Trivia: Once relegated to decorative parts for years and long acknowledged as the wife of Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman spent the latter half of the 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium earning much-deserved critical respect. Standing a willowy 5'11" and sporting one of Hollywood's most distinctive heads of frizzy red hair, the Australian actress first entered the American mindset with her role opposite Cruise in Days of Thunder (1990), but it wasn't until she starred as a homicidal weather girl in Gus Van Sant's 1995 To Die For that she achieved recognition as a thespian of considerable range and talent. Though many assume that the heavily-accented Kidman hails from down under, she was actually born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on June 20, 1967, to Australian parents. Her family, who lived on the island because of a research project that employed Kidman's biochemist father, then moved to Washington, D.C. for the next three years. After her father's project reached completion, Nicole and her family returned to Australia.Raised in the upper-middle-class Sydney suburb of Longueville for the remainder of the 1970s and well into the eighties, Kidman grew up infused with a love of the arts, particularly dance and theatre. Kidman took refuge in the theater, and landed her first professional role at the age of 14, when she starred in Bush Christmas (1983), a TV movie about a group of kids who band together with an Aborigine to find their stolen horse. Brian Trenchard-Smith's BMX Bandits (1983) -- an adventure film/teen movie -- followed , with Kidman as the lead character, Judy; it opened to solid reviews. Kidman then worked for the gifted John Duigan (The Winter of Our Dreams, Romero) twice, first as one of the two adolescent leads of the Duigan-directed "Room to Move" episode of the Australian TV series Winners (1985) and, more prestigiously, as the star of Duigan's acclaimed miniseries Vietnam (1987).In 1988, Kidman got another major break when she was tapped to star in Phillip Noyce's Dead Calm (1989). A psychological thriller about a couple (Kidman and Sam Neill) who are terrorized by a young man they rescue from a sinking ship (Billy Zane), the film helped to establish the then-21-year-old Kidman as an actress of considerable mettle. That same year, her starring performance in the made-for-TV Bangkok Hilton further bolstered her reputation. By now a rising star in Australia, Kidman began to earn recognition across the Pacific. In 1989, Tom Cruise picked her for a starring role in her first American feature, Tony Scott's Days of Thunder (1990). The film, a testosterone-saturated drama about a racecar driver (Cruise), cast Kidman as the neurologist who falls in love with him. A sizable hit, it had the added advantage of introducing Kidman to Cruise, whom she married in December of 1990.Following a role as Dustin Hoffman's moll in Robert Benton's Billy Bathgate (1991), and a supporting turn as a snotty boarding school senior in the masterful Flirting (1991), which teamed her with Duigan a third time, Kidman collaborated with Cruise on their second film together, Far and Away (1992). Despite their joint star quality, gorgeous cinematography, and adequate direction by Ron Howard, critics panned the lackluster film.Kidman's subsequent projects, My Life and Malice ( both 1993), were similarly disappointing, despite scattered favorable reviews. Batman Forever (1995), in which she played the hero's love interest, Dr. Chase Meridian, fared somewhat better, but did little in the way of establishing Kidman as a serious actress even as it raked in mile-high returns at the summer box office. Kidman finally broke out of her window-dressing typecasting when Gus Van Sant enlisted her to portray the ruthless protagonist of To Die For (1995). Directed from a Buck Henry script, this uber-dark comedy casts Kidman as Suzanne Stone, a television broadcaster ready and eager to commit one homicide after another to propel herself to the top. Displaying a gift for impeccable comic timing, she earned Golden Globe and National Broadcast Critics Circle Awards for Best Actress. Further critical praise greeted Kidman's performance as Isabel Archer in Jane Campion's 1996 adaptation of Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady. Now regarded as one of the hottest actresses in Hollywood, Kidman starred opposite George Clooney in the big-budget action extravaganza The Peacemaker (1997) and opposite Sandra Bullock in the frothy Practical Magic (1998). In 1999, Kidman starred in one of her most controversial films to date, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Adapted from Arthur Schnitzler's Traumnovelle and cloaked in secrecy from the beginning of its production, the film also stars Cruise as Kidman's physician husband. During the spring and summer of 1999, the media unsurprisingly hyped the couple's onscreen pairing as the two major selling points. However, despite an added measure of intrigue from Kubrick's death only weeks after shooting wrapped, Eyes Wide Shut repeated the performance of prior Kubrick efforts by opening to a radically mixed reaction.As the new millennium arrived, problems began to erupt between Kidman and Tom Cruise; divorce followed soon after, and the tabloids swirled with talk of new relationships for the both of them. She concurrently plunged into a string of daring, eccentric film roles much edgier than what she had done before. The trend began with a role in Jez Butterworth's Birthday Girl (2001) as a Russian mail order bride, and Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge (2001), which cast her, in the lead, as a courtesan in a 19th century Paris hopped up with late 20th century pop songs. The picture dazzled some and alienated others, but once again, journalists flocked to Kidman's side.Following this success (the picture gleaned a Best Picture nod but failed to win), Kidman gained even more positive notice for her turn as an icy mother after the key to a dark mystery in Alejandro Amenabar's spooky throwback, The Others. When the 59th Annual Golden Globe Awards finally arrived, Kidman received nominations for her memorable performances in both films. Though it couldn't have been any further from her flamboyant turn in Moulin Rouge, Kidman's camouflaged role as Virginia Woolf in the following year's The Hours (2002) (she wears little makeup and a prosthetic nose), for which she delivered a mesmerizing and haunting performance, kept the Oscar and Golden Globe nominations steadily flowing in for the acclaimed actress. The fair-haired beauty finally snagged the Best Actress Oscar that had been so elusive the year before. Post-Oscar, Kidman continued to take on challenging work. She played the lead role in Lars von Trier's Dogville, although she declined to continue in Von Trier's planned trilogy of films about that character. She swung for the Oscar fences again in 2003 as the female lead in Cold Mountain, but it was co-star Renee Zellweger who won the statuette that year. Kidman did solid work for Jonathan Glazer in the Jean-Claude Carriere-penned Birth, as a woman revisited by the incarnation of her dead husband in a small child's body, but stumbled with a pair of empty-headed comedies, Frank Oz's The Stepford Wives and Nora Ephron's Bewitched (both 2005), that her skills could not save. She worked with Sean Penn in the political thriller The Interpreter in 2005. For the most part, Kidman continued to stretch herself with increasingly demanding and arty roles throughout 2006. In Steven Shainberg's Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, Kidman plays controversial housewife-cum-photographer Diane Arbus. Meanwhile, Kidman returned to popcorn pictures by playing Mrs. Coulter in Chris Weitz's massive, $150-million fantasy adventure The Golden Compass (2007), adapted from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series of books. She also headlined the sci-fi thriller The Invasion, a loose remake of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Also in 2007, Kidman teamed up with Noah Baumbach for a starring role as a supremely dysfunctional mother in Margot at the Wedding (2007). The actress then set out to recapture her Moulin Rouge musical success with a turn in director Rob Marshall's 8 1/2 remake Nine (2009), teamed up with indie cause-célèbre John Cameron Mitchell and Aaron Eckhart for the psychologically-charged domestic drama Rabbit Hole (2010), and starred opposite Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler in the Dennis Dugan-helmed comedy Go With It (2011). Kidman would spend the next few years continuing her high level of activity, appearing in movies like Trespass and The Paperboy.

