Trivia: Intense, dynamic Julliard alumnus Mandy Patinkin, born November 30th, 1952, has tackled everything from ancient classics to modern musicals during his formative years in regional theatre. From 1975 through 1981, Patinkin was a mainstay of Joseph Papps New York Shakespeare Festival. Making his Broadway debut in 1977, Patinkin won a Tony Award three years later for his raw-nerved portrayal of Che Guevara ("Not much to ask for!") in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita. He later appeared as star-interlocutor in Stephen Sondheim's musical Sunday in the Park with George, a role he repeated for the benefit of future generations on a videotaped TV presentation in 1986. In films from 1977, Patinkin made his earliest impression on moviegoers in a brace of E. L. Doctorow adaptations: he played the immigrant-artist-turned-pioneer filmmaker in Ragtime (1981) and the Julius Rosenberg counterpart in Daniel (1983). He also portrayed Avigdor, Barbra Streisand's dream lover, in Yentl (1983), and essayed the part of a Spanish swashbuckler (with a hilariously impenetrable accent) in The Princess Bride (1985). His extensive musical skills, both as vocalist and instrumentalist, have gone virtually untapped in films, save for his turn as 88 Keys in Dick Tracy (1990). The scope of Patinkin's musical talents were generously displayed in his one-man show Dress Casual, and also in his many "concert recordings" of classic Broadway scores. Despite his devotion to his craft, Mandy Patinkin evidently has his head on straight in terms of priorities: in 1996, he gave up the meaty role of Dr. Jeffrey Geiger in the weekly TV medical series Chicago Hope because he didn't like spending so much time away from his wife (actress Kathryn Grody) and children. Patinkin recorded an album comprised of traditional, classical, and contemporary Yiddish music in 1998, and starred in The Adventures of Elmo and Grouchland the following year. In 2003, Patinkin played the role of mentor to a fledgling grim reaper in the Showtime series Dead Like Me, and joined the cast of the CBS crime drama Criminal Minds in 2005 to play the criminal profiler Jason Gideon. Patinkin left the show after two seasons. Patinkin remained active in music, theater, television, and film following his depature from Criminal Minds, and took on a regular role in Homeland, a drama series from Showtime.

Trivia: Versatile as well as tall, dark, and handsome, Thomas Gibson has moved easily between TV stardom and a varied movie career working with some of the industry's major names. Born and raised in Charleston, Gibson found his calling as a child, making his acting debut at age ten in children's theater productions. Though he attended the College of Charleston, Gibson relocated when he won a scholarship to New York's prestigious Juilliard School. After earning his B.F.A., Gibson made his professional New York theater debut in 1985. Gibson spent the rest of the 1980s doing theater, as well as branching out into television with two seasons on the daytime drama Another World and the TV movie Gore Vidal's Lincoln (1988).Gibson made the transition to films in style with a co-starring role opposite Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Ron Howard's glossy Irish-American epic Far and Away (1992). Along with playing a bit part in Martin Scorsese's lush The Age of Innocence (1993), Gibson further distinguished himself that year with larger roles in the critically praised PBS miniseries Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City and French-Canadian director Denys Arcand's first English-language film, the contemporary drama Love and Human Remains (1993).Gibson subsequently appeared in the second part of Whit Stillman's preppy trilogy, Barcelona (1994), and in the indie Sleep With Me (1994), but he became better-known to TV audiences that year on the CBS hospital drama Chicago Hope. After three seasons on the show, Gibson became an even more prominent TV presence in 1997 when he was cast as the straight-laced husband Greg to Jenna Elfman's hippie Dharma on the ABC sitcom Dharma and Greg. In addition to the memorable role of Greg, Gibson would appear in a number of feature films, like Eyes Wide Shut, The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas, and Psycho Beach Party, as well as subsuquent TV series, like the the proceedural Criminal Minds.

Trivia: California-born Shemar Moore parlayed a successful modeling stint into an acting career that began in 1994 with a lead role on the soap opera The Young and the Restless. Moore played Malcolm Winters for eight years, and earned a Daytime Emmy for his performance in 2000. After leaving The Young and the Restless, Moore landed a role on the short-lived WB superhero series Birds of Prey. A prominent supporting role in the surprise hit Diary of a Mad Black Woman followed in 2005, and that same year, he was cast on the CBS drama Criminal Minds alongside Mandy Patinkin and Thomas Gibson. In 2007, Moore made headlines in the gossip rags for a DUI arrest. He would go on to star on the proceedural Criminal Minds.

Trivia: Las Vegas native Matthew Gray Gubler got his show-business start as a fashion model, working for designers like Tommy Hilfiger. After graduating from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 2002, Gubler appeared in his first feature film, playing one of the interns in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou in 2004. He soon followed that performance with a starring role in the series Criminal Minds, playing the young genius Dr. Spencer Reid. He also made a small appearance in the comedy RV before signing on to appear in The Great Buck Howard. He had a major supporting role in (500) Days of Summer, but has probably had his largest success voicing the part of Simon, the nerdy member of the rodent trio at the heart of three Alvin and the Chipmunks movies.

