Trivia: After a series of supporting roles in productions including The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), Just My Luck (2006), and Smokin' Aces (2007), actor Chris Pine shot up to lead billing when he signed for the coveted lead part of Captain Kirk in J.J. Abrams' much-anticipated reboot of the Star Trek franchise, released in 2009. He followed up that smash hit playing opposite Denzel Washington and a runaway train in Unstoppable. In 2011 he participated in the Star Trek documentary The Captains, and the next year he was in the romantic comedy This Means War, and the drama People Like Us.

Trivia: One of Hollywood's most prominent strong, silent types, Kevin Costner was for several years the celluloid personification of the baseball industry, given his indelible mark with baseball-themed hits like Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, and For Love of the Game. His epic Western Dances with Wolves marked the first break from this trend and established Costner as a formidable directing talent to boot. Although several flops in the late '90s diminished his bankability, for many, Costner remained one of the industry's most enduring and endearing icons.A native of California, Costner was born January 18, 1955, in Lynnwood. While a marketing student at California State University in Fullerton, he became involved with community theater. Upon graduation in 1978, Costner took a marketing job that lasted all of 30 days before deciding to take a crack at acting. After an inauspicious 1974 film debut in the ultra-cheapie Sizzle Beach USA, Costner decided to take a more serious approach to acting. Venturing down the usual theater-workshop, multiple-audition route, the actor impressed casting directors who weren't really certain of how to use him. That may be one reason why Costner's big-studio debut in Night Shift (1982) consisted of little more than background decoration, and the same year's Frances featured the hapless young actor as an off-stage voice.Director Lawrence Kasdan liked Costner enough to cast him in the important role of the suicide victim who motivated the plot of The Big Chill (1983). Unfortunately, his flashback scenes were edited out of the movie, leaving all that was visible of the actor -- who had turned down Matthew Broderick's role in WarGames to take the part -- to be his dress suit, along with a fleeting glimpse of his hairline and hands as the undertaker prepared him for burial during the opening credits. Two years later, a guilt-ridden Kasdan chose Costner for a major part as a hell-raising gunfighter in the "retro" Western Silverado (1985), this time putting him in front of the camera for virtually the entire film. He also gained notice for the Diner-ish buddy road movie Fandango. The actor's big break came two years later as he burst onto the screen in two major films, No Way Out and The Untouchables; his growing popularity was further amplified with a brace of baseball films, released within months of one another. In Bull Durham (1988), the actor was taciturn minor-league ballplayer Crash Davis, and in the following year's Field of Dreams he was Ray Kinsella, a farmer who constructs a baseball diamond in his Iowa cornfield at the repeated urging of a voice that intones "if you build it, he will come."Riding high on the combined box-office success of these films, Costner was able to make his directing debut. With a small budget of 18 million dollars, he went off to the Black Hills of South Dakota to film the first Western epic that Hollywood had seen in years, a revisionist look at American Indian-white relationships titled Dances With Wolves (1990). The supposedly doomed project, in addition to being one of '90s biggest moneymakers, also took home a slew of Academy Awards, including statues for Best Picture and Best Director (usurping Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas).Costner's luck continued with the 1991 costume epic Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; this, too, made money, though it seriously strained Costner's longtime friendship with the film's director, Kevin Reynolds. The same year, Costner had another hit -- and critical success -- on his hands with Oliver Stone's JFK. The next year's The Bodyguard, a film which teamed Costner with Whitney Houston, did so well at the box office that it seemed the actor could do no wrong. However, his next film, A Perfect World (1993), directed by Clint Eastwood and casting the actor against type as a half-psycho, half-benign prison escapee, was a major disappointment, even though Costner himself garnered some acclaim. Bad luck followed Perfect World in the form of another cast-against-type failure, the 1994 Western Wyatt Earp, which proved that Lawrence Kasdan could have his off days.Adding insult to injury, Costner's 1995 epic sci-fi adventure Waterworld received a whopping amount of negative publicity prior to opening due to its ballooning budget and bloated schedule; ultimately, its decent box office total in no way offset its cost. The following year, Costner was able to rebound somewhat with the romantic comedy Tin Cup, which was well-received by the critics and the public alike. Unfortunately, he opted to follow up this success with another large-scaled directorial effort, an epic filmization of author David Brin's The Postman. The 1997 film featured Costner as a Shakespeare-spouting drifter in a post-nuclear holocaust America whose efforts to reunite the country give him messianic qualities. Like Waterworld, The Postman received a critical drubbing and did poorly with audiences. Costner's reputation, now at an all-time low, received some resuscitation with the 1998 romantic drama Message in a Bottle, and later the same year he returned to the genre that loved him best with Sam Raimi's baseball drama For Love of the Game. A thoughtful reflection on the Cuban missile crisis provided the groundwork for the mid-level success Thirteen Days (2000), though Costner's next turn -- as a member of a group of Elvis impersonating casino bandits in 3000 Miles to Graceland -- drew harsh criticism, relegating it to a quick death at the box office. Though Costner's next effort was a more sentimental supernatural drama lamenting lost love, Dragonfly (2002) was dismissed by many as a cheap clone of The Sixth Sense and met an almost equally hasty fate.Costner fared better in 2003, and returned to directing, with Open Range, a Western co-starring himself and the iconic Robert Duvall -- while it was no Dances With Wolves in terms of mainstream popularity, it certainly received more positive feedback than The Postman or Waterworld. In 2004, Costner starred alongside Joan Allen in director Mike Binder's drama The Upside of Anger. That picture cast Allen as an unexpectedly single, upper-middle class woman who unexpectedly strikes up a romance with the boozy ex-baseball star who lives next door (Costner). Even if divided on the picture as a whole, critics unanimously praised the lead performances by Costner and Allen.After the thoroughly dispiriting (and critically drubbed) quasi-sequel to The Graduate, Rumor Has It..., Costner teamed up with Fugitive director Andrew Davis for the moderately successful 2006 Coast Guard thriller The Guardian, co-starring Ashton Kutcher and Hollywood ingenue Melissa Sagemiller.Costner then undertook another change-of-pace with one of his first psychological thrillers: 2007's Mr. Brooks, directed by Bruce A. Evans. Playing a psychotic criminal spurred on to macabre acts by his homicidal alter ego (William Hurt), Costner emerged from the critical- and box-office failure fairly unscathed. He came back swinging the following year with a starring role in the comedy Swing Vote, playing a small town slacker whose single vote is about to determine the outcome of a presidential election. Costner's usual everyman charm carried the movie, but soon he was back to his more somber side, starring in the recession-era drama The Company Men in 2010 alongside Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones. As the 2010's rolled on, Costner's name appeared often in conjunction with the Quentin Tarantino film Django Unchained prior to filming, but scheduling conflicts would eventually prevent the actor from participating in the project. He instead signed on for the latest Superman reboot, playing Clark Kent's adoptive dad on Planet Earth in Man of Steel.