Trivia: Although Matthew Broderick has built a solid reputation as one of the stage and screen's more talented and steadily working individuals, he will forever be associated with the role that gave him permanent celluloid infamy, the blissfully irresponsible title hero of John Hughes's 1986 Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Thanks to his association with the character, as well as his own boyish looks, Broderick for a long time had trouble obtaining roles that allowed him to play characters of his own age. However, with the success of films like Election (1999) and a 1994 Tony Award for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, audiences finally seemed ready to accept the fact that Broderick had indeed graduated from high school.The son of late actor James Broderick and playwright/screenwriter Patricia Broderick, Broderick was born in New York City on March 21, 1962. With the theatre a constant backdrop to his childhood, Broderick's entrance into the entertainment world seemed a natural outcome of his upbringing. He began appearing in theatre workshops with his father when he was seventeen, and was soon acting on Broadway in plays like Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues and Brighton Beach Memoirs and Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song Trilogy. Broderick played Fierstein's adopted son in Torch Song; in the Simon plays, he portrayed the playwright's alter ego, winning a Tony Award for his 1983 performance in Brighton Beach Memoirs. The same year, Broderick made his film debut in WarGames, playing a young man who unwittingly plants the seeds of a nuclear war; the film was a success and launched the actor's onscreen career. Films like Max Dugan Returns and Ladyhawke followed, as did an acclaimed television adaptation of Athol Fugard's Master Harold and the Boys, but it was the 1986 Ferris Bueller's Day Off that made Broderick a star. As a then-23-year-old playing a 17-year-old, Broderick became a champion of smart-asses everywhere, and in so doing earned a certain kind of screen immortality. The success of the film allowed him to work steadily in films like Project X and the screen adaptations of Biloxi Blues and Torch Song Trilogy (in which Broderick now played Fierstein's lover, instead of his adopted son). Widely publicized tragedy struck for Broderick in 1988 when he and Jennifer Grey were vacationing in Ireland: after losing control of the car he was driving, Broderick crashed into an oncoming car, killing the mother and daughter in it. The actor was hospitalized, and his ensuing legal problems were the subject of much media scrutiny. However, he continued to work, winning critical acclaim for his portrayal of a Civil War colonel in the 1989 Glory. He then kicked off the 1990s with the title role of a naive film student in The Freshman; following that film's relative success, he starred in the poorly received comedy The Night We Never Met, and in 1994, he was cast against type as one of Dorothy Parker's unsympathetic lovers in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. That same year, he ventured back to Broadway, where he found acclaim as the lead in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, winning a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical. Over the next few years, Broderick had his hits (The Lion King) and misses (The Road to Wellville, The Cable Guy, Addicted to Love). In 1996, he made his directorial debut with Infinity, which also featured a screenplay by his mother. A love story based on the life of famed physicist Richard Feynman, the film made a brief blip on the box-office radar, although it did garner some positive reviews. In 1997 he wed actress Sarah Jessica Parker who gave birth to their son, James Wilke Broderick, in October of 2002. The same couldn't be said for Broderick's massively budgeted, hyper-marketed 1998 feature, Godzilla. The subject of critical abuse and audience evasion, the film was a disappointment. Fortunately for Broderick, his role as the film's hero was largely ignored by critics who preferred to level their attacks at the film's content. The actor managed to rebound successfully the following year, first playing against type as a high-school teacher caught up in an ethical conundrum in Alexander Payne's hilarious satire Election. The film received positive reviews, with many critics praising Broderick's performance as the morally ambiguous Mr. McAllister. The actor then could be seen as the title character in the giddy action flick Inspector Gadget. It was a role that would have made Ferris Bueller proud: not only did Broderick get to shoot flames from his limbs and sprout helicopter blades from his skull, he also got to defeat the bad guys and, in the end, get the girl. In 2000, Broderick played a supporting role in Kenneth Lonergan's critically acclaimed You Can Count On Me with Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo, and appeared in a well received television adaptation of The Music Man later that year. Broderick lent his vocal chords for both 2003's The Good Boy and 2004's The Lion King 1/2, and signed on to appear in three hotly anticipated 2004 films; namely, The Last Shot with William H. Macy, Tom Cairns' black comedy Marie and Bruce, and The Stepford Wives with Nicole Kidman, Christopher Walken, and Bette Midler. Of course, Broderick's biggest achievement of the 2000's was not on the silver screen, but on stage with Nathan Lane in Mel Brooks' hugely successful comedy The Producers, which won a record 12 Tony awards in 2001. He reprised the role for a film adaptation in 2005, with Will Ferrell and Uma Thurman joining the cast. 2006 found the actor appearing in the big screen adaptation of Strangers with Candy, as well as the drama Margaret, tough post-production problems kept that film from being released until 2011, and the holiday comedy Deck the Halls. Broderick worked in animated films such as Bee Movie and The Tale of Despereaux, and was also part of the ragtag crew planning the perfect crime in the comedy Tower Heist.

