Trivia: Moving to London with his family at an early age, Irish-born actor Pierce Brosnan made ends meet as a commercial illustrator and cab driver before turning to acting full-time. After training at the London Drama Centre, Brosnan made his West End stage bow in 1976, and appeared in his first film, The Long Good Friday, four years later. American audiences got their first glimpse of the charismatic, muscular young actor in the 1981 network miniseries The Manions of America. The following year, he was cast as the suave adventurer hero of the weekly TV series Remington Steele. Brosnan's casual panache and his gift for quippery led the producers of the James Bond movies to select him as the new Bond upon the departure of Roger Moore in 1986. However, at the last moment, the canceled Remington Steele was renewed, and Brosnan was contractually obligated to remain with the program, forcing him to relinquish the James Bond role to Timothy Dalton. Insult was later added to injury when it became evident that the renewal of Steele was something of a subterfuge by its producers to keep Brosnan on their leash. This professional setback was further compounded by personal tragedy seven years later when Brosnan's actress wife Cassandra Harris died after a long illness. The actor began to regain his motion picture bankability when he was cast in a choice secondary role in the 1993 comedy megahit Mrs. Doubtfire. In 1995, he finally got his chance to play Agent 007 in GoldenEye, and proved that the producer's instincts were right on target. Brosnan not only provided a much-needed boost for the ailing series, but also cemented his status as a capable leading man in a variety of roles, ranging from the title character in Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1996) to a stuffy, love-struck professor who meets a ludicrous fate in Mars Attacks! (1996) to a courageous vulcanologist trying to save a town threatened by a reawakened volcano in Dante's Peak (1997). Brosnan played Bond for the second time in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), essaying the role with great success. Following his turn as the titular thief in the stylish 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, the actor went on to his third Bond outing in The World is Not Enough, again proving that saving the world was most convincingly done by those with convincing tans, straight teeth, and plenty of fun gadgets. And the world isn't the only thing Bond saved. While, the next half-decade found Brosnan stumbling with disappointments like The Tailor of Panama and The Laws of Attraction, he found box office success with the Bond franchise yet again 2002 with his final film in the franchise, Die Another Day. He soon followed this with a critically acclaimed comedic performance in the sleeper hit The Matador, before signing on for the highly anticipated film adaptation of the Abba inspired musical Mama Mia!. Next up, Brosnan would appear in some more dramatic fare like Remember Me before lightening up once more for the romantic comedy I Don't Know How She Does It.

Trivia: One of Ireland's most distinguished character actors, Ray McAnally spent the bulk of his career on-stage, but he also appeared occasionally in feature films, particularly in the 1980s. McAnally was 18 when he first appeared on-stage at Dublin's prestigious Abbey Theatre in 1947. He remained with the house troupe through 1963. In London, he worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and performed with some of Great Britain's finest actors, including John Gielgud. McAnally made his film debut in Professor Tim (1957) and went on to appear in a wide variety of films. In the U.S., he is most famous for appearing on the PBS series A Perfect Spy and A Very British Coup. At the time of his death, McAnally had just completed filming We're No Angels.

Trivia: Though a familiar face to British TV fans, Alison Doody was unknown to American audiences until her portrayal of Jenny Flex in A View to a Kill (1985). In 1989, she played the avaricious, pro-Nazi Elsa, the most complex and fascinating of the three Indiana Jones heroines in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Alison Doody was prominently featured in such films as Temptation (1994) and Major League 2 (1994).

Trivia: Born in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, character actor Gerard McSorley has played a lot of bad guys during his prolific acting career. He started with a theater background working with Jim Sheridan at the Project Theater. In 1981 he joined Dublin's Abbey Players, Ireland's national theater company. After a small role in the TV movie S.O.S. Titanic, he made his film debut in Neil Jordan's debut film, Danny Boy. He went on to appear in Jordan's later film work Michael Collins and The Butcher Boy. In 1993 he appeared in In the Name of the Father, directed by Jim Sheridan. He would continue to work with the director at his Hell's Kitchen production company in Dublin on the films Some Mother's Son, The Boxer, Agnes Browne, and Bloody Sunday. He was also in Atom Egoyan's Felicia's Journey, Alan Parker's Angela's Ashes, and Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Ordinary Decent Criminal. As a voice actor, he narrated the film Dancing at Lughnasa as well as the television documentary series In Search of Ancient Ireland. He's also worked extensively on Irish television. In 2003 he can be seen as the psychotic gangster John Gilligan in Joel Schumacher's Veronica Guerin.

Trivia: Patrick Bergin is a versatile actor who has yet to make it big in Hollywood. The son a trade union activist and founder of a political theater, Bergin was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, but left for London when he was only 17. There he worked at different jobs and eventually set up an experimental theater group. Originally a high-school drop out, Bergin returned to night school and by his early 20s had become a school teacher. He worked as an educator for five years and then quit to go on an extensive tour of Europe. Upon his return to Britain, he began working in repertory theater, and occasionally on television before appearing in a short British Film School production. Bergin made his feature-film debut in 1988 with The Courier; that year he also won acclaim for his role as an IRA informer in the TV movie Act of Betrayal. His success with the latter film lead director Bob Rafelson to cast him as Sir Richard Burton in his epic Mountains of the Moon (1990). While in Britain, Bergin typically played heroes, but in Hollywood he is usually cast as a villainous lowlife. He was particularly nasty as the obsessed, abusive husband in Sleeping with the Enemy (1991).