Trivia: Perhaps the best-known Shakespeare interpreter of the late 20th century, Kenneth Branagh began his career in a golden haze of critical exultation. First a star pupil at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (one of Britain's most prestigious drama schools), then a promising newcomer on the London stage, then hailed as "the next Olivier" for his 1989 screen adaptation of Henry V, Branagh could, for a long time, do no wrong. Unfortunately, a string of bad luck, catalyzed by his disastrous Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in 1994, began to tarnish the halo that had hovered above the actor/director's head. His lavish, four-hour Hamlet in 1996, however, did much to further his status as a man who knew his Bard, helping to alleviate some of the disappointments that both preceded and came after it.Although his accent suggests otherwise, Branagh originally hails from Northern Ireland, not England. Born in Belfast December 10, 1960, to a working-class family, he was raised in the strife-ridden section of the country until he was nine. Leaving Belfast to escape its troubles, his family relocated to Reading, England, where Branagh spent the remainder of his childhood and adolescence. By turns bookish and athletic -- and assuming an English accent at school while remaining Irish at home -- Branagh became interested in acting at the age of 15, after seeing Derek Jacobi perform Hamlet (the two would later collaborate numerous times both in film and on the stage). Immersing himself in all things theatrical, Branagh was accepted at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) in London when he was 18.For Branagh, RADA formed the beginning of a brilliant career. The young actor drew repeated acclaim, particularly for his titular performance in a production of Hamlet, and won the school's coveted Bancroft Award for his work. After graduation, he went on to further success on the West End stage, where he starred opposite Rupert Everett in a 1982 production of Another Country. For his portrayal of a conflicted schoolboy, the actor won the Society of West End Theatres' Most Promising Newcomer Award. The following year, he further ascended his adopted country's theatrical ranks, securing a coveted membership in the Royal Shakespeare Company. Branagh continued to enjoy almost consistent critical appreciation during his tenure with the company, garnering particular praise for his lead performance in a production of Henry V. He became increasingly unhappy, however, with the RSC's bureaucratic organization and stuffiness and, in 1987, quit to form the Renaissance Theatre Company with his friend David Parfitt. The idea for the company came to Branagh while he was making the acclaimed Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of Fortunes of War in 1987. That production was one of many he did for television during his time with the RSC, and it was during that period that he met Emma Thompson, whom he married in 1989 and cast in almost all his films until their 1995 divorce.Although Renaissance struggled at first -- its premiere effort, a production of Public Enemy, met with across-the-board disapproval -- it gained a reputation for quality work, and soon counted such vaunted performers as Judi Dench, Richard Briers, and Derek Jacobi among its ranks, many of whom were later cast in Branagh's directorial debut, Henry V. The 1989 film, a sober, mud-saturated affair that served as a stark contrast to Olivier's 1944 version (which was intended to boost England's national pride), brought Branagh international acclaim and recognition. He was soon being hailed by many a publication as "the next Olivier," a title which he repeatedly stated made him uncomfortable. The next Olivier or not, Branagh was nominated for Best Director and Best Actor Oscars for his work, and went on to win other honors, including British Academy and National Board of Review Best Director awards.Riding high on this success, Branagh rather cheekily published his autobiography, Beginning, at the advanced age of 28. Although it was labeled a little premature and more than a little ego-driven, the book further played into his mystique, which was heightened in 1991 with his Hollywood debut. That year, he directed and starred opposite Thompson in Dead Again, a stylish, Hitchcock-inspired romantic thriller. The film was both a critical and commercial success, and the two were soon being labeled "the royal couple of British cinema." Branagh's next effort, the 1992 ensemble comedy Peter's Friends, was of comparatively lackluster character. Starring Branagh, Thompson, co-writer Rita Rudner, and comedians Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, it received some positive reviews, but was largely regarded as a disappointment. Fortunately for Branagh, he had better luck that year with the Bard, turning out a sun-soaked, giddy adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing, which found favor with audiences and critics alike. That same year, he garnered additional acclaim, directing the short film Swan Song and winning an Best Live Action Short Academy Award nomination for his work.Things began to go badly in 1994 with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which Branagh both directed and cast himself as the mad doctor. Winning a dubious honor as one of the year's worst movies, Frankenstein had many doubting the director's hitherto golden touch. An adaptation of Othello the following year, in which Branagh was cast as Iago in Oliver Parker's directorial debut, received a similarly lackluster reception. Branagh's other film that year, In the Bleak Midwinter, went largely unseen, though he bounced back to a degree the following year with his all-star, uncut, 1996 adaptation of Hamlet. Clocking in at four hours and featuring a peroxided Branagh as the Danish prince, Julie Christie as Gertrude, Kate Winslet as Ophelia, Derek Jacobi as Claudius, and such actors as Robin Williams, Charlton Heston, and Jack Lemmon in other roles, it was hardcore Shakespeare for the masses. Although many potential audience members were scared off by the film's length, it won a number of positive reviews, and Branagh garnered a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar nomination.Unfortunately, Branagh's subsequent efforts met with either disdain or indifference. Falling into the latter category were The Proposition, The Theory of Flight, and Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man, which cast him as, respectively, a priest, an eccentric inventor, and a philandering Southern lawyer. Woody Allen's Celebrity settled thornily into the former category, with Branagh earning almost unanimous critical scorn for his portrayal of the film's neurotic, Allen-esque protagonist. Many critics noted that he seemed to be trying to out-Allen Allen, with unfortunate results. In 1999, Branagh embraced a dastardly, camp sensibility to play the villain in the big-budget Western fantasy Wild Wild West. He did manage to win some of the only positive comments that critics had for the film. Off the screen, he was still keeping busy with Shakespeare, adapting Love's Labour's Lost into a perplexing, '30s-style musical featuring the likes of Alicia Silverstone, Matthew Lillard, and Nathan Lane. A variety of leading roles in better-received features followed in 2002, however, including Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rabbit-Proof Fence, and the TV miniseries Shackleton.Branagh continued his highly-respected stage career, even though his movie work contained duds like the remake of Sleuth, though he did find success on the small screen playing a detective in the series Wallander.In 2011 Branagh enjoyed his biggest popular and critics success in quite some time, scoring a worldwide smash as the director of the Marvel Superhero movie Thor, and earned raves for his portrayal of Laurence Olivier in My Week With Marilyn, a part that garnered him Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild nominations for Best Supporting Actor.