Trivia: Gloriously flamboyant American entertainer Bette Midler was born in Honolulu, HI, to the only Jewish family in the neighborhood. After dropping out of a drama class at the University of Hawaii, she took a tiny role in the 1966 film Hawaii, playing a seasick boat passenger (though it's hard to see her when viewing the film). Training for a dancing career in New York, Midler made the casting rounds for several months before finally winning a chorus role, and then the featured part of Tzeitel, in the long-running Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof.It helps to do something well that no one else does, and Midler found her forte by singing at the Continental Baths, a gay hangout in New York. Most bath house performers were painfully bad, but Midler established herself by combining genuine talent with the tackiness expected of her. As the "Divine Miss M," Midler did an act consisting of campy (and dirty) specialty numbers; dead-on imitations of such earlier performers as the Andrews Sisters and Libby Holman; and the most outrageously revealing costumes this side of Bob Mackie. Soon she outgrew the bath houses and went on to nightclub and recording-artist fame, earning a Grammy Award in 1973. After several years of sell-out tours, Midler re-entered films as the star of The Rose, a 1979 film à clef loosely based upon the life and times of Janis Joplin. The film was a success, but it failed to establish Midler as a dramatic actress; audiences, particularly gay fans, still preferred the Divine Miss M. Jinxed (1982), Midler's next film, lived up to its name with well-publicized production squabbles between Midler, the director, producers, and a few of her co-stars. Following the film's failure, Midler wasn't seen onscreen until she signed a contract with Disney in 1986. Establishing a new film identity as a character comedienne, Midler sparkled in Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), and was even better as a loudmouthed kidnap victim in Ruthless People (1987). Using her restored film stature, Midler set up her own production company and produced Beaches (1988), a pals-through-the-years saga that proved to be a four-hankie audience favorite. Once again attempting to establish herself as a tragedian, Midler starred in Stella (1989), a poorly-received remake of 1937's Stella Dallas. For the Boys (1992), offered Midler in tons of old-age makeup as a Martha Raye-style USO star (Raye responded to this "tribute" by suing the studio). The subsequent Scenes From a Mall (1991), which paired Midler with Woody Allen, and witchcraft fantasy Hocus Pocus (1993) also failed to truly showcase her talents. She rebounded somewhat in 1995 with a role in the wildly acclaimed Get Shorty, and had even greater success the following year co-starring with Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn in The First Wives Club. In 1999, Midler played herself in two films: the TV mockumentary Jackie's Back and Get Bruce!, a big-screen documentary about legendary comic writer Bruce Vilanch. In addition to her film work, Midler still performs live concerts to sold-out crowds and continues to release albums, including Bathouse Bette, a tribute to her early singing days. In 1993, she scored an enormous success in a superb TV adaptation of the Broadway musical Gypsy. And, in 2000, Midler extended her talents to television, starring as herself in the aptly-named sitcom Bette. Though she would only appear in a handful of films over the next decade, Midler remained quite active on stage and television, even earning an Emmy nomination for Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On in 2011.

