Trivia: Getting her start in a comedy team called "My Mother's Fleabag" while studying at Boston College, the frantically energized Amy Poehler (born September 16th, 1971) has become an improv queen of sorts on the comedy circuit. After graduation, Poehler got involved with Second City and ImprovOlympic in Chicago, where she worked with improv guru Del Close and began touring. After joining up with the sketch comedy group The Upright Citizens Brigade, she moved to New York City with them in 1996. The group had a show on Comedy Central for three seasons and opened their own theater in New York. Her big mainstream breakthrough came in January 2002, when she was promoted from featured player to member of the repertory cast of Saturday Night Live. Two of her most well-known SNL characters have been the one-legged dating show contestant and the combative trailer-park wife. Her other television appearances included recurring characters on Late Night With Conan O'Brien and Undeclared. On the big screen, she seemed to make an impression despite her small roles. In Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, she played a Tourette's Syndrome sufferer, and in Wet Hot American Summer she was a snobby drama club leader. After appearing in the feature Martin & Orloff with the other members of the Upright Citizens Brigade, she would star with Jack Black and Ben Stiller in Envy in 2004, the same year that she memorably portrayed a wannabe hip mom in the Tina Fey-penned comedy Mean Girls. The following few years found Poehler skillfully balancing her small-screen career with her feature aspirations, and whether she was sitting at the "Weekend Update" desk, playing the wife of then-real-life husband Will Arnett on Arrested Development, or waiting tables in Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny, the increasingly busy actress/comedian could always be counted on for a few hearty laughs. Additional appearances in both the kiddie-friendly Spongebob Squarepants and the terrifyingly hilarious Wonder Showzen during this period in her career would offer hilarious proof of Poehler's crafty ability to alternate between subversive adult material and harmless kid cartoons with an ease that no doubt helped to make her a hit with audiences young and old alike. Despite substantial appearances in (Donnie Darko director) Richard Kelly's eagerly anticipated sophomore feature Southland Tales and Alec Baldwin's remake Shortcut to Happiness going largely unseen when both films languished without a release date for far longer than anyone would have anticipated, fans in need of a Poehler feature fix would find little cause to complain as the actress turned up in The Ex, Blades of Glory -- again opposite then-husband Arnett -- and Shrek the Third in 2007.Poehler continued to be a popular choice for voice roles, lending her vocal talents to Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009), and The Secret World of Arrietty (2010). In 2008, she reunited with Tina Fey to play the freewheeling surrogate mother to a high-strung, career-oriented woman (Fey) who desperately wants a baby. Poehler's star continued to rise with the sitcom Parks and Recreation. Introduced in 2009, the popular comedy series follows Leslie Knope (Poehler), a mid-level bureaucrat working for the parks department in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana.

Trivia: The sons and daughters of the rich and famous may have a reputation for being embarrassing, vapid fodder for the paparazzi and reality TV, but Rashida Jones has nothing in common with her peers. The daughter of music mogul and world-famous songwriter Quincy Jones, Rashida began working hard to make herself educated and accomplished from the time she was five years old, when her father would catch her reading with a flashlight after he'd put her to bed. She attended Hebrew school and excelled academically at the Buckley School in Los Angeles, an independent school known for tiny class sizes and a sharp focus on students' development both as people and as scholars. Jones then attended Harvard, where she studied religion and philosophy while pursuing her musical gifts as a member and music director of the a cappella group The Harvard Opportunes. After graduating, she continued to include singing in her list of projects, singing backup on tracks for the band Maroon 5, in major ad campaigns for The Gap, on tracks for hip-hop legend Tupac Shakur (who was engaged to Jones' sister), and on various film soundtracks. Jones also tried her hand at modeling, strutting her stuff for clothing lines like Triple 5 Soul and The Gap, as well as appearing in editorials for Vogue and In Style. Jones had studied theater in college, but acting was only a hobby for her until she was cast in 1997's The Last Don and realized what inspiration she got from the craft. She was later cast as a regular on the hit TV drama Boston Public, and appeared as a guest star in one episode of the fanatical cult favorite Freaks and Geeks. She also lent her talents to appealing independent films like Death of a Dynasty before being cast as Karen in the third season of the much-adored comedy series The Office. Despite the fact that Jones was playing the third point in an awkward love triangle, audiences took to her immediately, not only for her expert comic timing and ability to handle the show's mockumentary format, but for maintaining a realness and likability throughout the story. Jones next signed on to appear in co-star John Krasinski's movie Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. She appeared in the comedy The Ten which featured many members of the comedy troupe The State. In 2009 she landed a part on the new show Parks & Recreations, which turned into a well-respected sitcom for NBC. That same year she had a hit on the big screen as Paul Rudd's fiancé in I Love You, Man. The next year she played a lawyer in The Social Network. She worked with Rudd again in 2011's Our Idiot Brother, and appeared as a TV executive in The Muppets.

