Trivia: Born Walter Willis -- an Army brat to parents stationed in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany -- on March 19, 1955, Bruce Willis grew up in New Jersey from the age of two. As a youngster, he developed a stutter that posed the threat of social alienation, but he discovered an odd quirk: while performing in front of large numbers of people, the handicap inexplicably vanished. This led Willis into a certified niche as a comedian and budding actor. After high-school graduation, 18-year-old Willis decided to land a blue-collar job in the vein of his father, and accepted a position at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deep Water, NJ, but withdrew, shaken, after a co-worker was killed on the job. He performed regularly on the harmonica in a blues ensemble called the Loose Goose and worked temporarily as a security guard before enrolling in the drama program at Montclair State University in New Jersey. A collegiate role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof brought Willis back in touch with his love of acting, and he instantly decided to devote his life to the profession.Willis made his first professional appearances on film with minor roles in projects like The First Deadly Sin, starring Frank Sinatra, and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict. But his big break came when he attended a casting call (along with 3000 other hopefuls) for the leading role on Moonlighting, an ABC detective comedy series. Sensing Willis' innate appeal, producers cast him opposite the luminous Cybill Shepherd. The series, which debuted in 1985, followed the story of two private investigators working for a struggling detective agency, with Willis playing the fast-talking ne'er-do-well David Addison, and Shepherd playing the prim former fashion model Maddie Hayes. The show's heavy use of clever dialogue, romantic tension, and screwball comedy proved a massive hit with audiences, and Willis became a major star. The show ultimately lasted four years and wrapped on May 14, 1989. During the first year or two of the series, Willis and Shepherd enjoyed a brief offscreen romantic involvement as well, but Willis soon met and fell in love with actress Demi Moore, who became his wife in 1987.In the interim, Willis segued into features, playing geeky Walter Davis in the madcap 1987 comedy Blind Date. That same year, Motown Records -- perhaps made aware of Willis' experiences as a musician -- invited the star to record an LP of blue-eyed soul tracks. The Return of Bruno emerged and became a moderate hit among baby boomers, although as the years passed it became better remembered as an excuse for Willis to wear sunglasses indoors and sing into pool cues.Then in 1988, Willis broke major barriers when he convinced studios to cast him in the leading role of John McClane in John McTiernan's explosive action movie Die Hard. Though up until this point, action stars had been massive tough guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, execs took a chance on Willis' every-guy approach to the genre - and the gamble paid off. Playing a working-class cop who confronts an entire skyscraper full of terrorists when his estranged wife is taken hostage on Christmas Eve, Willis' used his wiseacre television persona to constantly undercut the film's somber underpinnings, without ever once damaging the suspenseful core of the material. This, coupled with a smart script and wall-to-wall sequences of spectacular action, propelled Die Hard to number one at the box office during the summer of 1988, and made Willis a full-fledged movie star.Willis subsequent projects would include two successful Die Hard sequels, as well as other roles the 1989 Norman Jewison drama In Country, and the 1989 hit comedy Look Who's Talking, in which Willis voiced baby Mikey. Though he'd engage in a few stinkers, like the unsuccessful Hudson Hawk and North, he would also continue to strike told with hugely popular movies like The Last Boyscout , Pulp Fiction, and Armageddon.Willis landed one of his biggest hits, however, when he signed on to work with writer/director M. Night Shyamalan in the supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense. In that film, Willis played Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist assigned to treat a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) plagued by visions of ghosts. The picture packs a wallop in its final minutes, with a now-infamous surprise that even purportedly caught Hollywood insiders off guard when it hit U.S. cinemas in the summer of 1999. Around the same time, tabloids began to swarm with gossip of a breakup between Willis and Demi Moore, who indeed filed for divorce and finalized it in the fall of 2000.Willis and M. Night Shyamalan teamed up again in 2000 for Unbreakable, another dark fantasy about a man who suddenly discovers that he has been imbued with superhero powers and meets his polar opposite, a psychotic, fragile-bodied black man (Samuel L. Jackson). The movie divided critics but drew hefty grosses when it premiered on November 22, 2000. That same year, Willis delighted audiences with a neat comic turn as hitman Jimmy the Tulip in The Whole Nine Yards, which light heartedly parodied his own tough-guy image. Willis followed it up four years later with a sequel, The Whole Ten Yards.In 2005, Willis was ideally cast as beaten-down cop Hartigan in Robert Rodriguez's graphic-novel adaptation Sin City. The movie was a massive success, and Willis was happy to reteam with Rodriguez again the next year for a role in the zombie action flick Planet Terror, Rodriguez's contribution to the double feature Grindhouse. Additionally, Willis would keep busy over the next few years with roles in films like Richard Donner's 16 Blocks, Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation, and Nick Cassavetes' crime drama Alpha Dog. The next year, Willis reprised his role as everyman superhero John McClane for a fourth installment of the Die Hard series, Live Free or Die Hard, directed by Len Wiseman. Though hardcore fans of the franchise were not overly impressed, the film did expectedly well at the box office.In the latter part of the decade, Willis would keep up his action star status, starring in the sci-fi thriller Surrogates in 2009, but also enjoyed poking fun at his own persona, with tongue-in-cheek roles in action fare like The Expendables, Cop Out, and Red. He appeared as part of the ensemble in Wes Anderson's quirky Moonrise Kingdom and in the time-travel action thriller Looper in 2012, before appearing in a string of sequels -- The Expendables 2 (2012), A Good Day to Die Hard, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Red 2 (all 2013) and Sin City: A Dame to Die For (2014).