Trivia: With elegantly aristocratic features and a career marked by versatility and critical acclaim, Glenn Close is one of Hollywood's most celebrated actresses. Her acclaim is not limited to the film world, as she has also found great success in various television and stage productions, most notably Andrew Lloyd Webber's Broadway musical version of Sunset Boulevard and in the acclaimed 1991 made-for-TV movie Sarah, Plain and Tall (which was successful enough to have two sequels, Skylark and Sarah, Plain and Tall: Winter's End.Born in Greenwich, CT, on March 19, 1947, Close grew up in Africa and Switzerland while her father, a doctor, maintained a clinic in the Belgian Congo. As a high school student at Greenwich's Rosemary Hall, the actress organized a touring rep-theater group and performed a number of folk-singing gigs. After graduating from the College of William and Mary, where she studied anthropology and acting, Close appeared in regional theater and then made her New York stage bow in 1974's Love for Love. Her theater work led to her first film role, when director George Roy Hill, after seeing her in the Broadway musical Barnum, cast her in The World According to Garp (1982). Close won the role of the protagonist's political-activist mother, a portrayal made all the more interesting by the fact that the actress was only five years older than Robin Williams, the actor playing her son. Close earned an Oscar nomination for her work, thus catalyzing the acclaim that was to surround much of her subsequent career.Close worked steadily through the remainder of the 1980s, winning Oscar nominations for her divergent performances in The Big Chill (1983), The Natural (1984), and Fatal Attraction (1987). In the last of these films, she all but caused the screen to combust with her fearsome portrayal of a woman who gets very, very angry with Michael Douglas. As evidence of her remarkable versatility, Close avoided being typecast as similarly psychotic women, going on to win another Oscar nomination the next year for her devastatingly wicked performance in Dangerous Liaisons. Further acclaim followed with her role as Sunny Von Bulow in Reversal of Fortune (1990), and Close spent the next decade turning in consistently strong performances in films both good and bad, from the critically and commercially lambasted Mary Reilly (1994) to the all-star Mars Attacks! (1996); 101 Dalmatians (1996), in which she got in touch with her inner drag queen as Cruella De Vil; and Air Force One (1997), which featured her as President Harrison Ford's harried Vice President. In 1999, Close took on two very different roles, first lending her voice to the animated Tarzan as the hero's gorilla mother, and then in Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune, in which she was able to explore Southern-style insanity as the terrifically unhinged Camille Orcutt.Nearly thirty years after her initial Oscar nomination for The World According to Garp, Close captured her sixth nod - this one for Best Actress - for her work in #Albert Nobbs where she played a woman in 19th Century Ireland who pretends to be a man in order to keep a job at a hotel. Close had played the part on stage very early in her career, and had worked for decades to bring the story to the big screen. Her perseverance was rewarded with not just Oscar, but Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations for Best Actress as well.In addition to her film work, Close has maintained a television and stage career since the early '80s. Her stage work led to Tony Awards for her turns in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing (1984) and Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden in 1992. She garnered further raves and diva status for her starring role as the legendary Norma Desmond in the 1995 Broadway production of Sunset Boulevard (an excellent singer, Close annually performs the National Anthem for the New York Mets' opening-day game). On television, she continued to win prestige for performances in Stones for Ibarra (1988), 1991's Sarah, Plain and Tall, in which she starred opposite Christopher Walken, and Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story (1995), for which she won an Emmy for her portrayal of the title character. However, it wasn't until 2005 that Close could be seen in a regular series role when she joined the cast of the critically acclaimed FX series The Shield. The gritty role was perfect for Close, and the small screen seemed to agree with her, so she next signed on for an even darker role, this time starring on the series Damages.In 2011, she was nominated for her sixth Academy Award for her work in Albert Nobbs, a film she also co-wrote and served as a producer. Damages came to a close in 2012 after five seasons, and Close was next seen in a supporting role in Guardians of the Galaxy, playing Nova Prime Irani Rael. She also returned to Broadway in the Edward Albee play A Delicate Balance, opposite John Lithgow.