Trivia: The professional reputation of some actors and performers is inextricable from that of a larger ensemble to which they belong. Comedian/actor/screenwriter Aziz Ansari epitomizes this idea. Ansari shot to fame in the mid- to late 2000s as a member of the three-person comedy troupe responsible for The Human Giant -- a weekly, SNL-style collection of outrageous and irreverent comedy sketches that the group wrote and performed on MTV.Ansari is -- like Jay Chandrasekhar and a few other comics to emerge during the early 2000s -- of Tamil Indian heritage. Ansari grew up and attended university in rural South Carolina, then studied business at New York University. As a student, Ansari took classes with the famed Upright Citizens Brigade and mounted solo standup comedy gigs at Manhattan-area clubs. After a brief stint working on an Internet advertising business, Ansari discovered that he was earning enough with his standup efforts to focus on this full-time. His association with the Brigade ultimately led to a regular gig as emcee of "Crash Test," a weekly standup comedy showcase at the UCB Theatre, and -- in time -- to the creation of the Human Giant series.In 2009 Ansari landed a regular part on NBC's well-respected Amy Poehler-led sitcom Parks & Recreation. He parlayed that shows success into small parts in comedies like Judd Apatow's Funny People, Jody Hill's Observe & Report, and Get Him to the Greek. This led to his biggest role to that point as the best friend of a slacker forced to rob a bank in 30 Minutes or Less.In 2012 he contributed his vocal talents to Ice Age: Continental Drift.

Trivia: Comedian and actress Aubrey Plaza honed her skills with the renowned Upright Citizen's Brigade comedy troupe beginning in 2004, as well as performing standup at places like the Laugh Factory. She graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2006, and soon began making the transition to the screen, appearing as Daisy in the 2009 Judd Apatow comedy Funny People, and as Robin on the series Mayne Street. In 2009, Plaza joined the cast of the comedy series Parks and Recreation, acting alongside Upright Citizen's founding member Amy Poehler. Her performance as bored teenage intern April was a hit with audiences, and Plaza followed it the next year with a role in the quirky 2010 graphic novel adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. She appeared in Whit Stillman's Damsels in Distress, as well as the comedy Safety Not Guaranteed opposite the Duplass brothers.

Trivia: Actor Nick Offerman honed an immediately identifiable image -- that of a rugged, imposing presence with an unmistakably menacing onscreen aura, occasionally tempered by nuttiness -- and parlayed it into a long string of offbeat characterizations. After guest spots on such prime-time series as ER and Gilmore Girls, and bit parts in features including Treasure Island (1999), Groove (2000), and November (2003), Offerman graduated to lead status with a decidedly wacky triple role in Martin Hynes' road movie The Go-Getter (2007). That same year, audiences could also catch Offerman via his small supporting role as a cop in Goran Dukic's jet-black comic romance Wristcutters: A Love Story. Meanwhile, Offerman also signed for one of the lead roles -- as an auto mechanic -- on the satirical Comedy Central series American Body Shop (2007). In 2009 he was cast as Ron Swanson in the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation, and this turned out to be his breakthrough role. He parlayed that success into appearances in films like The Men Who Stare at Goats, All Good Things, Casa de me Padre, and the big-screen comedy version of 21 Jump Street.

