owen). The film opened to spectacular reviews and box-office grosses in March 2006, keeping Washington on top of his game and bringing Lee (whose last major feature was the disappointing 2004 comedy She Hate Me) back to the pinnacle of success. That same year, Washington joined forces once again with Tony Scott in the sci-fi action hybrid Déjà Vu, as an ATF agent on the trail of a terrorist, who discovers a way to "bridge" the present to the past to view the details of a bomb plot that unfolded days earlier. The Scott film garnered a fair number of respectable reviews but ultimately divided critics. Déjà Vu bowed in the U.S. in late November 2006. Meanwhile, Washington signed on for another action thriller, entitled American Gangster -- this time under the aegis of Tony Scott's brother Ridley -- about a drug-dealing Mafioso who smuggles heroin into the U.S. in the corpses of deceased Vietnam veterans.Washington appeared as New York City subway security chief Walter Garber in the 2009 remake of the 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and begun filming the post-apocalyptic drama The Book of Eli in the same year. He earned a Best Actor nomination in 2012 for his work as an alcoholic pilot in Robert Zemeckis' drama Flight.

Trivia: Born December 31, 1959, actor Val Kilmer's chameleon-like ability to plunge fully and breathlessly into his characters represents both the gift that catapulted him to fame in the mid eighties, and that which - by its very nature of anonymity - held him back from megastardom for some time. Such an ability - doubtless, the result of exhaustive, heavily-disciplined training and rehearsal - also explains Kilmer's alleged on-set reputation as a perfectionist (which caused a number of major directors to supposedly tag him as 'difficult'), but the results are typically so electric that Kilmer's influx of assignments has never stopped. He is also extraordinarily selective about projects. Trying valiantly to maintain a firm hold on his career, he turned down offers for box office blockbusters including Blue Velvet, Dirty Dancing, and Indecent Proposal for personal and artistic reasons. A Los Angeles native, Kilmer acted in high school with friend Kevin Spacey before attending the Hollywood Professional School and Juilliard. He appeared on the New York stage and in Shakespeare festivals before his cinematic debut as the rock idol Nick Rivers in the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker spy spoof Top Secret! (1984). An absurd role which Kilmer plays with complete sincerity, it reveals genuine musical talent and Kilmer achieves complete credibility as a rock star. Throughout the eighties, Kilmer played as diverse an assortment of roles as could be found: he was the goofy, playfully sarcastic, egghead roommate and mentor to Gabe Jarrett in Martha Coolidge's Real Genius, the cocky Ice Man in Top Gun, and warrior Madmartigan in the Ron Howard/George Lucas fantasy Willow (1988). Kilmer's cinematic breakthrough arrived in 1991, for his portrayal of rock icon Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors; some speculated that Stone hired Kilmer solely on the basis of the musical gifts showcased seven years prior in Top Secret!. As the philosophical, death-obsessed rocker (and druggie) Morrison, Kilmer performed a number of the Doors songs on the soundtrack, sans dubbing. Kilmer played other American icons in his next two films - gunslinger Doc Holliday in Tombstone and the spirit of Elvis in True Romance; both did remarkable business at the box office. Due to his persistent need for an on-set dialogue with his directors, Kilmer clashed with Michael Apted on the set of Thunderheart (1992) and Joel Schumacher on the set of Batman Forever. He openly refused to repeat the Bruce Wayne role for Batman and Robin (1997). Instead, Kilmer headlined Michael Mann's 1995 Heat with two legends, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. This time around, he met with a more accommodating (or at least more tolerant) director, Michael Mann. Working with another acting veteran, he co-starred with Michael Douglas for the hunting adventure The Ghost and the Darkness. Unfortunately, his next few films were disappointments, particularly The Saint and The Island of Dr. Moreau. He switched gears a few times with little success, turning to romantic drama in At First Sight and to science fiction in Red Planet, but neither fit his dramatic intensity. After lending his booming voice to the part of Moses in the Dreamworks animated film The Prince of Egypt (1998), Kilmer appeared in The Salton Sea (1991) as a tormented drug addict. In 2003, he lined up quite a few projects, including the crime thriller Mindhunters and the drama Blind Horizon. In the same year he earned a starring role as another aggressive American icon, John Holmes ("the John Wayne of porn"), for the thriller Wonderland (2003). That same fall, Kilmer re-teamed with Ron Howard for the director's lackluster Searchers retread, The Missing (2003). He also re-collaborated with Oliver Stone (for the first occasion since The Doors) in