Trivia: Appeared in commercials for IKEA and Canadian companies Jean Coutu and Boston Pizza. Was a serious gymnast training for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro before she chose to concentrate on acting instead. Had to learn to speak English with a German accent for her role in The Book Thief (2013).

Trivia: Actress Kathy Bates has been involved in the arts in one way or another since graduating from Southern Methodist University. Among the Memphis native's earliest jobs were a stint as a singing waitress in a Catskill resort and a sojourn as a gift shop cashier in New York's Museum of Modern Art. Bates was type-cast in character roles early on, which assured her a lot more work than the thousands of faceless ingenues in the business. Her film debut occurred with 1971's Taking Off, and she made her off-Broadway debut five years later in Vanities.For a long while, Bates made her name on the stage, only to see her roles go to other actresses in the plays' subsequent film adaptations. In 1983, she was nominated for a Tony award for her stage appearance as a garrulous would-be suicide in 'Night, Mother, a role played on screen by Sissy Spacek. She also appeared as Lenny McGrath in Beth Henley's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Crimes of the Heart, a role played on screen by Diane Keaton. And in 1987, playwright Terrence McNally wrote a part specifically tailored to Bates' talents: the much-abused waitress Frankie in Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, a role which won her an Obie award, and, following a familiar pattern, was played on screen by Michelle Pfeiffer.Bates finally got to star in a movie herself in 1990. And what a starring role it was: in Misery, she portrayed the psychotic "Number One Fan" of romance writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan), a searing performance which earned the actress an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. Appropriately enough, Hollywood screenwriters subsequently began making more room for Bates in their scripts. She worked steadily throughout the rest of the decade in films of greatly varying quality. Particular highlights included Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), A Prelude to a Kiss (1992), Dolores Claiborne (1995), Titanic (1997), and Primary Colors (1998), the latter of which featured Bates giving an Oscar and Golden Globe nominated performance as a political muckraker. Following her firey, foul-mouthed performance in that thinly veilied political biopic, Bates added a new credential to her resume, that of director. Initially taking the helm for the made-for-cable feature Dash and Lilly, Bates would subsequently direct episodes of the quirky HBO drama series Six Feet Under, simultaniously taking minor film roles before returning to more substantial roles with the CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame entry My Sister's Keeper. Roles in Love Liza and Dragonfly (both 2002) were soon to follow, and with her turn as an extroverted mother who catches the attention of Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt Bates would recieve her third Oscar nomination.She directed a number of episodes of the HBO series Six Feet Under before joining the cast in season 3 as Bettina. The next year she portrayed Queen Victoria in the big-budget remake of Around the World in 80 Days. She directed he feature Ambulance Girl in 2005. She continued to act steadily in a variety of projects including Failure to Launch, P.S. I Love You, Fred Claus, Bee Movie, and Revolutionary Road. She provided expert support for Sandra Bulock as the younger actress was winning an Oscar in The Blind Side, and Bates joined the cast of The Office in 2009. She was part of the large ensemble in 2010'ss Valentine's Day, and in 2011 starred as Gertrude Stein in Woody Allen's Oscar winning Midnight in Paris. That same year she launched her own network Drama series Harry's Law.

Trivia: Alabama native Octavia Spencer was working as part of the crew for the 1996 thriller A Time to Kill when she was handed the chance of a lifetime: Director Joel Schumacher thought she was right for a small role in the film, and Spencer's acting career was born. In addition to honing her craft on the professional stages of Los Angeles, Spencer continued to act on screen, appearing in a multitude of projects, including Never Been Kissed, Blue Streak, Big Momma's House, Dinner for Schmucks, and Peep World. Spencer also became a familiar TV face, with starring and recurring roles on LAX, Ugly Betty, Halfway Home, and Raising the Bar. A major boon for Spencer arrived in 2011 when, after 15 years in the industry, her performance in the critically acclaimed period movie The Help earned her an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