Trivia: Popularly known as "Mr. Ubiquitous" thanks to his versatility as a stage and screen actor, Ian Holm is one of Britain's most acclaimed -- to say nothing of steadily employed -- performers. Although the foundations of his career were built on the stage, he has become an increasingly popular onscreen presence in his later years. Holm earned particular plaudits for his work in Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter (1997), in which he played an emotionally broken lawyer who comes to a small town that has been devastated by a recent school bus crash.Born on September 12, 1931, Holm came into the world in a Goodmayes, Ilford, mental asylum, where his father resided as a psychiatrist and superintendent. When he wasn't tending to the insane, Holm's father took him to the theatre, where he was first inspired, at the age of seven, by a production of Les Miserables starring Charles Laughton. The inspiration carried him through his adolescence -- which, by his account, was not a happy one -- and in 1950, Holm enrolled at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Coincidentally, while a student at RADA, he ended up acting with none other than Laughton himself.Following a year of national service, Holm joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, making his stage debut as a sword carrier in Othello. In 1956, after two years with the RSC, he debuted on the London stage in a West End production of Love Affair; that same year, he toured Europe with Laurence Olivier's production of Titus Andronicus. Holm subsequently returned to the RSC, where he stayed for the next ten years, winning a number of awards. Among the honors he received were two Evening Standard Actor of the Year Awards for his work in Henry V and The Homecoming; in 1967, he won a Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway production The Homecoming.The diminutive actor (standing 5'6") made his film debut as Puck in Peter Hall's 1968 adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, a production that Holm himself characterized as "a total disaster." Less disastrous was that same year's The Bofors Gun, a military drama that earned Holm a Best Supporting Actor BAFTA. He went on to appear in a steady stream of British films and television series throughout the '70s, doing memorable work in films ranging from Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) to Alien (1978), the latter of which saw him achieving a measure of celluloid immortality as Ash, the treacherous android. Holm's TV work during the decade included a 1973 production of The Homecoming and a 1978 production of Les Miserables, made a full 40 years after he first saw it staged with Charles Laughton.Holm began the '80s surrounded by a halo of acclaim garnered for his supporting role as Harold Abrahams' coach in Chariots of Fire (1981). Nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, he won both a BAFTA and Cannes Festival Award in the same category for his performance. Not content to rest on his laurels, he played Napoleon in Terry Gilliam's surreal Time Bandits that same year; he and Gilliam again collaborated on the 1985 future dystopia masterpiece Brazil. Also in 1985, Holm turned in one of his greatest -- and most overlooked -- performances of the decade as Desmond Cussen, Ruth Ellis' steadfast, unrequited admirer in Dance with a Stranger. He also continued to bring his interpretations of the Bard to the screen, providing Kenneth Branagh's Henry V (1989) with a very sympathetic Fluellen and Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990) with a resolutely meddlesome Polonius.The following decade brought with it further acclaim for Holm on both the stage and screen. On the stage -- from which he had been absent since 1976, when he suffered a bout of stage fright -- he won a number of honors, including the 1998 Olivier Award for Best Actor for his eponymous performance in King Lear; he also earned Evening Standard and Critics Circle Awards for his work in the play, as well as an Emmy nomination for its television adaptation. On the screen, Holm was shown to great effect in The Madness of King George (1994), which cast him as the king's unorthodox physician, Atom Egoyan's aforementioned The Sweet Hereafter (1997), and Joe Gould's Secret (1999), in which he starred in the title role of a Greenwich Village eccentric with a surprising secret. In 2000, Holm took on a role of an entirely different sort when he starred as Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's long awaited adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Holm, who was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1989, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1998 for his "services to drama."After the final installment in the Lord of the Rings trilogy was released in 2003, Holm took a role in completely different kind of film. 2004's Garden State was a far cry from the epic, big-budget fantasy he'd just starred in and rather, was a quiet, independent film written, directed, produced by and starring the young Zach Braff. Holm's portrayal of the flawed but well-meaning father a confused adult son was a great success, and he went on to play equally complex and enjoyable supporting roles in a variety of films over the next year, from the Strangers with Candy movie to Lord of War. In 2006, Holm signed on to lend his voice to the casts of two animated films: the innovative sci-fi noir, Renaissance, and the family feature Ratatouille--slated for release in 2006 and 2007 respectively. He also joined the cast of the controversial drama O Jerusalem, a movie about a friendship between a Jewish and Arab man during the creation of the state of Israel. After five years away from the big screen, he returned to play Bilbo Baggins yet again in Peter Jackson's adaptations of The Hobbit.