Trivia: A versatile character actor whose intense demeanor and slightly off-kilter delivery served him well in both comedies and dramas, Christopher Walken was at once one of the busiest and most respected actors of his generation, appearing in as many as five films in a year while still finding time for stage and occasional television work.Walken was born Ronald Walken in Queens, NY, on March 31, 1943, the youngest of three sons of Paul and Rosalie Walken; Paul ran a bakery, while Rosalie was convinced her sons had talent and was determined they take advantage of it. Ronald landed his first job in front of a camera at the age of 14 months when he posed for a calendar photo with a pair of kittens. Like his siblings, he received dance lessons as a youngster, and, by the age of ten, was making frequent appearances on television and radio shows, and was a regular on a short-lived sitcom, The Wonderful John Acton. Ronald and his brothers also enrolled at New York's Professional Children's School, and he spent a summer as a junior lion tamer with a circus, later recalling that the lion was quite old and docile.In 1961, Walken enrolled at Hofstra University. But, little more than a year later, he landed a role in the Broadway-bound musical Best Foot Forward (which starred one of his former classmates, Liza Minelli), and decided to leave college. Spending the next several years working in a variety of musicals -- both in New York and on the road -- the young actor appeared in a 1964 touring production of West Side Story, and there met actress and dancer Georgianne Thon. The two began dating, and eventually married in 1969. While appearing in a revue starring model-turned-singer Monique Van Vooren in 1965, Walken was told by the headliner he looked more like a Christopher than a Ronald; he decided to take her advice, and adopted Christopher Walken as his stage name. In 1966, he made his first appearance in a non-singing role as Phillip, the King of France, in a Broadway production of The Lion in Winter. By the end of the decade, Walken was devoting his energies to stage dramas, although he continued to keep up with his dance training.Walken made his movie debut with 1968's Me and My Brother -- a film directed by acclaimed photographer and experimental filmmaker Robert Frank -- and, in 1972, scored his first starring role in the low-budget sci-fi thriller The Mind Snatchers. Walken first caught the attention of critics with his performance as a bohemian ladies' man in Paul Mazursky's Next Stop, Greenwich Village, and landed a small but memorable role in Woody Allen's Annie Hall as suicidal preppie Duane. But Walken's real breakthrough came in 1978, with his role as Nick in The Deer Hunter. Playing a small-town boy who is irreversibly scarred by his experiences in Vietnam, the role won Walken an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and made him a bankable and recognizable name. He soon committed to director Michael Cimino's follow-up, which proved to be the infamous box-office and critically-panned flop Heaven's Gate, and later showed off both his acting and dancing skills as a villainous pimp in the musical drama Pennies From Heaven. While Walken remained a critical favorite, he fell short of becoming a major box-office draw due to the disappointing returns of many of his post-Deer Hunter films. But, by his own admission, Walken was always an actor who liked to work, and he maintained a busy schedule of both stage and screen roles. His willingness to take on edgy film characters with questionable commercial appeal (such as At Close Range, King of New York, and Communion) helped earn the actor a loyal cult following, and small but showy roles in True Romance and Pulp Fiction gave Walken's screen career a serious boost in the early '90s. By the time Walken turned 60, he had written, directed, and starred in an off-Broadway comedy called Him; received another Oscar nomination for his performance in Catch Me if You Can; appeared in films as varied as Sleepy Hollow, The Affair of the Necklace, and The Country Bears; and got to prove he was still a great dancer with his much-talked-about appearance in the music video "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim.Walken became one of the most popular recurring guest-hosts on Saturday Night Live creating recurring characters such as The Continental, and appeared in a host of classic skits including getting to deliver the catch phrase, "I need more cowbell!"As the 2000s progressed, Walken continued to take work in a variety of films from The Rundown, and Man on Fire, to Gigli, The Wedding Crashers, and the Adam Sandler comedy Click, all the while maintaining his status as one of the quirkiest and most gifted supporting actors of his time. In 2006 he took on a supporting role opposite Robin Williams in the Barry Levinson directed satire Man of the Year as a political consultant. He was in the musical remake of Hairspray, playing the husband of the character played by John Travolta in drag, and the comedy Balls of Fury in 2007. In 2010 he earned rave reviews for his work in the Martin McDonagh's play A Behanding in Spokane on Broadway, and the next year he worked with Todd Solondz, playing the father in Dark Horse.