Trivia: Pixie-ish British actress Keira Knightley went from a relative unknown to a blockbuster leading lady after 2002's sleeper soccer flick Bend It Like Beckham caught on with an international audience. Born in Teddington, London, England, in 1985, young Knightley was enticed by the lure of cinema at an early age. Playwright mother Sharman McDonald and actor father Will Knightley were at first reluctant to let their daughter follow them into show business. Although they would accommodate her wish three years later, their strict demand that their daughter study through school holidays and only take jobs that didn't interfere with her education ensured that Keira would keep her priorities straight.Trained in dance from an early age, Knightley made her film debut when she was 12 in Moira Armstrong's romantic drama A Village Affair. Gradually climbing the credits with subsequent roles in Innocent Lies (1995) and the made-for-TV features Treasure Seekers (1996) and Coming Home (1998), she got her first big break when cast as the decoy queen in the eagerly anticipated Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Knightley resembled the actual queen (portrayed by Natalie Portman) so much that her mother couldn't distinguish the two and some fans still insist both were portrayed by Portman. Returning to non-decoy status for the television miniseries Oliver Twist (2000), Knightley stayed with the small screen as Robin Hood's daughter in the 2001 adventure Princess of Thieves. Although audiences would truly begin to take note of her talent in the thriller The Hole that same year, her star-making turn in the sleeper comedy drama Bend It Like Beckham endeared her to audiences everywhere and ultimately served as her breakthrough starring role. Playing the best friend to Parminder K. Nagra, Knightley proved that she could turn what might have been little more than a noteworthy supporting role into a truly spunky, scene-stealing performance. As Lara Antipova in the 2002 miniseries Doctor Zhivago, Knightley gracefully slipped into a role that was previously made famous by Julie Christie, and the timeless romantic drama proved a hit with U.K. television viewers. With the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, however, the actress was catapulted into an entirely new realm of popularity. Opposite Johnny Depp's truly eccentric portrayal of pirate Jack Sparrow, Knightley charmed as the beautiful young maiden whose blood may hold the key to life for a group of undead pirates.While King Arthur (2004) and Domino (2005) were high-profile flops, Knightley's status as a movie-star on both sides of the pond was firmly cemented in early 2006 when she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her role in 2005's Pride & Prejudice. 2006 also saw the release of the sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which was shot back-to-back with the franchise's third entry, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which was scheduled for release in 2007. In the meantime, Knightley forged ahead on the period drama Silk, opposite Michael Pitt. As the decade wore on, Knightly remained a fixed presence on screen, appearing in such films as The Duchess, London Boulevard, A Dangerous Method, Anna Karenina, and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.Knightley appeared in a pair of indie films in 2014, {Laggies and Begin Again, as well as the big-budget action film Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. However, she earned the most praise that year for her supporting turn in The Imitation Game, playing a woman who helps crack German codes during WWII. She garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her work in that film, which also scored Best Picture and Best Actor nods.