Trivia: Whether playing a punk rocker, an assassin, a war vet, or a ghoul, Gary Oldman has consistently amazed viewers with his ability to completely disappear into his roles. Though capable of portraying almost any type of character, Oldman has put his stamp on those of the twisted villain/morally ambiguous weirdo variety, earning renown for his interpretations of the darker side of human nature.Born Leonard Gary Oldman in New Cross, South London, on March 21, 1958, Oldman was raised by his mother and two sisters after his father, an alcoholic welder, left them when Oldman was seven. Nine years later, Oldman left high school to work in a sporting goods store; in his spare time, he studied literature and later acting under the tutelage of Roger Williams. He went on to act with the Greenwich Young People's Theatre and, after attending drama school on a scholarship, worked with the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. Oldman next worked in London's West End, where, in 1985, he won a Best Actor and a Best Newcomer award for his performance in The Pope's Wedding. By this time, he had made his film debut in Remembrance (1982) and had appeared in two television movies, notably Honest, Decent and True (1985). Oldman got his first big break when he was cast as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986), Alex Cox's disturbing docudrama account of the punk rocker's tragic relationship with Nancy Spungen. Oldman's unnervingly accurate portrayal of the doomed rocker won rave reviews and effectively propelled him out of complete obscurity. The following year, he turned in a completely different but equally superb performance as famed playwright Joe Orton in Stephen Frears' Prick Up Your Ears and earned a Best Actor nomination from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for his work. After moving to the U.S. that same year, Oldman appeared in Nicolas Roeg's Track 29 (1988), and in 1990, he had one of his most memorable -- to say nothing of cultish -- roles as Rosencrantz opposite Tim Roth as Guildenstern in Tom Stoppard's brilliant Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.Oldman's first American role in a major Hollywood film was that of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald in Oliver Stone's JFK (1991). He then gave a creepy, erotic performance in the title role of Francis Ford Coppola's rendition of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), a lavish film that proved to be the most commercially successful (next to JFK) of Oldman's career to date. In addition to playing such eccentrics as Drexl Spivey, a white pimp with dreadlocks who tries to prove himself a black Rastafarian in True Romance (1993), Oldman went on to play more conventional characters, as evidenced by his straightforward portrayal of a crooked cop in Luc Besson's The Professional (1994), his performance as Beethoven in Immortal Beloved (1994), and his role as Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale in the disastrous 1995 adaptation The Scarlet Letter.In 1997, Oldman made his directorial bow with Nil by Mouth, a bleak, semi-autobiographical drama about a dysfunctional blue-collar London family that Oldman dedicated to his late father. The film proved to be a controversial hit at that year's Cannes Festival, and the first-time director won a number of international awards and a new dose of respect for his work. He subsequently returned to acting with Luc Besson's The Fifth Element that same year, made while he took a break from editing Nil by Mouth. He also gave an enduringly cheesy portrayal of the sinister Russian terrorist bent on wresting world domination from American president Harrison Ford in the blockbuster Air Force One (1997) and followed that up by playing yet another villain in the 1998 feature-film version of the classic TV series Lost in Space.Two years later, the veteran actor was earning accolades on screens big and small with both his critically acclaimed performance in Rod Lurie's Oscar-nominated political drama The Contender, and his Emmy-nominated guest appearance in the popular TV sitcom Friends. Meanwhile, after escaping the clutches of the silver screen's most notorious cannibal in Ridley Scott's Hannibal (2001), Oldman joined the casts of not one but two of the most successful film franchises of the 2000s: The Harry Potter Series and Christopher Nolan's brooding Batman saga. As benevolent wizard Sirius Black in the former, he helped Hogwarts' most famous student battle the forces of evil, and as Lt. Jim Gordon in the later, he aided The Dark Knight in defeating some of Gotham's most powerful supervillains. And while he wasn't performing exorcisms in The Unborn or searching unlimited power in The Book of Eli, Oldman was showing his versatility by voicing characters in such popular video games as The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning and Call of Duty: Black Ops. In 2011, as if to remind audiences that he could still be a compelling lead in addition to a strong supporting player, Oldman tackled the role of veteran MI6 spy George Smiley -- who comes out of retirement to sniff out a Russian mole in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. A highly stylized take on the classic John le Carre novel, the film not only drew rave reviews from critics, but also an Academy Award-nomination for Oldman. Oldman wrapped up his work in Harry Potter the same year, with a cameo in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 and Nolan's Batman trilogy finished the following year with The Dark Knight Rises. In 2014, he appeared in the remake of RoboCop, followed by a major role in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Trivia: There is nothing tranquil about comedian/actor Chris Tucker. A limber, wiry fellow with a high-pitched voice and a delivery as fast as a mosquito's wing beats, he seems energy incarnate. In regard to his acting, some have hailed him the next Eddie Murphy; indeed, Murphy was one of Tucker's icons while growing up. A native of Atlanta, GA, Tucker's proclivity for comedy has been lifelong, beginning when he, the youngest of six children, used humor as an attention-getting device and as a way to get his brothers to allow him to hang around them. In addition to Eddie Murphy's comedy, Tucker was heavily influenced by that of Richard Pryor. In high school, Tucker was one of those class clowns who was able to make even his teachers laugh and it was one of his instructors who suggested Tucker display his gifts in a school talent show. He proved a roaring success and following graduation, decided to become a professional. His classmates, having voted him "Most Humorous," supported his efforts. Tucker made his debut at a local comedy club. Because he was underage, Tucker had to sneak in and then do some real fast talking to be allowed to perform. He succeeded and his routine garnered a tremendous response. More local successes followed and this emboldened the then 19-year-old Tucker to try his luck in Los Angeles. Soon after arriving on the West Coast, Tucker had established himself in the major comedy clubs and, after appearing on HBO's Def Comedy Jam found himself a bona fide rising star.Tucker made his film debut with a small but memorable role in House Party 3 (1994). The following year, Tucker appeared in F. Gary Gray's crazy comedy Friday, playing Smokey, a lazy pot-smoking drug dealer who could be quite rich if only he'd stop using the merchandise himself. Tucker's hilarious improvisation during filming helped to make the film a sleeper hit. In his next film, Dead Presidents, directed by brothers Allen Hughes and Albert Hughes, Tucker hinted at some real talent as a dramatic actor. In regard to movies, 1997 proved a very good year for Tucker who was given his first showcase film in the action comedy Money Talks, which he executively produced. He also had a small but memorable role in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown and played a hyper-manic intergalactic DJ in Luc Besson's The Fifth Element. In 1998, Tucker had his second starring role, working opposite international action superstar Jackie Chan in the action-packed comedy Rush Hour. For reasons known only to him, Tucker abruptly put a stop to his film career appearing only in Rush Hour 2 and 3 in the ten years after the original.