the director's disappointing historical epic Alexander (2004), opposite Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, and Colin Farrell. He returned to form (and a leading role) in 2005, with the comedy-thriller Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang. Kilmer (per his trademark ability) once again cut way against type, this time as a flagrantly (and aptly named) homosexual detective, Gay Perry, who lives and works in Tinseltown. When it opened in October 2005, the picture drew an avid response from critics and lay viewers alike, and brought in solid box office returns. The actor packed in an astonishingly full schedule throughout 2006, with no less than six onscreen appearances through the end of that year, in large and small-scaled productions - all extremely unique. Kilmer returned to his 1998 Dreamworks part with the lead role of Moses in Robert Iscove's stage musical The Ten Commandments, mounted at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Then, in a most unusual move that recalled Richard Gere's work for Akira Kurosawa and Burt Lancaster's work for Luchino Visconti, Kilmer went cross-cultural, by joining the cast of Polish director Piotr Uklanski's Summer Love (2006), screened at the Venice International Film Festival. It marked the first "Polish spaghetti western" and gracefully spoofed the genre; Kilmer appears as "The Wanted Man." The Disney studios sci-fi-action thriller Deja Vu teamed Kilmer and Denzel Washington (under the aegis of Kilmer's former Top Gun cohorts, Tony Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer) as feds who travel back in time to stop a terrorist's (Jim Caviezel) attempt to blow up a ferry. He also voiced the character of Bogardus in Marc F. Adler and Jason Maurer's family-friendly animated adventure Delgo. In 2008, NBC revived the classic series Knight Rider, and needed a distinct voice to play the super-intelligent car. Kilmer stepped in to play the iconic role, but he also signed on for numerous other simultaneous projects, including Werner Herzog's semi sequel Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (2009), Shane Dax Taylor's troubled, disappointing melodrama Bloodworth (2010), and Francis Ford Coppola's horror opus Twixt, which co-starred Bruce Dern, Elle Fanning and Ben Chaplin. Kilmer met British actress Joanne Whalley on the set of Willow in 1987; they married the following year and teamed up onscreen in John Dahl's Kill Me Again (1989). The couple had two children before the marriage ended in 1996.

Trivia: Even though bright-eyed actress Paula Patton began performing as a little girl, putting plays in her own back yard, the shy young woman didn't realize she wanted a career onscreen for many years to come. In high school, she became involved in a PBS series that took young, aspiring filmmakers on a trip across the country to work on their own documentaries, and when Patton graduated high school, she continued to pursue her interest in working behind the camera by enrolling the film school at the University of Southern California. After graduation, she worked as a production assistant, nurturing her goal of producing her own movie, but something felt missing. Finally, Patton realized that her passion was to be on the other side of the camera, so she enrolled in acting classes and strove toward her new goal in full force.Within a few years, Patton had landed a small role in Will Smith's 2005 comedy Hitch. The next year, she auditioned for a strange and exciting project by music-video director and first time filmmaker Bryan Barber starring Andre 3000 from the hip-hop group OutKast. The movie was called Idlewild, and the super-stylized comedy/crime drama/musical was set in the Prohibition-era American South. Patton's fresh new face was exactly what the unique project needed, and she was cast in the role of Angel Davenport, the female lead. Though the film wasn't geared toward the mainstream, it was a cult success among audiences and critics who appreciated its quirky style. Patton's star continued to rise as later that same year she was cast in another substantial role, this time in a much more high-profile movie. As the damsel Denzel Washington must travel through time to save in the Tony Scott action thriller Déjà Vu, Patton's sweet but solid force onscreen was lauded, even by critics who bashed the movie for being overly serious. For her next project, the actress signed on to star opposite Kiefer Sutherland in the horror movie Mirrors, slated for release in 2007. She appeared in the 2008 political comedy Swing Vote, and the basketball themed romantic comedy Just Wright in 2010. She had her most high-profile success as a member of the team Ethan Hunt puts together in Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol. She next appeared in the comedies Jumping the Broom (2011), Baggage Claim (2013) and About Last Night (2014).Patton was married to R&B singer/songwriter Robin Thicke in 2005. She appears on the cover of his 2003 album A Beautiful World and in a number of his music videos. The couple officially divorced in 2015.

