Trivia: As Mr. Darcy in the acclaimed 1995 television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Colin Firth induced record increases in estrogen levels on both sides of the Atlantic. Imbuing his role as one of literature's most obstinate lovers with surly, understated charisma, Firth caused many a viewer to wonder where he had been for so long, even though he had in fact been appearing in television and film for years.The son of two university lecturers, Firth was born in England's Hampshire county on September 10, 1960. Part of his early childhood was spent in Nigeria with missionary grandparents, but he returned for schooling in his native country and eventually enrolled in the Drama Centre in Chalk Farm. While playing Hamlet in a school production during his final term, the actor was discovered, and he went on to make his London stage debut in the West End production of Julian Mitchell's Another Country. Starring opposite Rupert Everett, Firth played Tommy Judd, a character based on spy-scandal figurehead Donald Maclean (Everett played Guy Bennett, based on real-life spy Guy Burgess). He went on to reprise his role for the play's 1984 film version, again playing opposite Everett. Despite such an auspicious beginning to his career, Firth spent the rest of the decade and half of the next working in relative obscurity; he starred in a number of television productions -- including the highly acclaimed 1993 Hostages -- and worked steadily in film. Some of his more notable work included A Month in the Country, in which he played a World War I veteran opposite Kenneth Branagh and Natasha Richardson, and Valmont, Milos Forman's 1989 adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, in which Firth starred in the title role. The film also provided him with an introduction to co-star Meg Tilly, with whom he had a son.However, it was not until he again donned breeches and a waistcoat that Firth started to emerge from the shadows of BBC programming. With his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the popular TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Firth was propelled into the media spotlight, touted in a number of articles as the latest in the long line of thinking women's crumpets; he was further rewarded for his work with a BAFTA award. The same year, he appeared as an amorous cad in the similarly popular Circle of Friends and went on the next year to appear as Kristin Scott Thomas' cuckolded husband in The English Patient. Firth garnered praise for his role in the film, which went on to win international acclaim and Academy Awards.After a turn as a morally ambiguous man who gets involved with both Jessica Lange and Michelle Pfeiffer in A Thousand Acres, Firth took a comically sinister turn as Gwyneth Paltrow's intended husband in the 1998 Shakespeare in Love. The following year, he starred in two very different movies: My Life So Far, a tale of family dysfunction in the Scottish Highlands, and Fever Pitch, initially released in the U.K. in 1997, in which Firth played a rabid English football fan forced to choose between his love of the sport and the woman in his life. Headlining the low-key comedy My Life So Far the following year, Firth's performance as the father of a family living in a post World War I British estate was only one of five roles that the busy actor would essay that particular year (including that of William Shakespeare in Blackadder Back and Forth). His finale of the year -- Donovan Quick -- offered a memorable updating of the legend of Don Quixote with Firth himself in the titular role. Firth's supporting role in the 2001 comedy Bridget Jones's Diary preceded a more weighty performance in the chilling drama Conspiracy, with the former earning him a BAFTA nomination and the latter an Emmy nod. Comic performances in Londinium (2001) and The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) found Firth continuing to maintain his reputation as one of England's most talented comic exports, and if his lead in 2003's Hope Springs failed to capitalize on his recent string of success, his role as teen starlet Amanda Bynes' celluloid father in What a Girl Wants (2003) at least endeared him to a new generation of moviegoers before the adult-oriented drama Girl With a Pearl Earring hit theaters later that same year. After rounding out the busy year with a return to romantic comedy in Love Actually, Firth kicked off 2004 with a turn as a haunted widower in Trauma while preparing to return to familiar territory in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.Firth continued to work steadily in projects ranging from the family friendly Nanny McPhee with Emma Thompson to the hit musical Mama Mia, playing one of the three men who might have fathered Meryl Streep's daughter. But it was his leading role in fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut, A Single Man, that garnered him awards attention like he had never received previously. For his work as a gay professor grieving the death of his lover, Firth scored nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, the Academy, and the Independent Spirit Awards.After appearing in the 2009 adaptation of A Christmas Carol, Firth would achieve further accolades for his role as the stuttering King George VI in director Tom Hooper's breathtaking historical drama The King's Speech (2010). In addition to taking home the Academy Award for Best Actor, Firth also took home awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, the L.A. Film Critics Association, and the Screen Actors Guild. 2011 was no less exciting a year for the actor, who co-starred with Gary Oldman in Let the Right One In director Tomas Alfredson's award winning spy thriller Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, an adaptation of John Le Carré's novel about an ex-British agent who comes out of retirement in hopes of solving a dangerous case. Firth is slated to star in Bridget Jone's Baby, Gambit, and The Railway Man in 2013.