Trivia: Born October 10th, 1965, Ohioan Luke Perry did well enough on the high school baseball team, but he was a somewhat lackadaisical student, with no real aim in life except for a vague desire to become an actor someday. That desire solidified into reality when Perry headed for Los Angeles in 1984, took acting lessons, and sought out auditions while supporting himself with construction and asphalting jobs. Eventually he landed the role of Ned Bates on the TV daytime drama Loving. In 1990, Perry was cast in the Fox Network's Beverly Hills 90210 in the supporting role of Dylan McKay. Audience response to Perry was so overwhelming that, by the time 90210 swung into its second season, he was not only one of the series' leading characters, but a full-fledged teen idol. From all accounts, Perry handled his "hunk heartthrob" status with class and diplomacy; this latter quality served him well during the well-publicized brouhaha over co-star Shannen Doherty. Perry finally left Beverly Hills 90210 for the greener pastures of theatrical films.Perry won cult notoriety for his portrayal of a hapless teenage vampire hunter in 1992's Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which inspired Joss Whedon's phenomenally popular series of the same name). After working in a series of critical and commerical failures, Perry co-starred with Chris Tucker and Gary Oldman in 1997's iconic sci-fi thriller The Fifth Element. The actor worked for a short time on HBO's prison drama Oz, in which he played a well meanng, yet ill-fated priest, and went the opposite direction when he guest-starred on Law & Order: SVU in the role of rapist Noah Sibert. In 2009, Perry starred in a music video for The Killers' fourth annual Christmas single.

