Trivia: Grew up in foster care after her biological mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and began attending Laugh Factory Comedy Camp at the age of 15 at the recommendation of her social worker. Developed Chuckles Not Knuckles, a comedy-show program that promotes nonviolence to inner-city students. Performed on a USO Comedy Tour in Japan for U.S. troops. In 2011, was cast in David E. Talbert's national tour of What My Husband Doesn't Know. Performed in Jenny McCarthy's stand-up comedy tour Dirty, Sexy, Funny in 2014.

Trivia: Was the first African American cheerleader at her high school. Worked as a waitress in New York City before beginning career as a model at 17 and appearing in commercials and educational films. Co-founded and performed with R&B/hip hop duo Twise with Marcella "Precise" Brailsford; contributed the track "Paint the World (America's Theme)" to the One Life, Many Voices for Hurricane Relief CD to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina. First regular TV work came in 2004 when she was named co-host of Best Friend's Date on the N Network. Big break came in 2005 when she was cast as Layla Williamson on One Life to Live. Made big screen debut in 2010's Stomp the Yard 2: Homecoming. Made the leap into producing with the 2016 movie Southside With You, in which she plays a young Michelle Obama.

Trivia: Georgia native Omari Hardwick spent his formative years interested mainly in football, playing as a defensive back for the Furman Purple Paladins, and later for the University of Georgia Bulldogs. It was at UG where Hardwick first took an interest in acting, studying his craft in school and acting in a local theater troupe. Hardwick eventually moved to New York to act on Broadway, and later relocated to L.A. to pursue more on-camera roles. His big break came in 2004, when he was cast in Spike Lee's Sucker Free City, and within a few years, Hardwick was regularly appearing on the drama Saved. He stayed with the show for a season, and later made waves with a starring role in another Spike Lee project, 2008's Miracle at St. Anna. This soon led to a comedic turn in the crime comedy Next Day Air and the action comedy Kick Ass. He co-starred with Dylan McDermott in TNT's television series Dark Blue, in which he played a newlywed struggling to balance married liife with a demanding career in law enforcement (2009-2011), and took on a small role in the critically claimed musical drama Sparkle in 2012.

Trivia: Began acting in school and local plays at age 15. Excelled in high school sports and was named a Texal all-state basketball player. Son of former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Billy Brooks and editorial writer Alberta Phillips. Big break came with the role of Matthew Applewhite on Desperate Housewives, for which he earned an Image Award nomination. Included in Daily Variety's Ten Young Actors to Watch in 2005. Landed the role of Tara's love interest Eggs on the vampire series True Blood and played a lawyer on the short-lived The Deep End. Modeling gigs include the racy 2010 video and print ads for Calvin Klein X underwear line.