Trivia: Born June 21, 1979, native Minnesotan actor Chris Pratt scored his first big break on television as the troubled physician's son Bright Abbott on the WB series drama Everwood, opposite Treat Williams and others, and segued into film with a prominent role in the biting satire Strangers with Candy (2005) alongside Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert. Successive features included Deep in the Valley (2008), Wanted (2008), and Bride Wars (2009) (as the ineffectual fiancé of Anne Hathaway). In 2009, Pratt joined the NBC sitcom Parks & Recreation as a guest star, but his turn as the dim-witted Andy Dwyer was so well-received that he was promoted to series regular for season 2. While on the show, Pratt also juggled some major movie roles, co-starring with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill as baseball player Scott Hatteberg in the blockbuster Moneyball (2011) and appearing as a Navy SEAL in 2012's controversial Zero Dark Thirty.

Trivia: American brothers Rob and Chad Lowe became actors in childhood (Chad would ultimately win an Emmy for his TV work). Rob was acting from the age of eight in 1972; seven years later, he was a regular on the TV series A New Kind of Family, playing the teenaged son of star Eileen Brennan. That series was shot down quickly, but Lowe's film career picked up when newspaper and magazine articles began aligning the handsome, sensitive young actor with the burgeoning Hollywood "brat pack," which included such new talent as Molly Ringwald, Matt Dillon, Charlie Sheen, and Anthony Michael Hall. Along with several fellow "packers" (Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Emilio Estevez), Lowe starred in 1985's St. Elmo's Fire; this film and the earlier Hotel New Hampshire (1984) represent the most memorable projects in Lowe's otherwise negligible film output. In 1989, Lowe's already flagging film stardom received a severe setback when he was accused of videotaping his sexual activities with an underage girl (the evidence has since become a choice item on the sub-rosa video cassette circuit). Arrested for his misdeeds, Lowe performed several hours' worth of community service, then tried to reactivate his career. Since then, Lowe has matured into something of a brat-pack George Hamilton, successfully lampooning his previous screen image in such comedies as Wayne's World (1992) and Tommy Boy (1995).Though his comedic endeavors would continue throughout the 1990s in films such as Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) and its sequel, Lowe gained notice for such dramatic roles as that of the mute and strangely plague-immune Nick Andros in the long-anticipated TV miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand (1994). Lowe's roles throughout the '90s may have not been the prominently featured roles in A-list films that his early shooting-star may have suggested, though he did maintain steady work in an interesting variety of small-budget projects. Lowe's casting on the popular political drama The West Wing brought the actor back into the public eye in what many considered to be one of the most intelligently written dramatic series on television. His turn as quick-witted liberal speechwriter Sam Seaborn brought Lowe through the dark days of his scandalous past, back to an audience who may have forgotten his charm as an actor. He would stay with the series until 2005, all while continuing to pick new projects that involved creativity and an open mind. He tested his limits with roles in films like Salem's Lot and Thank You For Smoking, and in 2004, he began starring in his own TV series, playing Dr. Billy Grant on the crime drama Dr. Vegas. The show lasted until 2008, by which time he had already signed on for the prime time dramedy Brothers & Sisters, starring alongside Calista Flockhart. He had a major part in The Invention of Lying in 2009, and that same year he landed a regular gig on the well-reviewed NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. In 2011 he was the executive producer and one of the leads in the ensemble film I Melt With You.