Trivia: Of Jewish and Italian descent.Had her first acting role when she was 25.Won a Drama-Logue Award for Best Actress for her work in Demonology at the Mark Taper Forum.Her father, Robert Glaudini, played the father of her character Dolores Mayo on NYPD Blue.Moved back to New York after leaving Criminal Minds.In 2000, was named one of Entertainment Weekly's 100 Most Creative People on Entertainment.

Trivia: A former San Francisco Giants baseball player turned character actor, Daniel Zacapa has worked steadily from the 1970s to the 1990s, amassing a series of television credits, as well as roles in Up Close and Personal and Seven.

Trivia: Because the two actresses tended to play the same type of overwrought roles in the mid-1950s, juvenile stars Patty McCormick and Patty Duke were sometimes mistaken for one another during this period. But once seen in her starmaking role as the homicidal preteen Rhoda Penmark in The Bad Seed (in which she starred on Broadway in 1954 and in the film version in 1956), Patty McCormick can never be confused with anyone else. A pro from the age of four, McCormick was in films from 1951 and TV from 1953. After Bad Seed, she was second-billed as a bratty child star in the theatrical-film Kathy O' (1957) and was headlined in her own 1958 sitcom, Peck's Bad Girl. The uniqueness that characterized McCormick's appearances as a child evaporated when she reached maturity; though she was more than competent playing disturbed teenagers in films like The Miniskirt Mob (1967) and The Young Runaways (1968), these were parts that could have been played equally well by a dozen other young actresses. She acted sporadically into the 1970s and 1980s, her longest assignment being the role of Jeffrey Tambor's upwardly mobile wife on the TV sitcom The Ropers. In 1995, Patty McCormick starred in the direct-to-video Mommy, playing a grown-up edition of the murderous Rhoda from The Bad Seed.

Trivia: Canadian-born A.J. Cook trained as a competitive dancer before beginning her acting career at age 17 in the children's TV series Goosebumps. She started out in small roles on made-for-TV dramas until her first big break as one of the blonde Lisbon sisters in The Virgin Suicides. She went on to a recurring role on Higher Ground, a Fox Family Channel series about teens in boot camp, where she played the love interest of fellow Canadian Hayden Christensen prior to his role of Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones. After another TV movie and the snowboarding comedy Out Cold, Cook found her niche as a lead actress in horror movies with Ripper: Letter From Hell in 2001. She then headlined a number of other thrillers, including Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell, The House Next Door, and Final Destination 2. In 2005, she began her run in the series Criminal Minds, playing special agent Jennifer "JJ" Jareau. Cook took on a supporting role in the romantic comedy I'm Reed Fish in 2006, and starred in director Ron Satlof's comedy Misconceptions in 2008. The actress took another lead role in 2011 for Bringing Ashley Home, a docudrama following a woman (Cook) determined to find her sister when she suddenly goes missing. Cook returned to the horror genre in 2013, with Wer. A member of the Mormon church, Cook lives in Salt Lake City, UT, with her husband, Nathan Andersen.

Trivia: Like a lot of showbiz hopefuls, Kirsten Vangsness has had her share of day jobs. After paying the bills as a substitute teacher, child counselor, and dinner-theater actress, Vangsness found her big break when she was cast in a Pepsi commercial. Soon afterward, she scored the role of Penelope Garcia on the hit show Criminal Minds in 2004. She made her feature film debut in the thriller In My Sleep.

Trivia: Actress Paget Brewster got her first big break with a recurring role on Friends in 1997 playing Chandler's girlfriend Kathy. A regular stint on the most popular show on television was just the springboard that the actress needed to build up her resumé, and soon she was cast in the cult hit Andy Richter Controls the Universe and the Showtime series Huff. In 2006, she had a prominent role in the family comedy Unaccompanied Minors, and later that same year, she joined the cast of the series Criminal Minds. She has also, most notably, provided the voice of Birdgirl for the Adult Swim series Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.