Trivia: Actor and filmmaker Adam Goldberg first made an impression on film critics and audiences alike as the cynical Private Mellish in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. In 1998, the same year that Ryan was released, Goldberg made his feature directorial, screenwriting, and executive-producing debut with Scotch and Milk, a neo-noir drama centering around a group of L.A. friends burdened by love (or lack thereof) and a fixation with the 1950s. The film, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1998 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, helped to establish Goldberg as a talent worth watching.Born in Santa Monica on October 25, 1970, Goldberg was raised in Hollywood. He began performing at a young age, studying with Tracy Roberts when he was 14 and enrolling at Los Angeles' Lee Strasberg Institute a year later. He continued to act on stage while attending Sarah Lawrence College, and he subsequently returned to L.A. to pursue his career. Goldberg made his film debut in 1992 alongside Billy Crystal in Mr. Saturday Night, and the following year he could be seen in Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, which cast him as a neurotic high school junior. He continued to act in supporting roles in a number of varied films, earning little notice until Spielberg cast him in the award-winning Saving Private Ryan. He wrote and directed the indie Scotch and Mil in 1998, and also contributed a voice to Babe: Pig in the City. At the beginning of the 21st century he could be seen in the Best Picture Oscar winner A Beautiful Mind, as well as the comedy The Hebrew Hammer, and reteaming with Richard Linklater on Waking Life. In 2004 he returned to directing and writing with I Love Your Work. He continued to work in a variety of interesting projects including Déjà vu, 2 Days in Paris, and Zodiac. He had a major supporting role on the short-lived TV series The Unusuals and in 2012 he played the part of Harry Reems in the Linda Lovelace biopic Inferno.

Trivia: Canadian character actor Bruce Greenwood spent the 1970s working in regional Vancouver theater, and appeared in many Canadian TV shows during the '80s. His first American film was a walk-on role in Rambo: First Blood. In the U.S., he fared much better with television pilots, miniseries, and made-for-TV movies. His first big role was Dr. Seth Griffin on St. Elsewhere from 1986-1988. Other TV projects included The FBI Murders, The Servants of Twilight, and Summer Dreams: The Story of the Beach Boys. By the '90s, he had found a home for himself on television. Greenwood played Pierce Lawson in 1991 on the evening soap opera Knots Landing, earned a Gemini (the Canadian Emmy) nomination for The Little Kidnappers, and then took home an award for his role in Road to Avonlea. He also starred as Thomas Veil on the UPN dramatic series Nowhere Man and guest starred as Roger Bingham on the HBO comedy series The Larry Sanders Show. He did quite well on NBC, as well, appearing in many TV movies (including Naomi & Wynonna: Love Can Build a Bridge) and starring in the sci-fi mystery show Sleepwalkers as Dr. Nathan Bradford.Greenwood made the leap to the big screen with a fellow Canadian, Egyptian-born filmmaker Atom Egoyan. In Exotica, he played the troubled Francis, a tax collector obsessed with a stripper. The film was a hit at the Cannes Film Festival, and Greenwood re-teamed with the director for his next film, The Sweet Hereafter, which won a special jury prize at Cannes, while Greenwood was nominated for a Genie award for his supporting role of mourning father Billy Ansell. By contrast, he played bad guys in mainstream thrillers in the '90s, with starring roles in Disturbing Behavior, Hide and Seek, Double Jeopardy, and Rules of Engagement He may be most well known, however, for playing President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis in the political thriller Thirteen Days, for which he won a Golden Satellite Award. With this role under his belt, Greenwood moved into more dramatic territory with the A&E miniseries The Magnificent Ambersons as well as a dual role in Egoyan's Ararat. In 2003, he produced fellow Canadian Deepa Mehta's film The Republic of Love and appeared in the action comedy Hollywood Homicide and the sci-fi thriller The Core. He continued to work steadily in a variety of projects including I, Robot, Racing Stripes, Capote, Déjà vu, and had a small part in Todd Haynes' 2007 idiosyncratic Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There. That same year he played the president in the hit sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets. He had a brief but memorable turn as Captain James T. Kirk's father in J.J. Abrams Star Trek, and played a bad guy in the comedy Dinner for Schmucks. He had a major role in the arty western Meek's Cutoff, and reteamed with Abrams when he appeared in the Spielberg homage Super 8.

