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: Born October 4, 1979 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the doe-eyed, fine-boned Rachael Leigh Cook has invited frequent comparisons with the young Audrey Hepburn. The actress began her career at the age of ten as a model, and then broke into acting in 1995 with her role as Mary-Ann Spier in The Baby-Sitters Club. Her next memorable appearance was in The House of Yes (1997), where she played the young Parker Posey. Coincidentally, Freddie Prinze Jr., with whom she would later co-star in She's All That, was also in the film, although they had no scenes together.After The House of Yes, Cook acted in a few forgettable films, the exception being Living Out Loud (1998), in which she played the young Holly Hunter. It was her next film, 1999's She's All That, that garnered her significant attention. As Laney Boggs, Cook went from geek to chic under the tutelage of the most popular boy in school (Prinze Jr.). As the film was essentially billed as an update of My Fair Lady (1964), the comparisons between Cook and Audrey Hepburn seemed particularly apt. Only time will tell if these comparisons extend beyond physical appearance to career trajectory. Taking to the stage (on the screen at least) with her turn in the live adaptation of Josie and the Pussycats, audiences would soon find the attractive actress travelling back in time to the old west in Texas Rangers. An attempt to revive the western from celluloid oblivion, the film documented the true story of the founding of the Texas Rangers and found Cook cast alongside popular actors James Van Der Beek and Oded Fehr. Cook continued to work steadily through the early 2000s, including a recurring role on the show Las Vegas in 2005 and a supporting role in the film Nancy Drew (2007). She also did a stint on prime time drama Psych, in which she played Abigail Lytar, elementary school teacher and ex-girlfriend of the leading character Shawn Spencer (James Roday). In 2012, Cook took on a starring role, opposite Eric McCormack, in the TNT crime drama Perception, playing FBI agent Kate Moretti, which ran for three seasons.

Trivia: Competed in pageants starting at the age of 4. Started a dance troupe in elementary school. Appeared in The Chocolate Nutcracker with the Culture Show Dance Troupe in Los Angeles. Starred in a Snickers commercial alongside Aretha Franklin and Liza Minnelli.

Trivia: Born in Ottawa in 1965, Canadian fashion model-turned-actress Kelly Rowan attended Toronto's Northern Secondary School and the University of Western Ontario, and moved into film roles during her collegiate years -- initially with bit parts in locally produced features such as the period drama The Long Road Home (1989) and Tibor Takacs' horror outing The Gate (1987). Meanwhile, Rowan did print modeling on the side to support herself. She relocated to Southern California shortly thereafter and took her Hollywood bow with guest spots on prime-time television series including Dallas and Growing Pains, and a feature debut with a small role as Peter's mother in Steven Spielberg's fantasy adventure Hook (1991). Numerous additional assignments followed, in both telemovies (Adrift, 1993) and theatrically released features (Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh, 1995) though it was only via her multi-season portrayal of Kirsten Cohen on the prime-time soaper The O.C. (2003) that she truly began to shine. In 2007, Rowan scored prominent billing opposite Freddie Prinze Jr. and Taryn Manning in Vanessa Parise's romantic comedy Jack and Jill vs. the World.

Trivia: African American actor LeVar Burton was a 19-year-old UCLA drama student when he was catapulted into international fame. On January 23, 1977, Burton made his professional debut as young Kunta Kinte, the protagonist of the classic TV miniseries Roots. He went on to give first-rate performances in such TV movies as Dummy (79) and One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story (78). Among LeVar Burton's more conspicuous TV appearances in the past decade have included his hosting chores on PBS' Reading Rainbow and his regular role as sightless Lieutenant Geordi LaForge on the syndicated Star Trek: The Next Generation (87-92). He has continued playing Lt. LaForge in the feature film versions of Star Trek. Burton is also a published author. Aside from the Star Trek films, his big-screen credits include the biopic Ali. Burton has also directed a handful of projects including episodic television, the senior-citizen romantic comedy Reach for Me, and Miracle's Boys - a drama about three brothers growing up in difficult circumstances.

Trivia: American actress Sheryl Lee has come a long way since her screen debut as the enigmatic, beautiful corpse of Laura Palmer, a murdered homecoming queen in David Lynch's surreal TV soap Twin Peaks (1990-1992). Later in the series, Lee got to play Laura's twin cousin, Madeleine Ferguson, until she too was slain. Though playing a dead girl may not have been the most ideal role, it earned Lee considerable fame, though she claims passerby recognizing her on the street would "look startled and look at me as if I were a ghost." She made her feature-film debut playing a supporting role in Lawrence Kasden's I Love You to Death (1990) and then played Glinda the Good Witch in Lynch's Wild at Heart (1990). Lee got to play an alive Laura Palmer in Lynch's panned feature-film prequel to his series, Twin Peaks: Firewalk With Me (1992). She has gone on to play the swinging German photographer who caused the "fifth Beatle" to leave the group in Back Beat (1994) and as Helga Noth in the screen adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night (1996). Though she has appeared in these and other relatively mainstream films, Lee is perhaps best known for appearing in American independent features such as Fall Time (1995) and Notes From the Underground (1996). In addition to her filmwork, Lee also performs in television movies and on-stage. One of her more famous stage roles was that of the title role in the New York production of Salome in which she starred opposite Al Pacino. As her career progresses, Lee has gained a reputation for appearing nude on stage, screen, and television. Though she claims she hates it, the nudity she displays is never exploitative, rather she imbues it with an ethereal quality that defies tawdriness. In 1997, she appeared in the sexually frank drama Bliss as a frustrated wife who visits a tantric sex therapist to learn how to find fulfillment with her spouse.