Trivia: Born September 18th, 1970, actress, comedian, author, reality-show host, and occasional scriptwriter Aisha Tyler came of age in San Francisco and studied poly sci at Dartmouth College before mounting a (brief) career as an advertising executive in her hometown. Dissatisfied by this pursuit, and pining to launch herself as a full-time entertainer, Tyler "dropped out" of the corporate world and hit the road with a solo standup comedy act in the mid-'90s.Around 2001 -- after five years in Los Angeles with occasional standup bookings and concomitantly limited acclaim and recognition -- Tyler landed two huge breaks, first as the host of the irreverent Talk Soup during that program's final year (a position she inherited from Greg Kinnear, John Henson, and others), and then as the primary host of the dating series The 5th Wheel. Riding the crest of popularity generated by reality television during the first several years of the millennium, Wheel coupled the unscripted spontaneity of The Real World and Survivor with the format of the dating series Blind Date. Its premise involved setting two couples up on blind dates, having them "swap" partners, and adding an unforeseen fifth member (the "wheel" of the title) to stir things up and add provocation. The program placed a greater emphasis on erotic and suggestive content than Blind and -- perhaps as a result -- it unsurprisingly became a massive, runaway hit.The ever-ambitious Tyler, however, continued to expand her horizons. She maintained a short tenure with Wheel and quickly moved on to other endeavors, placing a particularly strong emphasis on television work. This included a stint as Charlie (the only recurring African-American cast member) in the final two seasons of the popular sitcom Friends, and a recurring role as covert terrorist Marianne Taylor on the weekly suspenser 24. Tyler also portrayed attorney Andrea Moreno (who dies in a car crash but is then "ushered" over to the other side by Jennifer Love Hewitt's psychic) in the first season (2005-2006) of the supernatural drama The Ghost Whisperer. After that, Tyler segued into feature-film work, with bit roles in such pictures as The Santa Clause 3 and .45.Six feet tall and one of the most physically breathtaking young actresses of her generation, Tyler frequently provides beauty tips in such magazines as Ebony and Glamour; she is also an outspoken proponent of physical fitness and a strenuous exerciser who pushes herself to an almost unimaginable degree. A February 2007 issue of In Style magazine reported, "In addition to scaling walls, Tyler runs, uses a rowing machine, lifts weights, snowboards and scuba dives. But for her, nothing beats the mental rush of rock climbing." In 2004, Tyler also authored and published the best-seller Swerve: Reckless Observations of a Postmodern Girl, a free-form, witty expostulation on such "hot" topics as men, bikini waxing, reality television, dating wars, sex, and body image.After filming several unremarkable movies throughout the mid-2000s, the actress found success on Archer, a television series that features Tyler as a dedicated but deadly agent for ISIS, a secret intelligence unit in New York City. While she continued work on Archer, she landed the job of co-host on The Talk, and later, host of the revamped Whose Line Is It Anyway? As if that weren't enough, Tyler also landed a recurring role on Criminal Minds in 2015.

Trivia: Studied conducting under David Zinman and Murry Sidlin at Aspen Music Festival and under Leonard Slatkin at the National Conducting Institute in Washington, D.C. Appointed an American Conducting Fellow of the Houston Symphony in 2004, and an assistant conductor of Kansas City Symphony in 2006. Has been a guest conductor at many orchestras, including Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Monte Carlo Philharmonic, and NHK Orchestra of Tokyo. Made his Broadway acting debut in the play Clybourne Park in 2012.

Trivia: Launching her performing career in her native Tulsa, Jeanne Tripplehorn spent several years as a local radio DJ and TV host. Educated at both the University of Oklahoma and Juilliard, Born June 10th, 1963, Tripplehorn was first seen on a nationwide basis in 1991 in a supporting role in the made-for-TV movie The Perfect Tribute, a fictionalized retelling of the events leading up to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Many of Tripplehorn's film characterizations have ranged from mildly eccentric to deeply disturbed, thanks in great part to her breakthrough appearance as Michael Douglas' "rough sex" partner in the erotic chiller Basic Instinct (1992). She got a chance to play normal -- albeit frazzled -- as Hugh Grant's fiancée in the romantic comedy Mickey Blue Eyes (1999); in 2000, she returned to rougher territory as a lesbian gangster in Mike Figgis' experimental ensemble film Timecode. In 2006 Tripplehorn found success on the small screen for her role as Barb Henrickson, a devout Mormon who often struggles with her polygamous lifestyle, in the HBO drama series Big Love.

Trivia: Born in Bombay, India, he was raised primarily in San Jose, CA, but traveled frequently to India and Singapore during his childhood. While attending San Jose's Bellarmine College Preparatory High School, cofounded the Indian-American theater company A'shore Productions, which was the first of its kind on the West Coast. After appearing as an extra on NBC's The West Wing, landed his first credited TV role in a 2005 episode of CBS's CSI: NY. While still attending UCLA, made his feature-film debut with a lead role in 2006 drama American Blend.

Trivia: After distinguishing himself in athletics at Rockhurst college, Jim Bannon launched his film career as a stunt man and double. Under contract to Columbia in the mid-1940s, Bannon starred in a brace of films based on the radio series I Love a Mystery. Bannon was also one of four actors to essay the role of B-western hero Red Ryder, and was a regular on such radio series as The Great Gildersleeve and Stars over Hollywood. In 1955, Bannon starred on the Gene Autry-produced TV series The Adventures of Champion. At one time married to actress Bea Benaderet, Jim Bannon was the father of TV actor Jack Bannon.

Trivia: His mother was born in South Korea, but adopted by an American family when she was an infant. Began modeling internationally in 2001. Moved to South Korea to break into acting, despite not speaking the language. Did a series of commercials for Bean Pole, a South Korean fashion brand, with Gwyneth Paltrow in 2005. Became a huge star in South Korea after landing the series My Lovely Sam Soom. Signed with DNA Models in New York City.