Trivia: An actor since the age of six, when he began appearing in TV commercials, Elden Henson got his first big break in 1998 when he was cast as a warm-hearted giant opposite Sharon Stone and Kieran Culkin in The Mighty. Often cast as social misfits, the red-haired, stocky actor was born in Rockville, MD, on August 30, 1977. Two years later he entered show business as a model, and at the age of six moved to Los Angeles with his family in order to better pursue his career.After getting bit parts in Jaws: The Revenge (1987) and Turner and Hooch (1989), Henson won a more substantial role in the 1992 preteen hockey comedy The Mighty Ducks, and also appeared in the film's 1994 and 1996 sequels. Following his recognition in The Mighty, which earned him some positive critical notices, he became part of the late-'90s teen flick trend when he was chosen for supporting roles in the Freddy Prinze Jr./Rachael Leigh Cook romantic comedy She's All That (1999) and Idle Hands (1999), a schlocky teen murder ditty that had the misfortune of being released in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre.In 2001, Henson won one of his most substantial roles to date in Manic, a teen-ensemble drama directed by first-time filmmaker Jordan Melamed. Set entirely in a teen psychiatric ward, it cast Henson as an angry young man in the company of Joseph Gordon Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, as well as the always reliable Don Cheadle. That same year he further increased his exposure by appearing opposite Julia Stiles, Josh Hartnett, and Mekhi Phifer in O, Tim Blake Nelson's modern-day prep school take on Shakespeare's Othello.

Trivia: The younger sister -- by four years -- of actress Dakota Fanning (The Cat in the Hat, War of the Worlds), angel-faced Elle Fanning broke into show business as a child star about three years after her ascendant sibling. Born in 1998, Elle started out as an actress with traditionally child-oriented roles in family-friendly material; she provided a voice for the American version of Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro, then appeared in such pictures as the 2003 Daddy Day Care (as one of Eddie Murphy's young charges) and the 2005 Because of Winn-Dixie before making the broad leap to adult-oriented content. Subsequent projects included Babel (2006) and The Nines (2007). Fanning first received premier billing in not a feature but a short -- Brent Hanley's Day 73 with Sarah (2007) -- as a little girl who teams up with the ghost of her dead father to liberate her beleaguered mom from an abusive relationship. She played the young Daisy in the Oscar nominated The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 2008. And two years later earned strong reviews as the daughter of a spoiled, emotionally stunted actor in Sofia Coppola's Somwhere. In 2011 she earned the best reviews of her career in Super 8, and appeared in the hit family film We Bought a Zoo. In 2012 she appeared in Francis Coppola's unique horror film Twixt.

Trivia: Like many of his Canadian contemporaries, actor Matt Craven broke into films by way of such adolescent sex comedies as Meatballs (1979) and Hog Wild (1980). Craven honed his acting skills on the off-Broadway stage, beginning with the 1984 production Blue Willows. He has since contributed supporting performances to films like Blue Steel (1990), A Few Good Men (1992), and Crimson Tide (1995). Matt Craven's TV-series roles include bartender Ritchie Massina in the Robby Benson starrer Tough Cookies (1986) and Bobby Kratz in the Alan Arkin vehicle Harry (1987). In 1998, Craven was part of an ensemble cast for the medical drama L.A. Doctors. In the 21st century he enjoyed a brief recurring role on the hit medical dram ER and appeared in moves such as Dragonfly and Timeline. He continued to work steadily on a wide variety of projects including The Life of David Gale, the TV series The Lyon's Den, the remake of Assault on Precinct 13, Disturbia, Public Enemies, and the superhero prequel X-Men: First Class.