Trivia: Actor Brion James launched his career in television and feature films and on television in the mid '70s. With his piercing eyes and cruel smile, the versatile, 6' 3"James, usually portrays assorted eccentric bad-guys, urban scum, and red-necks. One of his most memorable roles was Leon, an android in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982). As his father owned a movie theater in Beaumont, California, James spent most of his life around movies . Following high school, James moved to New York City where he became a cook and butler for Stella Adler, a renowned drama coach. While in the Big Apple, James also appeared off-Broadway, and as a stand-up comedian. In 1973, he returned to Los Angeles to become a full time actor with the philosophy that he would never turn down a job. James's strategy has worked, and since then he has appeared in over 100 TV shows and 70 features.

Trivia: One known for straddling careers as a model, singer and actress, performer Milla Jovovich sported an utterly unique square-jawed look and the starkest of features that betrayed her Eastern European origins. Born to a Russian actress and a Yugoslavian doctor in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev on December 17, 1975, Jovovich moved with her family to Sacramento, CA, when she was five. She began her professional modeling career at the age of 11, spending most of her teen years displaying her exotic, blue-eyed beauty on the covers of numerous magazines and in service of countless products.While pursuing a successful modeling career, Jovovich also began acting, appearing in Zalman King's softcore Two Moon Junction (1988) as Sherilyn Fenn's little sister and Return to the Blue Lagoon, the 1991 sequel to the endearingly awful Brooke Shields flesh-fest Blue Lagoon (1980). Following a role in Richard Linklater's high-school slacker opus Dazed and Confused (1993), Jovovich took a break from acting and also put her modeling career on hold. She turned instead to music, recording an album, The Divine Comedy, that received surprisingly good reviews. After touring for a few months, Jovovich returned to California and revived her acting career with the help of French director Luc Besson, who cast her in The Fifth Element in 1996. An incredibly stylish sci-fi chase film set in the 23rd century, it featured Jovovich as a tangerine-haired alien, speaking in gibberish and wearing little more than artfully placed ace bandages designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier. The film put her back on the Hollywood radar, something given further assistance by Jovovich's marriage to Besson (married in 1997, the two divorced in 1999). The following year Jovovich had a substantial role as a prostitute in Spike Lee's He Got Game, and, in 1999, she again stepped in front of the camera for Besson, this time to play the title role in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. She received strong notices for her work, although the film itself earned less than a warm reception. The following year, Jovovich appeared in Wim Wenders' futuristic The Million Dollar Hotel as a mental patient in the titular establishment. In 2001, Jovovich once again stepped into the lead, this time battling the undead in the action-oriented film version of the popular survival horror video game Resident Evil (2002).As the years progressed, that assignment would continue to color and define Jovovich's choices, as she soon agreed to headline each of the follow-ups, Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) and Resident Evil: Extinction (2007). The films received critical excoriation for their mindless, effects-heavy setups and nearly incoherent premises, but no matter: the franchise caught on with the public in a big way and turned Jovovich into an A-list action star, paving the way for the lead role in the nearly indistinguishable outing Ultraviolet (2006). In the meantime,Jovovich occasionally tackled varied material. She delivered a particularly off-beat and quirky performance as a singer who drifts into a Yiddish music career in the comedy-drama Dummy (2004), and in the role of Drusilla in director Gore Vidal's remake of Caligula.She worked alongside Robert DiNiro and Edward Norton in 2009's psychological drama A Perfect Getaway, and returned to the Resident Evil series in 2010 with Resident Evil: Afterlife. Jovovich played Milday de Winter in 2011's The Three Musketeers, and headlined yet another Resident Evil in 2012, Resident Evil: Retribution. In 2014, she appeared in an updated version of Shakespeare's Cymbeline.