Trivia: Perhaps the actress most widely identified with corsets and men named Cecil, Helena Bonham Carter was for a long time typecast as an antiquated heroine, no doubt helped by her own brand of Pre-Raphaelite beauty. With a tumble of brown curls (which were, in fact, hair extensions), huge dark eyes, and translucent pale skin, Bonham Carter's looks made her a natural for movies that took place when the sun still shone over the British Empire and the sight of a bare ankle could induce convulsions. However, the actress, once dubbed by critic Richard Corliss "our modern antique goddess," managed to escape from planet Merchant/Ivory and, while still performing in a number of period pieces, eventually became recognized as an actress capable of portraying thoroughly modern characters. Befitting her double-barreled family name, Bonham Carter is a descendant of the British aristocracy, both social and cinematic. The great-granddaughter of P.M. Lord Herbert Asquith and the grandniece of director Anthony Asquith, she was born to a banker father and a Spanish psychotherapist mother on May 26, 1966, in London. Although her heritage may have been defined by wealth and power, Bonham Carter's upbringing was fraught with misfortune, from her father's paralysis following a botched surgery to her mother's nervous breakdown when the actress was in her teens. Bonham Carter has said in interviews that her mother's breakdown first led her to seek work as an actress and she was soon going out on auditions.She made her screen debut in 1985, playing the ill-fated title character of Trevor Nunn's Lady Jane. Starring opposite Cary Elwes as her equally ill-fated lover, Bonham Carter made enough of an impression as the 16th century teen queen to catch the attention of director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant, who cast her as the protagonist of their 1986 adaptation of E.M. Forster's A Room With a View. The film proved a great critical success, winning eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. The adulation surrounding it provided its young star with her first real taste of fame, as well as steady work; deciding to concentrate on her acting career, Bonham Carter dropped out of Cambridge University, where she had been enrolled.Unfortunately, although she did indeed work steadily and was able to enhance her reputation as a talented actress, Bonham Carter also became a study in typecasting, going from one period piece to the next. Despite the quality of many of these films, including Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990) and two more E.M. Forster vehicles, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) and Howards End (1992), the actress was left without room to expand her range. One notable exception was Getting It Right, a 1989 comedy in which she played a very modern socialite. Things began to change for Bonham Carter in 1995, when she appeared as Woody Allen's wife in Mighty Aphrodite and then had the title role in Margaret's Museum. Bonham Carter's work in the film prompted observers to note that she seemed to be moving away from her previous roles, and although she still appeared in corset movies -- such as Trevor Nunn's lush 1996 adaptation of Twelfth Night -- she began to enhance her reputation as a thoroughly modern actress. In 1997, she won acclaim for her performance in Iain Softley's adaptation of The Wings of the Dove, scoring a Best Actress Oscar nomination in the process.After playing a woman stricken with Lou Gehrig's disease opposite offscreen partner Kenneth Branagh in the poorly received The Theory of Flight (1998) and appearing with Richard E. Grant in A Merry War (1998), Bonham Carter landed one of her most talked-about roles in David Fincher's 1999 Fight Club. As the object of Brad Pitt's and Edward Norton's desires, the actress exchanged hair extensions and English mannerisms for a shock of spiky hair and American dysfunction, prompting some critics to call her one of the most shocking aspects of a shocking movie. But Bonham Carter was soon gearing up for another surprising turn in director Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes (2001). If critics were shocked by her unconventional role in Fight Club, they would no doubt be left dumbfounded with her trading of extravagant period-piece costumes for Rick Baker's makeup wizardry as the simian sympathyser to Mark Wahlberg's Homo sapiens' plight.Burton would become Bonham Carter's partner both in film and in life, as the two would go on to cohabitate and have children, as well as continue to collaborate on screen. The actress would appear in Burton's films like Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Alice in Wonderland, Sweeny Todd, and Dark Shadows. Her often spooky personna in Burton's films no doubt helped her score the role of Beatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter films, but Bonham Carter would also continue to take on more down to earth parts -- though for an actress of Bonham Carter's image, those roles included that of Queen Elizabeth in The King's Speech, and the crazed Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. She played Madame Thénardier in the 2012 adaptation of Les Misérables, and tackled screen icon Elizabeth Taylor in the television movie Burton & Taylor (2013).