Trivia: Though best known as an outspoken comedienne, Whoopi Goldberg is also a talented dramatic actress. By virtue of her distinctive appearance and a persona that is both no-nonsense and empathic, Goldberg has emerged as one of the most recognizable celebrities of the '80s and '90s.Born Caryn Johnson on November 13, 1955 in New York City, Goldberg began her long career when she was eight years old, performing with New York's Helena Rubenstein Children's Theater. She then went on to study with the Hudson Guild children's arts program and attended the prestigious High School for the Performing Arts. After graduating, Goldberg occasionally won small parts in Broadway productions such as Hair, Pippin and Jesus Christ Superstar, but also supported herself doing odd jobs like bricklaying and serving as a funeral parlor make-up artist. In 1975, Goldberg moved West and helped found the San Diego Repertory Theater, where she appeared in a number of plays, including Brecht's Mother Courage and Marsha Norman's Getting Out. After several stints with the Spontaneous Combustion improvisational troupe and work in avant-garde productions at Berkeley's Blake Street Hawkeyes theater, Goldberg devised The Spook Show, a one woman satirical production in which she played several characters. The show, which originated in San Francisco, eventually toured the U.S. and Europe, earning acclaim and the attention of director Mike Nichols. Nichols went on to direct a 1984 Broadway version of the show, which earned Goldberg Drama Desk and Theatre World awards, as well as a Grammy for the album recording.Goldberg made an auspicious Hollywood debut with her portrayal of Celie, the lead character in Steven Spielberg's controversial 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker's novel. Goldberg's moving performance was rewarded with an Oscar nomination and Best Actress Golden Globe, as well as instant stardom for the actress. Although Goldberg's film career looked promising, the actress unfortunately spent much of the decade's remainder appearing in terrible action comedies such as Fatal Beauty and Burglar (both 1987) that did not do her comic gifts justice. Her one partial success during this period was her first action comedy, Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986), which did relatively well at the box office and gave her a certain cult status. In 1988, Goldberg took a break from comedy with a memorable turn as a worldly Jamaican nanny in the otherwise unremarkable Clara's Heart. She also made numerous appearances in television specials, most notably as a co-host for the annual Comic Relief benefit for the homeless. Her attempt at sitcoms failed with the short-lived series Bagdad Cafe, but she did find greater television success with a small but crucial recurring role as the sagacious intergalactic bartender Guinan on the syndicated Star Trek: The Next Generation. Around the same time, Goldberg's film career underwent a sharp turn-around. She won acclaim playing a selfless housekeeper opposite Sissy Spacek in the provocative Civil Rights drama The Long Walk Home (1989), and then played an eccentric con artist possessing unexpected psychic powers in the 1990 smash hit Ghost. Goldberg's funny yet moving performance earned her her first Oscar and the widespread opinion that this marked her comeback performance. After a couple of missteps that had a few people rethinking this verdict, Goldberg scored again with the 1992 hit comedy Sister Act. Nominated for Golden Globes and two NAACP awards, the film spawned mass ticket sales and an unsuccessful 1993 sequel, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. Meanwhile, Goldberg also continued her television work with a 1992 late night talk show. A laid back affair that ran for 200 episodes, it was praised by critics but failed to secure high ratings and went on permanent hiatus after only six months. However, Goldberg continued to appear on TV with her recurring role as a Comic Relief co-host and as an MC for the Academy Awards ceremony, a role she reprised multiple times. At the same time, Goldberg continued to work in film, doing both comedy and drama and experiencing the obligatory highs and lows. Some of her more memorable roles included that of a single mother who discovers that Ted Danson, not a black genius, fathered her daughter in Made in America (1993), a lesbian lounge singer in Boys on the Side (1995), a white-middle-aged corporate executive in The Associate (1996), Angela Bassett's best friend in the 1998 hit How Stella Got Her Groove Back, and a private detective in the drama The Deep End of the Ocean (1999). In addition, Goldberg also appeared in two notable documentaries, The Celluloid Closet (1995), and Get Bruce! a piece about comedy writer Bruce Vilanch that also featured fellow comedians such as Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Nathan Lane and Bette Midler.As the new decade dawned, Goldberg could be seen in supporting roles in projects like Rocky and Bullwinkle and the ensemble comedy Rat Race. Then, in 2003, she tried her hand at a starring sitcom role for the first time with Whoopi. The show found Goldberg playing an irreverent hotel owner and was met with mixed reviews before being cancelled mid-season.In 2004, Goldberg focused her career on voice work with appearances in Doogal, The Lion King 1 1/2, and P3K: Pinocchio3000. She continued this trend in the following years with such films as Racing Stripes and Everyone's Hero. Then, in 2007, Goldberg returned to the small-screen, replacing Rosie O'Donnell on the ABC panel show The View. Goldberg lent her voice to Pixar's Toy Story 3 in 2010, and as the narrator for 2011's documentary Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey.

Trivia: Amber Riley swears she began singing at age 2 and hasn't stopped since. She auditioned at 17 for American Idol but was rejected. Ironically, she landed at FOX as diva Mercedes Jones on Glee and belted out the National Anthem (again on FOX) before Game 3 of the 2009 World Series. The La Mirada, CA, native honed her craft appearing in numerous theater productions, including Alice in Wonderland, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Into the Woods, and Mystery on the Docks with the Los Angeles Opera. Riley first worked with Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy in 2002 when he cast her in his WB sitcom pilot St. Sass. Although the pilot wasn't picked up, the experience helped Riley land a part in the ensemble cast of Cedric the Entertainer Presents. She made her big-screen debut with the 2011 documentary Glee Live! In Concert!