Trivia: Parents are Liberian; her family is related to Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Planned to attend medical school, but changed her career path in 1996 when she participated in a local open-mic night. Made her TV debut on Moesha in 1997. Started a series of college comedy tours in 1998; received a nomination from Campus Activities Magazine for Female Comedian of the Year. Won Comedy Central's first Laugh Riots Stand-Up Competition in 1999. Cast as a recurring guest star on NBC's Parks and Recreation in 2009 before becoming a series regular in the show's third season.

Trivia: Did improv training with Second City in Chicago. Was a member of Chicago theater troupe White Noise in the 1980s and '90s. Guest-starred as a fired department-store Santa in two David E. Kelley series: Ally McBeal and Boston Legal. Originally auditioned for the role of boss Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation, but was instead cast as associate director Jerry.

Trivia: A native of Santa Cruz, CA, who was born in 1973, actor Adam Scott first encountered acting in elementary school, on a decidedly negative note (thanks to a not-so-pleasant experience in a science play), but by mid-adolescence changed his views about the craft and aggressively pursued a career in drama. He applied, and was accepted to, the American Academy of Dramatic Art in Pasadena, then made the short move west to Hollywood with several buddies. The actor took his bow with a guest bit on the series Dead at 21, and thereafter largely divided his time between television and the theatrical stage. In the television venue, guest roles followed on series including ER and NYPD Blue, as well as a recurring parts on Murder One, Party of Five, and on the Friday-night ABC sitcom Boy Meets World as high school senior Griff Hawkins. Scott moved into features in the late '90s and scored supporting roles in A-list Hollywood features; thereafter, the roles arrived quickly and furiously. Projects included Payback (1997), The Aviator (2004), Art School Confidential (2006), Knocked Up (2007), and Step Brothers (2008). Small-screen enthusiasts may also remember Scott for his role as Palek, one of the troubled husbands on the racy HBO relationship drama series Tell Me You Love Me (2007). He appeared in Step Brothers, but started to generate buzz as the lead in the made for cable comedy series Party Down. He joined the cast of Parks and Recreation in that show's second season which led quickly to roles in a number of big-screen comedies including Leap Year, Our Idiot Brother, and Friends With Kids.

Trivia: An imposing figure of both TV and the stage, 4'11" actor Leslie Jordan's physical stature belies his talent. Garnering massive acclaim for his portrayal of Brother Boy in the Broadway production of Sordid Lives, Jordan would go on to reprise the role for a film adaptation of the play. This led to a successful onscreen career as a character actor, making numerous guest appearances over the years on shows like Boston Legal, Ugly Betty, and Will & Grace. In 2008, he took on the role of Brother Boy once again, as Sordid Lives was adapted into a TV series for the Logo network.

Trivia: Actor Eric McCormack was born in Toronto, Canada, on April 18, 1963. As a teenager, McCormack had developed an interest in acting (inspired in part by his father, who had once pursued a career as a thespian), and after graduating from high school, he enrolled in Toronto's Ryerson Theater School. McCormack left Ryerson in 1985, several months before graduation, in order to accept a position with the well-respected Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario. Over the course of five seasons with the Stratford company, McCormack rose from bit parts to major roles in productions such as A Midsummer Night's Dream and Henry V, and he developed a reputation as one of Canada's most promising stage actors. In 1991, McCormack scored his first screen role in a remake of the classic dinosaur saga The Lost World, and in 1992, he was cast on a syndicated TV series, Street Justice, as Detective Carl Weathers. Moving to Vancouver that same year, McCormack stayed busy over the next several years with a variety of television projects shot in Canada (including recurring roles in two series, Lonesome Dove: The Outlaw Years and Townies) and occasional feature films (most notably Holy Man and Free Enterprise). In 1998, McCormack got his big break when he was cast as Will Truman, a gay lawyer, on the situation comedy series Will and Grace. Well received by critics, Will and Grace slowly grew into a ratings winner, eventually garnering a multitude of industry awards. McCormack's work on the show earned him Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor in a Comedy Series every year from 2000-2003; he also received several Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series and brought the award home in 2001.Over the coming decade, McCormack would appear in a number of acclaimed TV series, including The New Adventures of Old Christine and Perception.