Trivia: Typically cast as an American everyman -- in many ways, the most challenging of roles to play -- the slightly stocky Hollywood character actor Brian Howe began his career during the mid-'90s, as an occasional guest player on episodes of such series as Law & Order (as a variety of different characters) and the short-lived sitcom The Bonnie Hunt Show (as Sammy Sinatra). Howe re-teamed with the venerable Hunt for a small role in his first feature, which the actress directed: the romantic comedy Return to Me, starring Minnie Driver and David Duchovny. Supporting turns in an uneven series of films ensued, ranging from Iain Softley's ill-advised sci-fier K-PAX (2001) to Steven Spielberg's buoyant comedy drama Catch Me If You Can (2002). Howe received fourth billing on series creator Barry Kemp's short-lived sitcom A Minute With Stan Hooper (2003), then landed a trio of supporting roles in A-listers during 2006: one in the Robin Williams farce RV, another in the Will Smith sudser The Pursuit of Happyness, and a third in Tony Scott's sci-fi actioner Déjà Vu. Clint Eastwood cast him in the 2008 drama Gran Torino. He appeared in the 2011 action film I Am Number Four, and in 2012 Howe appeared as Randy Scheunemann in the made-for-HBO docudrama Game Change.

Trivia: Produced his first play, Dr. Pickup, when he was 15 and won the Philadelphia Young Playwrights Festival.Double majored at New York University in Film and Dramatic Writing.Was a finalist for the 1997 American Theater Critics Association's Osborn Award for his full-length play, One on One.Landed his first comedy-writing job in 2003 for the sitcom Still Standing, on which he later became a co-producer.Created the period sitcom The Goldbergs, which is reportedly based on his own childhood and family in the 1980's.

Trivia: While still a teenager, producer and director Tony Scott made his first foray into film with an appearance in his big brother Ridley Scott's first short film, Boy and Bicycle. He later attended London's Royal College of Art, as did his brother, and proceeded to get his feet wet behind the camera, at first by directing TV commercials for his brother's production company Ridley Scott Associates. He became a leader in the British commercial industry, directing countless ads and building up an impressive resumé over the years.By the early '80s, Tony Scott was ready to begin directing films, and for his first project, he agreed to tackle MGM's artful vampire pic The Hunger, starring David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve. The movie was released in 1983 to a disappointing silence at the box office, and for the next few years Scott returned to commercials as he waited for his next opportunity to come along. That project came in the form of an offer from producer Jerry Bruckheimer to direct a fun action drama about hotshot fighter jet pilots -- Top Gun. Scott's darker artistic sensibilities didn't jive with Bruckheimer's ideas at first -- he had images of Apocalypse Now and The Road Warrior in mind, while the producers were envisioning something poppier and easy to digest. Finally, Scott understood what they were asking for and created the rock & roll and blue-skies flick that they had in mind. The movie was a massive box-office hit, ushering Scott into the next tier of filmmakers and making a star out of Tom Cruise.Scott almost instantly became the man to call on for fun action romps, directing films like Beverly Hills Cop II in 1987, Days of Thunder in 1990, and The Last Boy Scout in 1991. He also directed a script written by a then unknown named Quentin Tarantino called True Romance. Starring a top-notch ensemble cast including Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken, Gary Oldman, and Brad Pitt, the film was something of a sleeper at the box office. The exuberant tribute to cinematic expressions of love, crime, violence, and rock & roll quickly became another cult hit -- and a preview of things to come from the writer behind it. The movie also served as a reminder that Scott was capable of more sensitive and artistic sentiments than the testosterone-driven pictures that encompassed much of his filmography.That is not to say Scott was not quite at home in the action and thriller areas of film, as he spent the 1990s churning out popular titles like Crimson Tide, The Fan, and Enemy of the State. He continued with his trademark action-with-a-sense-of-humor style in the new millennium with films like Spy Game, Man on Fire, and Domino, but by this time he was trying his hand at producing as well. Scott produced and executive produced TV ventures like The Last Debate, The Gathering Storm, and Numb3rs, as well as features such as Tristan + Isolde and In Her Shoes, and his own Man on Fire and Domino. Scott's next three films, 2006's Deja Vu, and 2009's The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, and 2010's Unstoppable, found the director becoming something of a frequent collaborator with Hollywood heavyweight Denzel Washington. Yet just as his career would circle back with the development of Top Gun 2, Tony took his own life by jumping off the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro. He left behind a wife, two twin boys, and a breadth of work that was unique, satisfying, and always delivered with a stylish flair that only became more daring as his career went on.