Trivia: A former theatre and psychology major at the University of Michigan, actor David Paymer's first Broadway success was in the long-running musical Grease. He tentatively launched his film career in the tiny but telling role of a cabbie in 1979's The In-Laws, then returned to working "live" as a performer and writer for The Comedy Store. A character actor even in his early twenties, Paymer displayed his versatility in a wealth of TV supporting roles on such weeklies as Cagney and Lacey, Diff'rent Strokes, The Commish and Downtown. Billy Crystal was so impressed with Paymer's work as ice-cream entrepreneur Ira Shalowitz in City Slickers (1991) that Crystal assigned him the plum role of Stan Yankelman, long-suffering brother and business manager of Berle-like comedian Buddy Young Jr., in Mister Saturday Night (1992). Convincingly playing an age range from 20 to 75, Paymer was honored with an Oscar nomination. Dividing his time between working in films and teaching classes at the Film Actor's Workshop, David Paymer has recently been seen as the angelic Hal in Heart and Souls (1993) and real-life TV producer Dan Enright in Robert Redford's Quiz Show (1994). In the decades to come, Paymer would remain an ever-present force on screen, appearing in films like In Good Company, Drag Me to Hell, Bad Teacher, and Redbelt, as well as TV shows like Line of Fire and The Good Wife.