Trivia: The nephew of producer-turned-Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart (Islands in the Stream), actor Roger Bart specialized in evenhanded portrayals of characters with "extreme" personalities that belied and offset the actor's seemingly average, everyman appearance. Among other accomplishments, Bart received critical laurels for his evocation of an outré homosexual in Frank Oz and Scott Rudin's uneven comedic update of The Stepford Wives in 2004. Bart followed that up by deftly playing the flamboyant Carmen Ghia, personal assistant to transvestite director Roger de Bries, in the 2005 Susan Stroman-directed musical comedy remake of Mel Brooks' The Producers, and then played one of two seriously disturbed American businessmen who buy into a thrill-kill franchise in Eli Roth's splatter-fest Hostel Part II (2007). Bart is perhaps best known, however, for his portrayal of George Williams on the prime-time black comedy hit Desperate Housewives (2004-2005).

Trivia: David Marshall Grant is the youngest of three children (the older two, a brother and a sister, became psychiatrists). He received his acting training from the Yale School of Drama, the Julliard School of Drama, and the Weber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts. He was nominated for a Tony award for his performance in the Tony Kushner play Angels in America. In the late '90s, Grant added a new credit, playwright. His play, entitled Snakebit, received a 1999 Drama Desk and Critics Circle nomination for best play.

Trivia: Jon Lovitz is a versatile comedic actor instantly recognizable for his distinctive voice, acerbic wit, pear-shaped body, and hangdog eyes. He studied at the University of California, Irvine, and participated in the Film Actors Workshop. He then went on to do guest spots on TV and had a recurring role on Foley Square. Lovitz also played small roles in Last Resort (1986), and Ratboy (1986), and also provided a voice for the animated feature The Brave Little Toaster (1987). He got his first real break as a regular on TV's Saturday Night Live, where his characters such as Tommy Flanagan of pathological Liars Anonymous, the great Shakespearean ham Master Thespian, and the Devil himself became quite popular. His stint on Saturday Night Live put him in demand as a character actor and television guest star. His friendship with director Penny Marshall helped him get roles in some of her earlier films such as Big (1988), and his role as the fast talking baseball recruiter Ernie "Cappy" Capadino in Marshall's A League of Their Own (1992) earned him widespread acclaim. Lovitz has also appeared as a guest voice on the TV animated show The Simpsons and played lead voice in the critically-acclaimed animated show The Critic on ABC and the Fox Network.In the years following SNL and The Critic, Lovitz remained active with comedic roles in film (High School High, Little Nicky) and television (NewsRadio, Las Vegas), though it his performances in such films as Todd Solandz's acerbic black comedy Happiness and opposite Kevin Spacey in the semi-comedic Jack Abramoff biopic Casino Jack that displayed more range most filmmakers had previously failed to capitalize on. And thought the comic actor was never known to be overtly political, his scathing criticisms of U.S. President Barack Obama on the issue of taxes made headlines across the country in 2012, resulting in an unusually serious appearance on FOX News in which he passionately defended his comments.

Trivia: Joined a band in high school and began performing at rodeos and local fairs. Moved to Nashville at 19 and denied being an aspiring singer in order to get a receptionist job at a music publishing company. Released her first album, Take Me as I Am, in 1993. Met her husband, country singer and actor Tim McGraw, when they toured together in 1996. Founded the Faith Hill Family Literacy Project in 1996. Replaced Whitney Houston at the 72nd Annual Academy Awards in 2000 and sang a medley of classic movie songs; also performed the national anthem at Super Bowl XXXIV that year. Made her film debut in the 2004 remake The Stepford Wives. Along with McGraw, organized the 2010 benefit concert Nashville Rising, which raised over $2 million to aid flood victims in Tennessee.

Trivia: Made his TV debut in Robert Altman's 1988 political satire Tanner '88, co-starring Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon. First feature-film appearance was a small role in 1989 dramedy The Unbelievable Truth, which also featured The Sopranos' Edie Falco in a bit part. Has appeared on numerous police-themed shows, including Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, NCIS, NYPD Blue, Third Watch and Without a Trace. Wife Cas is an assistant director; the two have worked on several films together.

Trivia: Began his acting career in 1985 in Joseph Papp's production of Measure for Measure, at the Delacorte Theater. Was a member of resident acting company American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from 1989 to 1991. Has appeared in several Shakespeare in the Park productions, and played William Shakespeare himself in a Roundabout Theater Company production of Cheapside in 1986. Broadway appearances include A Free Man of Color, and The Coast of Utopia at Lincoln Center Theater, and Mary Stuart with Janet McTeer and Harriet Walter. Was mentored by Ron Van Lieu, Michael Kahn and Gates McFadden while at NYU, and has named Jeremy Geidt as having the most profound influence on his career.