Trivia: British actor Lee Evans established himself as a comedy star in his homeland before making the move to Hollywood. Raised in London, Evans was inspired to enter show business by his cabaret performer father. Focusing on physically and verbally dexterous standup comedy, Evans soon made a name for himself at London's Comedy Store and on British television. After he made his film debut co-starring with Jerry Lewis and Oliver Platt in the British comedy Funny Bones (1995) and played a small part in Luc Besson's science fiction fantasia The Fifth Element (1997), the actor/comedian landed his first American movie role as one of the beleaguered brothers who inherit the mouse-inhabited house in the hit Mousehunt (1997). Evans further solidified his trans-Atlantic success with his next film, the blockbuster gross-out comedy romance There's Something About Mary (1998). As another obsessed Mary admirer, Evans revealed his gift for physical humor as well as his vocal flexibility as he transformed from disabled yet refined British architect Tucker into callow Miami pizza delivery boy Norman. Following his second Hollywood hit, Evans considered developing an American TV series and was cast in Saturday Night Live star Tim Meadow's The Ladies Man (2000).

Trivia: British lead actor, onscreen from 1960.

Trivia: Hardly diminutive, Tommy "Tiny" Lister Jr. has made his imposing presence felt in a multitude of films since the mid-'80s. Originally a professional wrestler nicknamed Zeus and Z-Gangsta, the 6' 5" 275 lb. Lister retired in 1985 to pursue an acting career. After making his movie debut in director Hal Ashby's final film 8 Million Ways to Die (1985), Lister spent the rest of the 1980s working primarily in A and B movies heavy on action, including Runaway Train (1985), Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), and Walter Hill's Extreme Prejudice (1987). Lister earned his first starring role playing his wrestling alter ego Zeus in the Hulk Hogan vehicle No Holds Barred (1989). Lister continued his run of B films in the early '90s, as well as appearing in Walter Hill's higher profile actioner Trespass (1992) with future co-star Ice Cube, and Jean-Claude Van Damme's Universal Soldier (1992). As the 1990s went on, Lister played roles in a more varied assortment of films, including the quirky Johnny Depp/Marlon Brando/Faye Dunaway romantic fantasy Don Juan DeMarco (1995) and the Quentin Tarantino-wannabe noir Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995). Lister got to act for Tarantino himself in Jackie Brown, as well as play the President in Luc Besson's The Fifth Element. Lister's 1990s career also benefited from the decade's surge in African-American filmmaking, beginning with his starring role in Mario Van Peebles' Western Posse (1993). Lister subsequently starred as neighborhood bully Deebo opposite Ice Cube in the sleeper hit comedy Friday (1995). After appearing in comedian Martin Lawrence's A Thin Line Between Love and Hate (1996), Lister played a supporting role in Ice Cube's directorial debut The Players Club (1998), and starred as a hood in Master P's I Got the Hook-Up (1998). Adding to his eclectic credits in 2000, Lister notched another hit reprising his role as Deebo in the sequel Next Friday (2000), and co-starred as one of Satan's sons in the Adam Sandler comedy Little Nicky (2000).

Trivia: Almost didn't get accepted into RADA because of a skin condition on his face. One of the main reasons he was hired for the 1983 British series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was because he could do a Liverpool accent, which he had learned while living in a city hostel for two years as a teen. Lent his voice to the Wallace and Gromit features Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) and Flushed Away (2006). Other voiceover work includes radio, TV commercials, documentaries, cartoons and looping. Played John Lennon's father, Freddie, in the 2010 biopic Lennon Naked.