Trivia: A classically trained stage star in his adopted home of Canada, Colm Feore became an increasingly familiar presence to movie and TV audiences as a prolific supporting actor in the 1990s.Though he was born in the U.S. and spent the first years of his life in Ireland, Feore and his family moved to Ottawa when he was three and Canada became his official home. After studying acting at Canada's National Theater School, Feore built a distinguished Canadian stage career, performing in over 40 productions during 13 seasons with the prestigious Stratford Festival.Feore began adding film and TV to his acting experience in the late '80s with such movies as Iron Eagle II (1988), Bethune: The Making of a Hero (1989), Beautiful Dreamers (1991) and Truman (1995). His non-stage career expanded further in the latter half of the 1990s and into the 2000s with numerous roles in a wide range of projects likeFace/Off, The Wrong Guy (1998), City of Angels, Titus (1999), and Michael Mann's Oscar-nominated docudrama, The Insider (1999). Though he spent part of 2000 acting in the New York Public Theater production of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Feore was soon back in front of the cameras in an eclectic mix of works, like off-center murder mystery The Caveman's Valentine (2001) and played Admiral Kimmel in Michael Bay's overblown blockbuster Pearl Harbor (2001). As the years rolled on, Feore would continue to remain an active force on screen, appearing in movies like Chicago, Paycheck, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Changeling, and Thor. Feore would also find success on the small screen on shows like 24 and The Borgias.

Trivia: Parents came to England from Nigeria in the 1970s to go to school. Was one of the youngest actors to portray King Lear when he appeared in a Royal Shakespeare Company production in 2002. Won the Ian Charleston Award for his work as the title character in the Cheek by Jowl theatre company's production of Othello in 2005.

Trivia: Studied law at the University of Oxford, but declined a job at the law firm Slaughter and May after graduation, and chose to pursue a career in acting. Reached the final 3 in the first series of Sky One's Project Catwalk in 2006. Worked as a model for a year to raise money for drama school, applying without her parents' knowledge. Appeared in the play Turandot at the Hampstead Theatre in London in 2008. Sold the dress she wore to the 2013 BAFTA Awards for eBay's Big Charity 50, donating the money to Breast Cancer Care.