Trivia: Was the lead singer for rock band The Ottoman Bigwigs in Seattle. Won an Obie award for an off-Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1999. Played Reverend Parris in the 2002 Broadway revival of The Crucible, opposite Laura Linney and Liam Neeson. Died of cancer after shooting five episodes of Silicon Valley; he was posthumously nominated for a Critics' Choice Award for his work.

Trivia: Dexter co-star C.S. Lee got bitten by the acting bug in high school and instantly knew what he wanted to do in life. Born in South Korea and raised in Washington State, the aspiring actor soon earned a full scholarship to Cornish College of the Arts and earned his BFA. Later, after earning his MFA from the Yale School of Drama (where he was also honored with a Carol Dye Acting Award), Lee worked the New York stage alongside such talents as Mia Katigbak and Mac Wellman for eight years in addition to becoming involved with community theater. Early appearances on the small screen included bits in Spin City, Guiding Light, and Law & Order (a role which seemed to foreshadow his later success in Dexter), with the occasional feature role (Random Hearts and The Stepford Wives) helping to keep Lee busy between small-screen runs. Voice-over work in such video games as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories offered Lee a welcomed opportunity to have a little fun behind the microphone, and after brief recurring appearances in Law & Order: Criminal Intent and The Sopranos, the hardworking actor joined the cast of Dexter as wisecracking forensics specialist Vincent Masuka.

Trivia: Trained as an opera singer at Northwestern University. Performed with the Metropolitan and New York City Opera Companies. Appeared on Broadway in such shows as Nine, Sunday in the Park With George and The King and I, for which she received a Tony nomination. In 1971, originated the role of Alma in the stage production of Summer and Smoke, based on a Tennessee Williams play. A 1982 TV production of the work also featured her in the same role; the New York Times called her TV work "superb." Has appeared in the TV series Dawson's Creek and The Good Wife. In 2010, performed in the stage production of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. The following year, was in the stage cast of Follies. She took on that role while also filming her scenes for The Good Wife.

Trivia: Debuted on Broadway as an understudy for Mary-Louise Parker in the Tony Award-winning play Proof. This paved the way for a bigger role in The Graduate, as Elaine, opposite Lorraine Bracco's Mrs. Robinson. First television break was a five episode stint on the HBO prison drama Oz. Joined the cast of the short-lived NBC sitcom Joey, replacing Ashley Scott, who played Alex Garrett in the pilot. Appeared in the "Revenge of the Nerds" music video by her Better Off Ted costar Malcolm Barrett, who goes by the stage name Verbal.

Trivia: Screenwriter and actor Mike White's best work has never been afraid to flaunt its sharp edges, and that was never more true than in his breakthrough film, Chuck & Buck, in which the darkly witty humor of his screenplay was matched by his disarmingly eccentric performance as a childlike but obsessive young man. Born in California in 1970, Mike White is the son of Reverend Mel White, a noted author, pastor, and gay rights activist. Mike White studied at Wesleyan University and after completing his education, he moved to Los Angeles and began pursuing a career as a writer. After a two-year stint collaborating with friend Zak Penn -- which resulted in no work that's been produced to date -- White struck out on his own, and scored a lucky break when he was hired as a writer and producer for the WB's teen drama series Dawson's Creek. Upon its debut in 1998, Dawson's Creek was a hit in the ratings, and that same year White received his first screenplay credit for the offbeat teen comedy Dead Man on Campus. After his success with Dawson's Creek, in 1999 White moved on to another teen-themed television show, the critically lauded Freaks and Geeks, where he again served as both producer and occasional writer. The following year, White briefly left teenagers behind with his screenplay for the edgy independent comedy-drama Chuck & Buck; White also co-starred as the childlike Buck O'Brien in what was only his second screen appearance (his first was in a supporting role in Star Maps, whose director, Miguel Arteta, was also behind the camera for Chuck & Buck). While White's performance as Buck earned him the Best Male Performance award at the 2000 Deauville Film Festival, and a nomination in the same category at the 2000 American Spirit Awards, he opted to focus on his screenwriting in the wake of Chuck & Buck's critical success. In 2001, he took another stab at TV as writer and producer of the edgy but short-lived prime-time soap opera Pasadena, and 2002 saw the release of two feature films scripted by White, Orange County and The Good Girl. White also played small supporting roles in both films.If to this point it had been fairly difficult to pinpoint precisely where White excelled the most in the worlds of film and television, the multi-faceted entertainer would continue to keep fans contending the matter by writing the Jack Black hits School of Rock and Nacho Libre, and turning in a memorable performance as the put-upon teacher who finds his position hijacked by his hard rocking friend in the former. Supporting roles in the Hollywood misfire The Stepford Wives and opposite John C. Reilly in Artera's dramatic short Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody were quick to follow in 2004 and 2005 respectively, with a key role in Welcome to California finding White cast as a well-known composer attempting to salvage his crumbling marriage to his Hollywood actress wife. Back behind the scenes, White would continue to expand his horizions by writing and directing 2007's Year of the Dog - a comedy-drama feature starring former SNL alum Molly Shannon as an easygoing secretary whose stable life is thrown into a tailspin with the death of her beloved dog Pencil. In the years to come, White would remain active in entertainment, producing and appearing on the series Enlightened.