Trivia: Half of the producing tandem behind the most testosterone-laden action flicks, the name Jerry Bruckheimer has become synonymous with explosive pyrotechnics and machine-gun fire. The producer of such hits as Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Top Gun (1986), and Days of Thunder (1990), Bruckheimer dissolved his partnership with hard-partying producer Don Simpson in 1995, only weeks before Simpson's death and after 14 tumultuous years together. Despite a reputation for quantity over quality, Bruckheimer has remained one of Hollywood's most successful producers ever, putting his distinctive stamp on such adrenaline-fueled hits as Con Air (1997) and Armageddon (1998).The son of German-Jewish immigrants, Bruckheimer was born on September 21, 1945. He grew up poor, living in a tiny house in a blue-collar Jewish section of Detroit. Dropped off at a weekly matinee by his mother and salesman father, Bruckheimer developed a love for the cinema that eventually channeled him toward photography. He won several local prizes before fleeing Detroit for Madison Avenue, by way of the University of Arizona, where he received a degree in psychology, and on the strength of a Bonnie and Clyde spoof he helmed for Pontiac. The future producer left a lucrative advertising job in New York to accept low-paying film work in the early '70s, part of the pursuit of his dream. He worked with director Dick Richards on his first few projects, as associate producer on The Culpepper Cattle Company (1972) and producer on Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and March or Die (1977). Bruckheimer began gaining notice through a pair of Paul Schrader films, the Richard Gere hustler film American Gigolo (1979), and the feline horror flick Cat People (1982). But it was his first pairing with old buddy Don Simpson, on the 1983 surprise smash Flashdance, that kicked off his string of hits, which has continued more or less unabated. The underdog story of a Pittsburgh arc welder with dreams of ballet dancing, Flashdance used a synthesis of music, sex, quick edits, and bold aspirations to rake in 95 million dollars -- an incredible take for an unheralded R-rated film, making it the third-highest box-office haul of 1983. Bruckheimer and Simpson were on the map and then some. Forming Simpson-Bruckheimer Productions and signing a long-term deal with Paramount, Bruckheimer and Simpson complemented each other well, likening their partnership to a strong marriage, but without the sex. Simpson's extensive industry contacts and Hollywood ladder climbing earned him the nickname "Mr. Inside," while Bruckheimer's practical experience with filmmaking, much of it through advertising, qualified him as "Mr. Outside." With both sides covered, the pair could do no wrong. Their popcorn films fed the public's need for the loud and the proud, quickly assuming iconic status and elevating such actors as Tom Cruise (Top Gun) and Eddie Murphy (Beverly Hills Cop) to bona-fide superstardom. In 1990, the team dissolved its deal with Paramount "by mutual agreement," and began a non-exclusive, five-year pact with Disney subsidiary Hollywood Pictures the following year. Initially slowed, but undaunted, Bruckheimer and Simpson had their next big wave of hits in 1995, releasing Dangerous Minds, Crimson Tide, and Bad Boys in quick succession and reaffirming their relevance. However, Simpson's behind-the-scenes drug problems were damaging the partnership irreparably, and Bruckheimer called off the professional union at the end of that successful year, at the close of production on The Rock (1996). Simpson died a month later of heart failure. As both Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside, Bruckheimer excelled. Con Air was a hit in 1997, and the Bruce Willis asteroid flick Armageddon grossed the second most of any film released in 1998, at just over 200 million dollars. Bruckheimer achieved mid-level success -- but at the cost of ever-growing critical disdain -- with the releases of Enemy of the State (1998), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), and Coyote Ugly (2000). Hoping to mix Oscar credentials with his traditional blend of wham-bam thrills, Bruckheimer provided the muscle behind Michael Bay's 150-million-dollar-plus World War II action-romance Pearl Harbor (2001). But critics and the Academy were not as receptive to this film as to such epic tragedies as Titanic (1997) and Saving Private Ryan (1998), and issued Bruckheimer across-the-board raspberries. The film was considered an unqualified dud, its 200-million-dollar take well short of expectations. Bruckheimer did achieve a measure of redemption later that year with the release of Black Hawk Down. Ridley Scott's re-creation of an ill-fated U.S. military mission in Somalia, the film scored raves and four Oscar nominations, winning for its editing and sound. Bruckheimer expanded his production empire into television crating the enormously successful CSI franchise, as well as Without a Trace, and the multiple Emmy winning reality show The Amazing Race. He continued producing feature films as eclectic as Kangaroo Jack and Bad Company, but in 2003 he helped steer the massively successful Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. That film was so successful Disney agreed to finance two sequels to be produced simultaneously. The first of those to hit theaters, Dead Man's Chest, shattered box-office records for biggest opening day and biggest opening weekend, and was the first film to take in over $100 million in two days. The next film in the franchise, At World's End, was no disappointment either, and another installment, On Stranger Tides, was added in 2011 to the same box office success.Meanwhile, Bruckheimer's winning streak producing TV continued with shows like Without a Trace, The Forgotten, Take the Money & Run, the CSI family, and more. Additionally, Bruckheimer signed on to produce the big screen adaptation of The Lone Ranger in 2013.