Trivia: A stunning, New York-born actress who shot to stardom with her role as the latter half of television's Will and Grace, Debra Messing's playful creativity beginning in her youth left her family with little doubt that the talented youngster would seek a career in some aspect of the entertainment industry.Raised in a small community outside Providence, RI, Messing's song and dance routines were the source of endless entertainment for her family throughout her youth, and the precocious youngster frequently attended performing arts camps in order to focus her skills as an actress. Later touring Canada, the U.S., and Mexico before planning her initial bid for stardom, Messing followed her mother's advice and enrolled in Massachusetts' Brandeis University, where she majored in theater arts. Traveling to London late in her schooling to study at the prestigious B.E.S.G.L. program, she was later accepted into New York University's Graduate Acting Program. Early roles such as a stint as sexpot Dana Abandando on television's NYPD Blue garnered much attention for the stunning starlet, and it wasn't long before Messing made her feature debut with A Walk in the Clouds (1995). Jumping back to the small screen for the short-lived Ned and Stacey the following year, she next turned up in the feature Prey (1997) and a subsequent television series based on the film. Launching her career into overdrive in 1998 with her role as Grace Elizabeth Adler in television's Will and Grace brought Messing critical and public praise, and her role as the interior designer living with a homosexual lawyer charmed audiences with its snappy writing and talented cast. With personal interests lending to involvement with such organizations as the Best Friend's Pet Sanctuary, Gay Men's Health Crisis, and AmFAR, the actress uses much of her personal time to encourage social awareness of HIV and AIDS-related issues and encourage people to adopt pets.The massive success of Will & Grace helped Messing gain a foothold in a film career. She tested the waters gingerly at first, taking small but key roles in films as diverse as the thriller The Mothman Prophecies and the Woody Allen comedy Hollywood Ending. She played Ben Stiller's newlywed wife in the hit comedy Along Came Polly in 2004. Although audiences ignored her romantic comedy The Wedding Date, Messing scored her most prestigious post-Will & Grace work yet landing a major role in Curtis Hanson's Lucky You in 2006, the same year as she lent her vocal talents to the animated film Open Season.Over the next several years, Messing would enjoy a number of projects, starring in movies like The Women, and series like The Starter Wife, Smash and The Mysteries of Laura.

Trivia: Actress Megan Mullally was born in Los Angeles in 1958, to a family with show business roots -- her father, Carter Mullally Jr., was an actor who became a contract player with Paramount Pictures during the 1950s. In 1965, with Carter's career on the wane, Mullally's parents pulled up roots and moved to Oklahoma City, OK, where her family had become quite wealthy raising livestock. Megan picked up the performing bug from her father, and developed a passionate interest in music and especially dance. By the time Megan was a high school student, she'd performed as a featured soloist with the Ballet Oklahoma troupe in Oklahoma City, and during summer vacations she studied with George Balanchine's School of American Ballet in New York City. Her interest in classical dance eventually grew into a desire to act, and while attending Northwestern University, she began appearing in student theater productions. After graduating, Mullally moved to Chicago, where she immersed herself in the city's rich and varied local theater scene. In 1983, she won her first film role, playing a hooker in Risky Business, and in 1986 she relocated to Los Angeles after being cast on a television series, The Ellen Burstyn Show. However, the series proved short-lived, and Mullally was soon busying herself with guest spots on a number of different shows. Mullally continued to work in the theater, and in 1994 fulfilled a longtime dream when she scored a role in the Broadway revival of Grease. The next year, she earned a high-profile role in another noted Broadway musical, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (playing opposite Matthew Broderick), while continuing to work in television projects. Mullally's dedication and focus finally paid off in 1998, when she was cast as Karen Walker, a self-centered former socialite-turned-office assistant on the popular situation comedy series Will and Grace. A major ratings success, Will and Grace catapulted Mullally into the spotlight, and she won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe, and an American Comedy Award for her work on the show. When not busy with Will and Grace, Mullally continues to pursue other projects, playing featured roles in the films Everything Put Together and Monkeybone and starring in a one-woman musical, Sweetheart, in which she shows off her talents as a singer. (Mullally has also released an album of songs from the show, which she produced herself.)Mullally would continue her successful career on Broadway while enjoying the long running success of Will and Grace, and would go on to appear in other successful TV series as well, like In the Motherhood, Party Down, Childrens' Hospital, and Parks and Recreation.