Trivia: Grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana.Used to wear dreadlocks when he was young.Decided to pursue a career in the entertainment industry after graduating from college.Started acting in commercials.Used to model for catalogs.Is a fan of The Crown series.Is skilled at drawing.

Trivia: Made his Broadway debut in Sunday in the Park with George in 2007. Won a 2010 Drama Desk Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role in Brighton Beach Memoirs. Sang "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story during his audition for Frozen; he recorded his part as Prince Hans in just five sessions scheduled around his Broadway run in Cinderella. Sang with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir three times in the space of a year in 2014-15, a first for any guest artist. Owns the action figure of his Prince Hans character that "looks nothing like me," says Fontana. Ended his run in Cinderella on Broadway just three weeks before his eventual wife, Jessica Hershberg, would play Ella twice a week in the same show.

Trivia: Moved to Toronto from India with her family when she was a year old. Studied jazz and gospel at Berklee College of Music on a scholarship. Made her professional acting debut in the West End musical Mamma Mia!. Released her first EP, The Live Sessions, in 2008. Was injured on the set of Castle while performing a stunt. Released a charity Christmas album, My Christmas List, in 2010 to raise money for a housing and homelessness shelter.

Trivia: British supporting actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Was awarded the Raul Julia Prize for Excellence at The Julliard School.Is an Ensemble Studio Theatre member.Has training in law enforcement tactical weapons.Also writes and composes music.Made his Broadway debut as George Murchison in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin In The Sun.

Trivia: Lead actor, onscreen from the late '80s.