Trivia: Born Andrea Kay Pyle in Houston, TX, a six-month-old Pyle was given the fateful nickname of "Little Missi," which would stick to her throughout her childhood and to the present day. Pyle was infatuated with acting by the age of 13, and attended Germantown High School in Tennessee, one of the top three performing-arts high schools in the United States. While there, Pyle was tapped as a lead singer in several musical productions, though her eventual goal remained a career in television and film. After graduation from Germantown High, Pyle was accepted to the prestigious North Carolina School of the Arts and was cast as the female lead in a series of Shakespearean productions. During the summer, she crossed the Atlantic to attend the Oxford School of Drama in England, where she further honed her acting skills.By 1996, Pyle had made her film debut in The Cottonwood, which followed a group of wannabe actors hoping to use their lottery winnings to score big in Hollywood. Pyle's breakout role, however, wouldn't come until several years later, when she played a supporting role as a love-struck alien in Galaxy Quest alongside Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver. Though the early 2000s did little to bring Pyle much in the way of mainstream success, they nonetheless helped the actress develop a loyal fan base; her performances in The Wayne Brady Show, Ally McBeal, and Josie and the Pussycats (all 2001) were solid enough to grab the attention of several prominent casting directors. Surely enough, by 2003, Pyle had been chosen for a supporting role in Bringing Down the House with Steve Martin and Queen Latifah, as well as a small but indelible role in Tim Burton's big-budget fantasy comedy Big Fish (2003). In 2004, Pyle worked with Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly and lent her support to Soul Plane and 50 First Dates. Working with Stiller proved a lucky experience for Pyle, who accepted a larger supporting role in Stiller's Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), which also stars fellow Galaxy Quest alumni Justin Long. When she isn't filming, Pyle continues her work with the all-female sketch comedy group Bitches and Funny.

Trivia: Won Laugh Factory's Laugh Bowl college competition during his senior year at University of Southern California. Was given the John Ritter Memorial Award for Outstanding Comedic Performance. Was selected by his classmates as commencement speaker for his graduating class at the BFA Acting Conservatory at USC. Performed stand-up on open mic nights at the Comic Strip club in New York City. Was a member of comic group The Groundlings. Joined the cast of Saturday Night Live for the show's 41st season, as a featured player.