Trivia: Actor Michael Angarano achieved two of his most noteworthy roles back to back, as a violin player in the Wes Craven-directed inspirational drama Music of the Heart (1999) and as the young version of rock journalist-to-be William Miller in Cameron Crowe's semi-autographical seriocomedy Almost Famous (2000). Angarano's subsequent resumé includes supporting parts in such pictures as Seabiscuit (2003), Lords of Dogtown (2005), and One Last Thing... (2005). On the small screen, Angarano played the recurring role of Elliott, Jack's (Sean Hayes) son on Will & Grace (from from 2001-2006), as well as a guest role in the sixth season of 24 (2007). With Man in the Chair (2007) -- a gentle, humorous coming-of-age dramedy about an aspiring teenage film director who finds the fulfillment of his dreams from an unexpected source -- Angarano tackled an associate producer assignment and the lead role concurrently. That same year, Angarano also signed for one of the supporting parts in the David Mickey Evans-helmed baseball drama The Final Season.

Trivia: As the dignified and relentlessly photogenic object of Angela Bassett's affections in How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Taye Diggs made an immediate and unforgettable impression on legions of filmgoers. Diggs came to film by way of the theater. Born in 1971 in New Jersey, he was raised as the oldest of five children in Rochester, NY. After earning a B.F.A. in musical theater from Syracuse University, he made his way to Broadway, debuting in the Tony-winning production of Carousel. In 1996, Diggs got his big break, originating the role of the nasty landlord, Benny, in Jonathan Larson's Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning Rent. He then moved from stage to television, with a role on Guiding Light, and in 1998 he made his film debut in How Stella Got Her Groove Back. The excitement surrounding Diggs' performance netted him both media exposure and more work, and the following year he could be seen in no less than four films. First up was his turn as a tantric sex god in Doug Liman's Go; audiences could next see him as an AWOL groom in the coming-of-age drama The Wood; Malcolm D. Lee's The Best Man featured Diggs as another member of the wedding, this time as the titular best man suffering from his own pre-wedding jitters; finally, he starred as a guest at Geoffrey Rush's allegedly haunted mansion in the remake of William Castle's The House on Haunted Hill.In 2001, Diggs returned to the small-screen with a recurring role on Fox's Ally McBeal. And when subsequent film roles in such unsuccessful projects as Equilibrium, Basic, and Malibu's Most Wanted did his career no good, he decided to try on a full-time television gig with Kevin Hill. Premiering in 2004 on UPN, the primetime drama starred Diggs in the title role, a fast-living bachelor who finds his life turned upside down with the unexpected introduction of an infant. In 2006, after a stint as the title character's gay boyfriend on the final season of Will & Grace, Diggs gave TV stardom another shot as a cop trapped in a time loop in the high-concept, 24-esque Day Break, but the show was yanked after a handful of episodes. His TV career was finally resuscitated by the Grey's Anatomy spin-off Private Practice, in which he was cast in the role of Sam Bennett, an internist trying to survive the medical and romantic entanglements at the Oceanside Wellness Center. Later, the actor would play the role of Vargas in the live adaptation of the comic Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, and narrate The Fab Five, a documentary following five famous basketball players from the University of Michigan. In 2013, he reprised his role of Harper Stewart in The Best Man sequel, The Best Man Holiday. Diggs returned to television the next year, starring in Steven Bochco's Murder in the First, and booking a recurring role on The Good Wife.