Trivia: One of Australia's most popular and distinguished actors, Geoffrey Rush came to the attention of the international community in 1996 with his performance as pianist David Helfgott in Shine (1996). Rush won an Academy Award for Best Actor, Golden Globe, and Australian Film Institute Award for his work, and he subsequently began appearing in films that would further make him known to audiences all over the world. A Queensland native, Rush was born in Toowoomba on July 6, 1951. After taking an arts degree from the University of Queensland, he began his theater career at Brisbane's Queensland Theatre Company. In addition to honing his skills with the classics, Rush lived in Paris for two years, where he studied pantomime at the Jacques Lecoq School of Mime. After returning to Australia, the actor resumed his stage work, at one point co-starring in Waiting for Godot with former roommate Mel Gibson. He spent much of the early '80s as part of director Jim Sharman's Lighthouse troupe and he also began working in film; his debut came in the 1981 Hoodwink, which also featured a young Judy Davis. Rush continued to appear in Australian films and on the stage, directing a number of theatrical productions in addition to acting in them. His big international break came in the form of the aforementioned Shine; following the adulation surrounding his performance as the unbalanced piano prodigy, Rush began to garner substantial roles in a number of high-profile projects. First was Gillian Armstrong's Oscar and Lucinda (1997), in which he played Oscar's great-grandson. The following year the actor drew raves for his work in Elizabeth, which featured him as the Queen's casually sinister confidant, and Shakespeare in Love, for which he again donned tights, this time to play a debt-ridden theater owner. His work in that film scored him his second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actor. The same year, he could also be seen as the dastardly Inspector Javert in Bille August's adaptation of Les Miserables.In 1999, Rush exchanged the past for the future with Mystery Men. Starring as the dastardly Casanova Frankenstein, he shared the screen with an unlikely assortment of actors, including Greg Kinnear, Janeane Garofalo, Ben Stiller, and Paul Reubens. The same year, he starred as an eccentric millionaire who invites a few guests (including Bridgette Wilson, Taye Diggs, and Peter Gallagher) over for some tea and terror in the remake of William Castle's 1958 classic The House on Haunted Hill.At this point audiences in the know were indeed well aware of Rush's versitility, and any actor able to move from the campy, big budget B-horror to the Oscar nominated art-house antics of Phil Kaufman's Quills had little need to prove himself to either critics or audiences. Though he may not have taken home the trophy at the 2001 Academy Awards, his performance as the Marquis de Sade in the Kaufman film drew praise from nearly every corner of the critical spectrum and Rush was now recognized as one of the premier talents of his generation. Whether appearing in such deadly serious independent drama as Frida or wide release cotton candy as The Banger Sisters, Rush was never anything less than fascinating to watch and his enthusiasm for his craft always managed to shine through into his performances. Though the film wasn't seen by the majority of stateside audiences, 2003's Swimming Upstream offered Rush in a meorable turn as the distant father of Australian swimmer Tony Figleton. After taking on one of Austrailia's most notorious outlaws in the 2003 drama Ned Kelley and offering vocal work for the popular Pixar family adventure Finding Nemo, Rush remained on this high seas - this time mostly above water - as the leader of an undead crew of pirates in the 2003 swashbuckler Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Though his menacing performance may have been slightly overshadowed by the flamboyant antics of co-star Johnny Depp, Rush nevertheless managed to craft one of the most complex and rousing villians in recent screen history. Next turning up as the hapless victim of a gold-digging maneater in the Coen Brothers' Intolerable Cruelty, Rush soon began preparation for his role as none other than the immortal Inspector Clouseau in the made-for-television biography The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. Rush played the Mossad representative who acts as the contact for the group of avenging agents in Steven Spielberg's outstanding Munich. Then he returned to the biggest hit of his career, reprising his part as a pirate in the next two Pirates of the Carribean films. He also agreed to reteam with director Shekhar Kapur and co-star Cate Blanchett for the sequel to Elizabeth reprising his role as Sir Francis Walsingham.As anticipated, the 2006 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest opened to spectacular box office and solid (if not exemplary) reviews, though few of the critics who praised the film actually singled out Rush's fine performance in it as Barbossa (doubtless blinded by the impressive torrent of special effects and the squishy villainry of Bill Nighy that took center stage). Rush also joined the cast of that same year's Candy. Not to be mistaken for the awful Christian Marquand picture of the same title (or a remake thereof), the film actually constitutes a finely-tuned gut-wrencher about the heroin addictions of a poet and art student who become romantically entwined and decide to wed. Rush plays the ultra-liberal professor who first encourages the heroin use as experimentation, but later acknowledges the couple's inseparable, volatile bond to one another other via shared use of the substance. The picture stars Abbie Cornish and Heath Ledger as the marrieds. THINKFilm scheduled Candy for release in October 2006 as Shekhar Kapur directed Rush in The Golden Age - the Elizabeth sequel for Universal and Working Title - which the studios slated for an October 2007 premiere. Meanwhile, the actor also lent a great deal of his time to shooting the third Pirates installment, also debuting in 2007. 2010 would prove a banner year for Rush, as he was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance as a speech therapist in The King's Speech, and the winner of the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for the same film. In 2011, Rush reprised his Pirates role once again for Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides.Rush married Shakespearean stage actress Jane Menelaus in 1988, with whom he has two children - Angelica and James. The couple resides in Melbourne. He is actively involved with environmental causes.

