Trivia: Early in her career, it looked as though actress Kristin Scott Thomas was going to be relegated to playing the kind of elegantly bloodless British women she portrayed in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), but with her role as the aristocratic but passionate Katharine Clifton in The English Patient (1996), Scott Thomas broke the mold, proving herself capable of projecting a good deal of sensuality and heat as her character embarked on a tragic affair with a Hungarian adventurer (Ralph Fiennes). The daughter of a Royal Navy pilot who died in an air crash when she was five, Scott Thomas was born the eldest of five children, in Cornwall, on May 24, 1960. When she was 11, tragedy struck again when her stepfather, also a military pilot, met a demise identical to her father's. Scott Thomas was left to help her mother look after the family and -- in contrast to what her film roles would suggest -- her situation was far from aristocratic. Although she had an interest in acting, her mother loathed the idea and sent her daughter to the Cheltenham Ladies College. Scott Thomas dropped out at age 16, spent some time in a convent, and eventually enrolled at London's Central School of Speech and Drama to take a teacher training course. Unable to resist the call of the stage, however, Scott Thomas quietly began studying drama. Unfortunately, the school's drama department advised her to pursue other professions. Scott Thomas was 18 at the time and in addition to being hurt by the drama department's rejection, she was also fed up with school. Seeking to gain perspective on her life, she went to visit some friends in Paris. What originally began as a two-week vacation ended in a permanent change of residence, after Scott Thomas took an au pair job and then fell in love with a Frenchman (she eventually married, and divorced, obstetrician François Olivennes, with whom she has two sons and a daughter).Though her new French friends teased her for being a funny little English girl, Scott Thomas found herself at home in Paris and decided to try acting again. At the encouragement of her friends, she enrolled in L'Ecole Nationale des Arts et Techniques de Theatres, honing her skills and finding the French school to be more supportive than its English counterpart. She gained experience playing small roles on-stage and soon went on to do some television work. After an inauspicious debut playing a headstrong heiress in Prince's Under the Cherry Moon (1986), she worked in a number of French films. In 1988, she was given her first lead in an English film, playing a cool-blooded aristocrat in A Handful of Dust.It wasn't until the 1990s that Scott Thomas began to attain recognition outside of Europe. Two years after starring as Hugh Grant's wife in Roman Polanski's Bitter Moon (1992), she came to the attention of an international audience in Four Weddings and a Funeral. Her second outing with Grant, the film was a sleeper hit, becoming the highest-grossing British film in the country's history. Following the film's success, Scott Thomas applied her talents to smaller films, appearing as Alfred Hitchcock's thorny assistant in the French-Canadian Le Confessionnal (1994) and a plain-Jane entomologist who finds herself embroiled in family dysfunction in Angels & Insects (1995). In 1996, the year of The English Patient, Scott Thomas fully stepped into the glare of the international spotlight, earning a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role in the widely acclaimed film. That same year, she did less-heralded but no less respectable work in Richard III, in which she played the enigmatic Lady Anne, and Mission: Impossible, her first truly big-budget film. With Hollywood now taking full notice, Scott Thomas was cast in a coveted lead role in Robert Redford's 1998 adaptation of Nicholas Evans' The Horse Whisperer. The film proved something of a disappointment, although the actress was praised for her strong performance. The following year, she found herself involved in another high-profile project, starring opposite Harrison Ford in Random Hearts. Playing a woman who discovers that her husband, who died in a plane crash, was having an affair with Ford's wife, who also died in the crash, Scott Thomas again got to demonstrate her ability at embracing roles that went far beyond the confines of the tea-sipping British aristocracy. Subsequent work in Gosford Park and Tell No One kept Thomas busy over the course of the next few years, but it was back-to-back BAFTA nominations in 2009 (I've Loved You So Long) and 2010 (Nowhere Boy) that helped to end the decade on a decidedly positive note for the veteran actress. In 2011, she appeared in Salmon FIshing in the Yemen, and in 2012, played a Frenchwoman seduced by the much younger Robert Pattinson in Bel Ami. The following year, she re-teamed with Ralph Fiennes for The Invisible Woman.

Trivia: Gallic actress Mélanie Thierry began her ascent to fame as a much sought-after child and teen model in France, then moved into acting. She developed an early screen reputation (and seemed typecast in roles for a considerable period of time) as a siren-like waif with a mesmeric quality that invariably bewitched male characters. (For that reason, more than one source openly compared Thierry to onetime Vadim muse Brigitte Bardot.) She began with a series of roles in French productions that failed to travel abroad and thus confined the actress' recognition to her native country. Not long after, however, the actress scored an international crossover hit at age 18 as the lover of ship-bound Danny Boodman T.D. Lemon 1900 (Tim Roth), who very nearly lures him off of the boat where he resides, in Giuseppe Tornatore's "epic fable" The Legend of 1900 (1998); this arrived back to back with a similar turn as a contemporary Esmerelda in director Patrick Timsit's whimsical Hunchback of Notre Dame update Quasimodo d'El Paris (1999). Thierry shifted gears somewhat as the female lead in the supernatural comedy Jojo la Frite (2002), portrayed an injured teenager in Julien Leclercq's Chrysalis (2007), and made her Hollywood debut as one of two romantic leads of action star Vin Diesel in the sci-fi opus Babylon A.D. (2008) -- a U.S.-French international co-production directed by Mathieu Kassovitz.

Trivia: It may be difficult to believe that the slightly wiry and gaunt Czech actor Karel Roden is the same presence who made the Earth tremble as barrel-chested Grigori Rasputin in Hellboy (2004) -- consider it a testament not only to the magnificence of Hollywood special effects, but to Roden's raw versatility. Born in Ceské Budejovice, Czechoslovakia, in 1962, Roden studied drama in Prague and evinced a stunning ability to immerse himself into -- and flesh out -- almost any character. This quality soon carried over into his film and television roles. He tackled most of his early parts in his native country, in such little-seen-abroad films as the 1990 Cas Sluhu and the 1999 Praha Ocima. 2002's Blade II, however -- produced by Marvel Comics and Avi Arad -- finally brought Roden the attention of a wide international audience. He followed it up with a number of additional Hollywood pictures done in a similar genre vein -- usually effects-heavy action or fantasy romps. These included not only the aforementioned Hellboy, but Romeo Is Bleeding (1994), The Bourne Supremacy (2004), and Running Scared (2006). In 2007, he appeared in the comedy Mr. Bean's Holiday as a Russian film director named Emil.

Trivia: Studied at Old Farnley Primary School and Ryecroft Middle School.Performed in his school plays.Started his career as an extra and some speaking roles in Yorkshire Television productions.Was accepted at the East 15 Acting School shortly after turning 18.Joined the Royal Shakespeare Company after graduating from acting school.

Trivia: First role was on a BBC radio play called Kai Mei Sauce in 1993. Was nominated for a British Independent Film Award for his supporting role in Dirty Pretty Things. Made his West End stage debut in 2013 in Chimerica.