Trivia: The talented, prolific, and in-demand screenwriter David Koepp was the mind behind many of the late-'90s and early-2000s biggest pictures. Writing for directors such as Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, Ron Howard, and Brian De Palma, Koepp was responsible for penning some of the highest-grossing films of all time. Comfortable working within any genre, Koepp takes pride in creating both character-driven pieces, like De Palma's Carlito's Way (1993) and his own Stir of Echoes (1999), and unforgettable action sequences like the T-Rex/jeep chase in Spielberg's Jurassic Park and Tom Cruise's aerial infiltration of the CIA in De Palma's Mission: Impossible (1996).Raised in the Midwest, Koepp began writing short stories in grade school. He eventually enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied playwriting and acting (his uncle was actor Claude Akins). More impressed with Koepp's writing than his acting, a professor convinced him to move out West and take up screenwriting. Koepp transferred to the University of California at Los Angeles, and began studying screenwriting techniques and film history. After graduating in 1986, he accepted a full-time position with a film distributor that allowed him time to write at night. Then, while working as a script reader, he met actor/director Martin Donovan who asked Koepp to collaborate on what would become his first feature film.Together with Donovan, Koepp wrote Apartment Zero (1988), a psychosexual thriller featuring Colin Firth as a shy cinephile who rents to a mysterious lodger in order to support his failing movie theater. The project turned out to be a moderate success. In the meantime, Koepp's fifth spec script, a thriller called Bad Influence (1990), had made its way around Hollywood. Universal Studios executive Casey Silver offered to produce the piece if Koepp turned it into a comedy. The screenwriter declined, and held out until director Curtis Hanson agreed to film it as is. Starring James Spader and Rob Lowe, Bad Influence tells the story of a timid financial analyst who becomes entangled with a psychopathic stranger. The final product still dazzled Casey Silver, who offered Koepp a rare and highly coveted job as a contract screenwriter on the Universal lot, which gave him access to the studio's top projects and allowed him to freelance for other companies.Koepp went to work on Daniel Petrie Jr.'s Toy Soldiers (1991). Based on the novel by William P. Kennedy, the film features Sean Astin, Wil Wheaton, and Keith Coogan as teenagers who must defend their boarding school from Colombian terrorists. Reviewers nicknamed the picture "Red Dawn meets Dead Poets Society," but it has since become a cult favorite. Koepp then re-teamed with Martin Donovan to compose Robert Zemeckis' Death Becomes Her (1992), an inventive black comedy starring Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and Bruce Willis. Shortly afterward, Universal asked Koepp to co-write Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park (1994). The film -- about a theme park populated with real dinosaurs that are created from prehistoric DNA molecules -- was at the time the highest-grossing movie in history.Despite his success in blockbusters, Koepp made his next two films more personal, people-driven dramas. In 1993, he condensed author Edwin Torres' two-part character study of a professional criminal into Brian De Palma's celebrated Carlito's Way, which stars Al Pacino in the title role. Then, in 1994, he collaborated with his brother, Stephen Koepp (a writer for Time magazine), on Ron Howard's The Paper. Called "the Best Journalism Film Ever," by Larry King, The Paper features Michael Keaton, Robert Duvall, and Glenn Close as the eccentric staff of a New York City daily newspaper.After adapting the classic radio series The Shadow (1994), for Russell Mulcahy, Koepp tried his own hand at directing. He wrote and helmed the short film Suspicious, starring Janeane Garofalo and Michael Rooker. Based on the urban legend about a woman that had a man with an ax hiding in the back of her car, the short appeared at film festivals, on PBS, and on the SCI FI Channel. Koepp then co-wrote 1996's Mission: Impossible for De Palma before writing and directing his first feature, The Trigger Effect (1996). The film, which paid distinct homage to an episode of The Twilight Zone that starred Koepp's uncle, featured Dermot Mulroney, Kyle MacLachlan, and Elisabeth Shue as Californians coping with an unexplained national power outage.In the late '90s, Koepp returned to Spielberg's lucrative Jurassic Park franchise to write its second installment, The Lost World (1997). This time, he even gave himself a role in the film: Making his acting debut as "Unlucky Bastard," Koepp is gobbled by a Tyrannosaurus Rex that takes over San Diego. Though he earned 1.5 million dollars for his efforts on the sequel, Koepp chose not to be part of Jurassic Park III (2001). After penning Snake Eyes (1998), his third screenplay for Brian De Palma, Koepp directed his second feature film, Stir of Echoes (1999). Based on pulp writer Richard Matheson's novel (which Koepp discovered while rummaging through a used book store), the psychological thriller follows a telephone lineman (Kevin Bacon) who begins to see ghosts after he is hypnotized at a party. Produced by Artisan Entertainment and shot on location in Chicago, the haunting, low-budget film was a minor hit.The new millennium saw Koepp returning to blockbusters. His spec script for David Fincher's Panic Room (2002) sold in a major bidding war to Columbia Pictures for four million dollars. Starring Jodie Foster as a woman trapped in the "panic room" of a New York City town house that is infiltrated by burglars, the much-hyped film broke box-office records in its opening weekend. Columbia also tapped Koepp to write its highly anticipated big-screen adaptation of Marvel Comics' biggest franchise, Spider-Man (2002). Directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire, Koepp remained the only credited screenwriter on the film, which was based on a treatment by James Cameron. Also in 2002, he sold his original script, The Superconducting Supercollider of Sparkle Creek (co-written with John Kamps), to Disney and planned on not only writing but directing the adaptation of Stephen King's novella Secret Window, Secret Garden. He also developed the CBS show Hack -- about a cop-turned-taxi driver -- for the network's Fall 2002 lineup, and made his second onscreen appearance in Barry Sonnenfeld's Big Trouble (2002).

Trivia: Mace Neufeld has produced a number of popular feature films and influential television productions. Born and raised in New York City, he first gained fame as a photographer in 1944, with his photograph of a veteran returning from the war, "Sammy's Home." The snapshot earned him ten national awards, including the Eastman Kodak First National Salon of Photography's grand prize and the designation of Picture of the Year by New York's World Telegram-Sun. Neufeld graduated from Yale and launched his career as a producer on stage. His film credits include producing The Omen (1976) and its two sequels with Harvey Bernhard, No Way Out (1987), Clear and Present Danger (1994), and Lost in Space (1998).