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: With a number of high-profile projects, a variety of magazine covers, and a spot on Teen People's 21 Hottest Stars Under 21 list in 1999 under her belt, actress Julia Stiles has come a remarkably long way in a very short time. Born March 28, 1981, in New York City, Stiles was interested in performing from a very young age. When she was eleven years old, she wrote a letter to a Manhattan theater director asking to be cast in a production and was soon acting on-stage in avant-garde plays at both the La Mama and Kitchen Theaters. In 1996, Stiles made her film debut with a small part in I Love You, I Love You Not and the following year had her television debut in the Oprah Winfrey Presents: Before Women Had Wings, in which she played an abused child. The same year, she made a brief appearance as Harrison Ford's daughter in The Devil's Own and followed with roles in two 1998 films, Wide Awake and the Sundance entry Wicked. The year 1999 proved to be Stiles' breakthrough year, as she played a prominent part in the television miniseries The '60s and the lead role in 10 Things I Hate About You, the latest film to mine gold and produce endorsements out of William Shakespeare. The film was a hit, and Stiles was soon being heralded as one of the hottest, young actors of her generation. With her name attached to a number of future projects, it seemed that Stiles would indeed have success in living up to this label.Sure enough, Stiles was almost immediately cast in two modernized-for-MTV-generation Shakespeare flicks, namely director Michael Almereyda's Hamlet (2000) with Ethan Hawke and O, a teen-oriented adaptation of Othello starring Josh Hartnett and Mekhi Phifer. As classic literature once again fell in place behind predictable romantic comedies, Stiles could be found playing the romantic lead in Down to You with teen movie veteran Freddie Prinze Jr., and alongside Sean Patrick Thomas in Save the Last Dance, which featured Stiles in the role of a grieving ballet dancer who attends an inner-city school and eventually finds love within a primarily black high school. Though the film was not a critical success, Save the Last Dance (2001) and 10 Things I Hate About You nonetheless helped construct Stiles a respectable fan base, and the young actress -- now with a Saturday Night Live credit under her belt -- would continue to build her resumé throughout the early 2000s. In the film adaptation of novelist Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity, Stiles had the chance to participate in a film starring Hollywood golden boy Matt Damon and returned to the role in 2004's The Bourne Supremacy. Stiles was praised for holding her own against Stockard Channing in The Business of Strangers (2001), which was shown at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and fared decently in A Guy Thing, a romantic comedy-of-errors co-starring Jason Lee and Stiles' fellow Down to You alumna Selma Blair. In 2003, Stiles would play opposite the Oscar-winning Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile, which finds Stiles playing a conservative '50s college student whose beliefs undergo some serious scrutiny after coming in contact with an uncharacteristically progressive teacher (Roberts). The year 2004 promised more teen-styled roles; Stiles played the eccentric title character in Carolina under the direction of Dutch filmmaker Marleen Gorris and worked with director Martha Coolidge and 28 Days Later's Luke Mably in The Prince & Me. A key role in opposite William H. Macy in director Stuard Gordon's critically lauded but little seen David Mamet adaptation Edmond served well to remind audiences of Stiles acting abilities, and the following year the wholesome-looking beauty would serve as mother to the ultimate evil in the high profile horror remake The Omen. Jumping genres to action with The Bourne Ultimatum the following year, Stiles quickly ventured back into dark territory when she joined the cast of the popular Showtime series Dexter in late 2010. Cast as vengeful rape victim Lumen Ann Pierce, the versatile young actress proved an unlikely partner for the murderous protagonist, and earned an Emmy nomination for her role in the process. In 2012, Stiles had a small role in the award-winning Silver Linings Playbook.

Trivia: Wrestled in high school until a hamstring injury forced him to quit and drop out of gym class during his senior year; enrolled in a drama course instead and fell in love with acting. Made Broadway debut in the 2007 revival of The Ritz. Big break came in 2008 being cast as Casey Hughes on As the World Turns. Meryl Streep caught his Tony-nominated performance in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, and recommended him to director Rob Marshall for the film adaptation of Into the Woods; landed the role of Rapunzel's prince. Plays bass in the New York City-based band Reserved for Rondee. Appears in two movies (Bridge of Spies; The Big Short) nominated for 2015 Best Picture Oscars.

Trivia: Character actor Bill Cobbs began his acting career relatively late in life after working odd jobs in Cleveland, OH. At the age of 36, he moved to New York and joined the Negro Ensemble Company, making his Broadway debut in First Breeze of Summer. His film career started in the late '70s with small film roles and guest appearances on television. In the early '80s, he worked on several performances for the NBC Live Theatre series and a PBS anthology with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. Usually cast as the token old black man dispensing words of wisdom, Cobbs' weathered-yet-honest looks got him several guest spots on TV shows from Good Times to The West Wing. He did end up with a few reoccurring roles on sitcoms like The Slap Maxwell Story, The Gregory Hines Show, and The Michael Richards Show. He even had a part in The Others, the NBC sci-fi drama answer to The X-Files. Perhaps his most memorable television appearance is his role as Regina Taylor's father on I'll Fly Away as well as in the TV movie version I'll Fly Away: Then and Now. Throughout his film career, he has built a long list of credits playing kindly fathers, grandfathers, and even Moses (in The Hudsucker Proxy). He was Whitney Houston's manager in The Bodyguard, an old man in New Jack City, and Grandpa Booker in The People Under the Stairs. Though he appears in nearly all genres of Hollywood films, he occasionally gets meatier roles in made-for-TV dramas like Carolina Skeletons, Nightjohn, and Always Outnumbered. In 2002, he played wisened elders in Sunshine State, Enough, and Sweet Deadly Dreams.

Trivia: Created his YouTube channel Tobuscus on May 14, 2006, and posted a sketch based on the 2006 Adam Sandler vehicle Click.Starred in the 2012 psychological horror film Smiley with fellow YouTube star Shane Dawson.Signed with YouTube multi-channel network Maker Studios in July 2013.Starred in the Cartoon Network animated series The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange as the only human character, Nerville from 2012-2014.Some of his most popular videos are his literal interpretations of trailers for movies and video games.