Trivia: As one of the most provocative young directors in France, Mathieu Kassovitz has made a name for himself directing films notable for both the inflammatory subjects they explore and the degree of controversy they incite. Kassovitz's most celebrated feature, 1995's La Haine (Hate in the U.S.), generated both critical exaltation and a burst of resentful recognition for its portrayal of racial tensions in Paris. The violence of this film was magnified in Kassovitz's Assassins, a 1997 film that provoked both raves and rants for its unflinchingly graphic content.Born in Paris on April 3, 1967, Kassovitz seemed destined for some sort of film career. The son of director Peter Kassovitz, Mathieu made his film debut in his father's Au Bout du Bout au Banc in 1981. The same year, he appeared in L'Année Prochaine....Si Tout Va Bien with Isabelle Adjani. Kassovitz made his directorial debut ten years later, with Cauchemar Blanc, but it was his 1993 Metisse (also known as Café au Lait) that first got him substantial attention. He also had a starring role in the film, which was notable for its poignant yet comic exploration of Parisian race relations, an exploration that would later be more brutally manifested in La Haine. Kassovitz subsequently ventured out as an actor in the 1994 documentary 3000 Scenarios Contre un Virus. The documentary, which was inspired by 3,000 ideas of French school children, consisted of 30 short films about the AIDS virus. It was a remarkable effort, one that Kassovitz followed with another acting turn in Regarde les Hommes Tomber in 1994. The film was a critical success and the adulation it received proved to be good preparation for Kassovitz's next project, La Haine (1995). The film was widely hailed as a masterpiece, winning a number of awards including a Best Director Award at Cannes and three French Academy of Cinema Awards, including Best Film.Kassovitz then turned to lighter but no less intriguing fare, with the leading role in Un Hero Très Discret (1996). As a dim but sweet wannabe war hero, Kassovitz reminded audiences of the sunnier side of his persona that had previously been displayed in films such as Café au Lait. This aspect of his persona was again evident in his next role in Mon Homme (1996), a comedy that reunited him with Discret co-star Anouk Grinberg. However, Kassovitz soon resumed his role as a director unwilling to back away from the more violent side of human nature, with Assassins, released in 1997. Starring Michel Serrault as a retired assassin, the film, which also featured Kassovitz as Serrault's protégé, created a sizable amount of controversy due to the horrific violence it portrayed. Despite such controversy, the film also won critical acclaim, further establishing his favorable reputation. The same year, Kassovitz had a minor role in Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, and then in 1998, starred with frequent collaborator Vincent Cassel in Le Plaisir. As someone equally comfortable in front of and behind the camera, Kassovitz seemed to have a long and plentiful career ahead of him, or at least a legacy as one of the most vital members of the French film industry of the '90s.Eschewing the lens in favor of the director's chair for the 2000 thriller Crimson Rivers, Kassovitz teamed with French stars Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel for the tale of a pair of detectives investigating a gruesome series of murders committed on the campus of a remote mountain college. A visually stylish adaptation of Jean-Christophe Grange's popular novel, the film performed well at the French box office and was nominated for five César Awards. Though mainstream American audiences may have been more familiar with the popular actor/director due to his charming performance as Nino in the art-house hit Amélie (2001), Crimson Rivers proved that as a director Kassovitz still had what it took to make viewer's skin crawl. In 2002, Kassovitz was back in front of the cameras for Asterix and Obelix Meet Cleopatra, and his role as a priest in director Costa-Gavras' controversial drama Amen found the part-time actor nominated for a Best Actor César. The very next year, Kassovitz directed his first English- language film, the Halle Berry thriller Gothika.

Trivia: Bennett, a British character actor, has been onscreen from 1960.

Trivia: Studied and law and was a qualified practitioner before he ventured into acting. First male Singaporean to break into English-speaking roles in Hollywood with his role in Luc Besson's The Fifth Element. Became he first recipient of the BAT Arts Scholarship to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Is the artistic director of W!LD RICE, a theatre company in Singapore which he founded in 2000. Served as Creative Director for Singapore's National Day Parade in 2009. Was awarded the Cultural Medallion, Singapore's highest arts honour, in 2013.

Trivia: Diamond heiress Zeta Graff guest-starred in episodes of Relic Hunter and Sunburn, and took small supporting roles in films and television movies during the late '90s and early 2000s. She made headlines in 2005 when she sued fellow socialite Paris Hilton for defamation of character for comments Hilton made to tabloid reporters about an altercation between the two.