Trivia: With his soulful, deep-set blue eyes and a dark, eerily beautiful countenance, Jim Caviezel has inspired more than a few comparisons to Montgomery Clift. Thus, it was somewhat fitting -- and more than a little ironic -- that Caviezel first broke through to the American public as The Thin Red Line's Private Witt, a character loosely based on Clift's Private Prewitt in From Here to Eternity. A native of Washington state, Caviezel was born in Mount Vernon in 1968, one of five children in a devout Catholic family. A gifted athlete as a young man, he performed brilliantly on the basketball court and dreamt of joining the NBA. He attended Seattle's O'Dea High School, and later Burien Kennedy High, attending Bellevue Community College after graduation (where he continued to play ball), but a foot injury forced him to withdraw from the team and try acting instead. He debuted cinematically with a bit part as an airline clerk in Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (1991), Caviezel landed an equally minor role in Michael Ritchie's disappointing boxing yarn, Diggstown (1992). Accepted at Juilliard that same year, he declined the school's offer in favor of a supporting role in Lawrence Kasdan's 1994 Wyatt Earp. Unfortunately, this film (like Diggstown) flopped, and for the next several years, Caviezel bounced back-and-forth, between minor roles in big budget Hollywood films like The Rock (1996) and G.I. Jane (1997) and more substantial roles in turkeys such as Bill Couturie's Ed (1996). Fortunately, in 1998, the long-dormant Terrence Malick came calling with a role in his war opus The Thin Red Line (adapted from James Jones's Guadalcanal Diary) and Caviezel struck gold. The film received a number of Oscar nominations including Best Picture, and its stellar ensemble cast, which included Ben Chaplin, Sean Penn, George Clooney, and Nick Nolte, earned almost unanimous acclaim. The following year, Caviezel gained further recognition with his role as one of a group of renegade Civil War soldiers in Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil and his portrayal of a football coach's embittered son in Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday. In 2000, Caviezel starred in the supernatural thriller Frequency, as a fireman who -- through a supernatural occurrence -- communicates with his long-dead father (Dennis Quaid) over a ham radio. The low-budgeted film became a modest hit.Later that same year, Caviezel starred in Mimi Leder's shameless tearjerker Pay it Forward as a homeless junkie befriended by a young boy (Haley Joel Osment). He then landed a role opposite Jennifer Lopez in the heady romantic drama Angel Eyes (2001); the picture died a quick death at the box office, yet Caviezel's performance in the film dramatically increased his prominence, and critics further took note of the actor's ability.The following year's period adventure The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) boasted a similarly fine lead performance by Caviezel, and though the film - and the actor's work - drew favorable reviews from critics, that motion picture failed to attract audiences. Before embarking on a blood-soaked revenge spree in Highwaymen (2004), Caviezel took a turn as a mysterious former Marine in High Crimes and a lower-key role in the Paul Feig drama I Am David. Audiences who had followed Caviezel's career thus far had no doubt taken note of the actor's vocal religious convictions. With his role as Jesus in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ -- not to mention the actual suffering that he endured when his shoulder was separated during the crucifixion sequence -- the actor pushed to more extreme lengths than almost any performer of his generation. The story of the film is, by now, notorious; in time it became one of the highest grossers in movie history, capping $600 million worldwide, despite savaging critical assessments from many reviewers and accusations of anti-Semitism. Millions viewers flocked to the motion picture and turned it into one of the seminal moviegoing events of 2004, evi.As the 2000's and 2010's rolled on, Caviezel continued to enjoy success as a bankable actor, enjoying success on the new frontier of modern TV with shows like the remake of The Prisoner and the drama Person of Interest