Trivia: Best known as Jack Arnold, the husband and father with one of the world's softest hearts, on the period comedy drama The Wonder Years (1988-1993), burly actor Dan Lauria's accomplishments as an actor far outstripped that single characterization. Lauria sustained an impressive and versatile career that encompassed soap operas, situation comedies, long-form features and miniseries, and theatrical work, to name only a few arenas. As a young man, the Brooklyn-born Lauria attended Southern Connecticut State University, where he played collegiate football, then enlisted in the Marines. He received formal dramatic training under coaches Constance Welch (at Yale) and Davey Marlin-Jones (at the Washington Theatre Club) -- both of whom tutored him with an approach resolutely opposed to that of the classic "Method." Lauria then debuted onscreen in the early '80s largely with telemovies, such as the 1983 Without a Trace and the 1985 Brass, and with occasional appearances on sitcoms such as Growing Pains. The Wonder Years, of course, represented one of Lauria's most significant breaks, and he later reflected that it would remain his chief legacy as an actor. After Years wrapped in 1993, Lauria continued his small-screen work. He appeared on such programs as ER, Law & Order, Smallville, and Boy Meets World; played legendary network head Fred Silverman in Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Charlie's Angels; and played Crawford in the Martin Lawrence comedy vehicle Big Momma's House 2 (2006). He also maintained a busy theatrical schedule, with a particularly strong presence at L.A.'s Coronet Theater.

Trivia: Although her earthy and somewhat plain appearance might have prevented her from landing the sort of glamorous parts Hollywood seems to reserve for A-list beauty queens, actress Pamela Reed still managed to maintain a healthy career with a series of winning supporting roles. A Washington native who spent the majority of her childhood in Maryland, Reed moved back to the Northwest for an opportunity to work on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. There, she began to study drama at the University of Washington, where she stood out amongst her classmates due to her age (she was nearly 30 when she graduated and began seeking out roles in New York and L.A.). She later appeared off-Broadway in Curse of the Starving Class and impressed audiences with her performance in Aunt Dan and Lemonand her skillful interpretation of Shakespeare in All's Well That Ends Well. In 1978, Reed made her Broadway debut in a production of The November People. With a solid stage resumé, the actress moved to the screen in Walter Hill's 1980 Western The Long Riders. Reed could bring style and depth to even the most threadbare of roles, and in the years that followed, she made a name for herself by essaying key supporting parts in such films as Eyewitness (1981) and The Right Stuff (1983); though her characters rarely broke the mold of supportive wife/girlfriend, her performances were always graceful and believable. Reed took a turn toward the small screen with a role in the 1990 comedy series Grand, and alternated frequently between film and television for the remainder of the decade. From her scene-stealing turn alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop (1990) to her performance as a housewife with a history in the made-for-TV mystery Woman With a Past, Reed proved equally adept at both comedy and drama. Following a memorable role in Tim Robbins' 1992 political satire (and directorial debut) Bob Roberts, the actress returned to television in 1995 for the short-lived comedy series The Home Court. She built a sturdy fan base of Lifetime viewers with such made-for-cable features as The Man Next Door (1995), and continued to appear in such hit features as Bean (1997) and Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998). Reed later starred in the 2000 blockbuster Proof of Life, and appeared in the small-screen drama Book of Days (2003) and Glory Days in 2004.

Trivia: Fair-haired Canadian actor (and Toronto native) Jonathan Scarfe began signing for roles in the late '90s; he specialized predominantly in bit parts and guest roles on television series programs including Murder, She Wrote, NYPD Blue, and especially ER, where he enjoyed a lengthy, multi-episode run as heroin addict Chase Carter (Dr. John Carter's cousin). Scarfe also carved out a frequent presence on telemovies such as Our Mother's Murder (1997), White Lies (1998), and Judas (2004).

Trivia: As Viper pilot (and sometime commanding officer) Lee "Apollo" Adama on the hit sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica, London-born actor Jamie Bamber always defended the human race with a cool head and a quick trigger finger. The offspring of an American father and an Irish mother, Bamber no doubt had to keep his cool growing up as one of seven siblings -- including a younger brother and sisters as well as four older half-brothers -- though his early love of theater no doubt helped him to channel some of that youthful energy into creativity rather than sibling rivalry. Bamber's mother was a former actress in London before their family relocated to France, and it was she who sparked his passion for acting by casting the talented youngster as the Wicked Witch of the West in a children's theater production of The Wizard of Oz staged at the American Cathedral in Paris. Later, after earning his first professional paycheck by dubbing a French film into English while living in France, Bamber and his family moved back to the U.K. and he began to dabble in commercial work. As a student at St. Paul's School in London, Bamber honed his love for the stage and the field by alternating between acting and athletics, eventually moving on to study French and Italian literature at Cambridge. Upon being accepted into the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, however, Bamber finally realized that his calling was on the screen, and after making his dramatic debut in the 1998 miniseries Horatio Hornblower, there was no looking back. In 2001, American television viewers caught their first glimpse of Bamber when he was cast in the Emmy Award-winning World War II miniseries Band of Brothers, with a handful of appearances in the U.K. war series Ultimate Force preceding his part in the 2003 series-starter Battlestar Galactica. Of course, Bamber would remain on roll-call when the series proper began the following year, with additional roles in Cold Case and Ghost Whisperer finding him equally effective outside of the sci-fi genre.

Trivia: Moved from New York to Chicago in 1986 to pursue a career in improv comedy Founded the improv group Jazz Freddy in Chicago in 1992 and performed alongside future Saturday Night Live alum Rachel Dratch and future Conan O'Brien writer Brian Stack. Joined Chicago's legendary improv troupe Second City in 1996. Performs the long-running two-man improv show Pete and Paul Explain It All with Paul Vaillancourt at Improv Olympic West in Los Angeles.

Trivia: Supporting actor Richard Edson first appeared onscreen in Stranger Than Paradise (1984).