Trivia: As the impresario of her own front-yard theater troupe at the tender age of 12, there wasn't much question as to which direction the later career of actress Carrie Preston was headed. Serving as everything from stage hand to starlet made it clear to all that her dedication to theater ran deep even at such an early age; eventually, Preston would graduate from the sound stage to the bright lights of Broadway opposite many of her generation's finest classically trained actors. Born and raised the daughter of an artist and art therapist mother and a geo-technical engineer father in Macon, GA, the stage-smitten youngster later earned a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Evansville. After continuing her education with an acting diploma from Juilliard, Preston found a choice early career role as Miranda (opposite Patrick Stewart) in a Shakespeare-in-the Park production of The Tempest. Seeking her fortune out West, Preston found roles in such popular films as My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) and Mercury Rising (1998) while frequently returning to the New York stage between film roles. After once again re-teaming with Tempest co-star Stewart in a Guthrie Theater production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the avid outdoors woman continued developing her film career with appearances in Cradle Will Rock, Guinevre (both 1999), and The Legend of Beggar Vance (2000). Though her roles on television were previously limited to appearances in Sex and the City and Spin City, Preston later took a more committed dedication to the small screen when she turned up alongside popular television chef Emeril Lagasse in the series Emeril in 2001.In the several years to come, Preston would find success in films like Vicky Christina Barcelona and Doubt, as well as on shows like The Good Wife and the monumentally successful True Blood.

Trivia: One of cable television's most prolific emcees, and a first cousin of U.S. President George W. Bush, Billy Bush became a mainstay at such red-carpet events as the Miss Universe pageant and Countdown to the Oscars, and served as a correspondent on news programs including Today, Access Hollywood, and The Insider. Bush's career turned an unusual corner in 2003 when he hosted the revival of the game show Let's Make a Deal (a position he inherited from Monty Hall); he later signed to host the reality series Grease: You're the One That I Want (2007), presiding over a competition of theatrical tryouts who clamored to win the parts of Danny and Sandy in a revival of the stage musical Grease.

Trivia: After earning a degree from Tufts University, Meredith Vieira began a career in the media with a job as a radio personality for a station in Massachusetts. She made her way to television, rising through a series of bigger and bigger local markets until she found a steady job at the network owned and operated WCBS in New York. She began appearing on television programs such as West 57th and 60 Minutes, leading to an offer to change networks from ABC. She accepted that job, becoming a regular contributor to Turning Point, a show that was canceled in 1997. Vieira landed on her feet, however, as a co-host of the Barbara Walters-hosted morning talk show The View. Her popularity rose steadily, eventually leading to a stint hosting the daytime syndicated version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? In 2006, she was tapped to replace Katie Couric as the host of The Today Show on NBC. She stayed on the signature morning show for five years, stepping down in 2011 when she was replaced by Ann Curry.

Trivia: Many filmgoers first caught delicately beautiful Georgian actress KaDee Strickland via her portrayal of Kristen, one of the vivacious young woman who accompany world-weary playboy Jack Nicholson at the outset of the Nancy Meyers romantic comedy Something's Gotta Give (2003). This marked the beginning of a long sequence of small roles for the rising star, in such A-listers as The Grudge (2004), Fever Pitch (2005), and The Flock (2007). On the small screen, in 2007, Strickland had a regular role on the very short-lived comedy drama The Wedding Bells, which she quickly followed up with another regular part, this time on the highly successful Grey's Anatomy spin-off, Private Practice, playing Dr. Charlotte King. That same year she could be seen on the big screen in American Gangster, and the next year she appeared in Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys.

Trivia: Born November 29, 1933, CNN mainstay Larry King reshaped the landscape of broadcast journalism when his talk show Larry King Live debuted in June 1985; that program's groundbreaking admixture of cutting-edge political discussion, incisive celebrity-directed Q & A, and viewer phone-in rocked the world and drew an audience of tens of millions. By 2007 -- King's 22nd year on cable and his 50th year in broadcasting -- the CNN website revealed that King had chalked up 40,000 interviews, including one with every United States president since Gerald Ford. Uncoincidentally, that was the same year King achieved an honor claimed by very few: a city block -- the street surrounding the CNN building -- was christened "Larry King Square" in his honor. King lent his voice to several animated features including Bee Movie (2007), Shrek the Third (2007), and Shrek Forever after (2010).