Trivia: South Carolina-born African American comedian Chris Rock grew up in Brooklyn and projected a marked aptitude for comedy early in life. Rock traveled the New York club circuit during his adolescence, so aggressively and persistently that he established himself as a seasoned veteran by his late teens. He happened to be performing at the New York Comedy Strip c. 1984, when his break arrived in the form of an audience visit by one Eddie Murphy. Deeply impressed with the then eighteen-year-old rising star, Murphy cast him in his forthcoming Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), as a parking valet. It hardly constituted a breakout performance, but the role and newfound connection with Eddie Murphy helped Rock land a couple of small supporting roles, and eventually a spot on NBC's hallowed Saturday Night Live, from 1990-93. During his SNL stint, Rock also periodically guest-starred in fellow comedian Keenan Ivory Wayans' African American sketch comedy series In Living Color. In 1991, Rock broke from comedy in favor of a more dramatic role, and his performance as a surprisingly innocent crack addict-cum-informant in Mario Van Peebles' New Jack City attracted a substantial amount of favorable attention; Roger Ebert praised Rock as "effortlessly authentic and convincing."One could argue with some foundation that the role in New Jack City is indicative of Rock's driving force (i.e., the politics of modern society and race within the contextual framework of American culture). Although Rock employs comedic delivery, many of his favorite topics are quite grave, and Rock's ability to confront these issues, cloaked in ribald humor, helped launch his career during the late '90s. While his 1993 screenwriting debut, on Tamra Davis's CB4: The Movie, received lukewarm reviews at best, Rock established himself as a household name after his scathing HBO comedy special Bring the Pain (1996) earned him two Emmy awards and a significantly larger fan base. The same year, he received a third Emmy for his work as a writer and correspondent for Comedy Central's Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. Then, in 1997, the successes of Rock's stand-up, his contributions to Saturday Night Live and In Living Color, his film roleass, and his work on Bring the Pain collectively inspired HBO to sign Rock for a sketch comedy series, The Chris Rock Show, that ran from 1997 to 2000. The program borrowed the formats of Saturday Night Live and In Living Color, yet it upped the vulgarity, volatility, and presence of hot-button contemporary issues - in addition to the intelligence. In addition to Rock, the program featured a cast of up-and-coming African American comics, such as Wanda Sykes and Mario Joyner. The program ran to sensational reviews. Rock's film career expanded throughout the late '90s, and the young comic won particular notice for his role as a hot-headed law enforcement agent in 1998's Lethal Weapon 4 opposite Danny Glover and Mel Gibson, and later for Kevin Smith's irreverent Dogma(1999), as a bitter apostle of Jesus. He also published a book titled Rock This! with much success. Though Dogma received mixed reviews, in 1999 Rock mounted his second HBO comedy special, Bigger & Blacker, which found the comedian addressing topics from gun control to Bill Clinton and proper parenting techniques. In late 2000, Rock played an obnoxious hitman equipped with an incredibly inventive string of obscenities in Neil La Bute's controversial black comedy Nurse Betty, alongside Renee Zellweger and Morgan Freeman.In 2001, Rock put his screenwriting abilities to the test in Down to Earth, a remake of 1941's Here Comes Mr. Jordan, and again in Pootie Tang, a feature spin-off of one of the characters from The Chris Rock Show. In 2001, Rock voiced one of the characters in Steven Spielberg's A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and another in Osmosis Jones, and rejoined Kevin Smith for a cameo in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. In 2002, Rock was one of several comedians featured in Christian Charles' documentary Comedian, and in the same year starred opposite Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins as a CIA spy in the Joel Schumacher-directed action comedy dud Bad Company. Rock then directed, co-wrote and starred in 2003's Head of State as an unlikely presidential candidate for the Democratic party.Head of State divided critics; most felt nonplussed, or espoused mixed feelings, such as The Los Angeles Times's Manohla Dargis, who mused, " Rock can't set up a decent-looking shot, and… doesn't care about niceties such as character development… but…nonetheless wrings biting humor from serious issues with the… ferocity [of]… Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce." After Head, Rock's big screen activity diminished just a bit; he voiced Marty the Zebra in the CG-animated, family-oriented features Madagascar (2005) and Madagascar 2 (2008), but his most frequent turn during this period arrived in the form of a new semiautobiographical sitcom on UPN, Everybody Hates Chris, that debuted in September 2005. As written and produced by Rock, it cast Tyler James Williams as a younger version of the comedian, during the early '80s, who lives in the steel-tough area of Bedford-Stuyvesant and is bused, each day, to a school full of Italian Americans. As narrated by Rock, this sweet, gentle, nostalgic and witty program caught everyone off guard and drew outstanding ratings during late 2005 "TV Sweeps"; New York Times correspondent Alessandra Stanley was certainly not alone when she praised it as "charming" and compared it favorably to The Cosby Show - high praise, indeed.In 2007, Rock returned to cinemas, posing a quadruple threat (writer/producer/ director/star) with the adults-only sex comedy I Think I Love My Wife. In that picture (a remake of Eric Rohmer's Chloe in the Afternoon!) Rock plays Richard Cooper, a suburban investment banker saddled with a wife and two kids, who finds it increasingly difficult to avoid delving into a rich world of sexual fantasies, and then to avoid an imminent affair with a gorgeous "old friend" (Kerry Washington) seeking career advice. I Think I Love My Wife took its stateside bow in mid-March 2007, to reviews as mixed as anything in Rock's prior career; most critics either loved or hated it; a few responded ambivalently. Rock took on a supporting role in 2012's What to Expect When You're Expecting, and voiced the character of Marty the Zebra in Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted the same year. He resprised his role in Grown Ups 2 in 2013. In 2014, he wrote, directed and starred in Top Five.