Trivia: One of Britain's most distinguished stage performers, Derek Jacobi is one of two actors (the other being Laurence Olivier) to hold both Danish and English knighthoods. Primarily known for his work on the stage, he has also made a number of films and remains best-known to television audiences for his stunning portrayal of the titular Roman emperor in I, Claudius.Born in Leytonstone, East London, on October 22, 1938, Jacobi was raised with a love of film, and he began performing on the stage while attending an all-boys school. Thanks to the school's single sex population, his first roles with the drama club -- until his voice broke -- were all female. It was with one of his first male roles that Jacobi earned his first measure of acclaim: playing Hamlet in a school production staged at the 1957 Edinburgh Festival, he made enough of an impression that he was approached by an agent from Twentieth Century Fox. Ultimately deemed too young to be signed to the studio, Jacobi instead went to Cambridge University, where he studied history and continued acting. His stage work at Cambridge was prolific and allowed him to work with classmates Ian McKellen and Trevor Nunn, and, thanks to his performance as Edward II, landed him his first job after graduation. Jacobi acted with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre until his portrayal of Henry VIII attracted the attention of Laurence Olivier. Olivier was so impressed with Jacobi's work that he invited him to London to become one of the eight founding members of the prestigious National Theatre.Jacobi went on to become one of his country's most steadily employed and respected actors, performing in numerous plays over the years on both sides of the Atlantic (in 1985, he won a Tony Award for his work in Much Ado About Nothing). He also branched out into film and television, making his film debut with a secondary role in Douglas Sirk's Interlude (1957). He acted in numerous film adaptations of classic plays, including Othello (1965) and The Three Sisters (1970). However, it was through his collaborations with Kenneth Branagh on various screen adaptations of Shakespeare that he became most visible to an international film audience, appearing as the Chorus in Branagh's acclaimed 1989 Henry V and as Claudius in the director's 1996 full-length adaptation of Hamlet. Jacobi made one of his most memorable (to say nothing of terrifying) screen impressions in Branagh's Hitchcock-inspired Dead Again (1991), portraying a hypnotist with a very shady background. In 1998, Jacobi earned more recognition with his portrayal of famed painter Francis Bacon in John Maybury's controversial Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon.On television, in addition to his celebrated work in I, Claudius, Jacobi has also earned praise for his roles in a number of other productions. In 1989, he won an Emmy for his performance in the 1988 adaptation of Graham Greene's The Tenth Man.In 1994 he began a successful run as a mystery-solving monk in the TV series Cadfael, a program that ran for three years. He had a Shakespeare heavy 1996 playing Claudius opposite Branagh's Hamlet, and appearing in Al Pacino's documentary Looking for Richard. He lent his voice to the animated version of Beowulf. He began the new century appearing in the Best Picture winner Gladiator, and was part of the rich ensemble compiled by Robert Altman for Gosford Park. In 2005 he was in the cast of the hit children's film Nanny McPhee, and two years later he was in The Golden Compass. In 2010 he appeared in another Oscar winning best picture when he was in The King's Speech. The next year he appeared in Anonymous as well as My Week With Marilyn.

Trivia: With classic, square-jawed good looks, Australian actor Guy Pearce brings to mind the leading men of Hollywood's Golden Age; however, the actor is a thoroughly modern one, using his talents to play characters ranging from flamboyant drag queens to straight-arrow Los Angeles policemen. Pearce was born October 5, 1967, in Cambridgeshire, England. His father, who was a member of the Royal Air Force, moved his family to Australia when Pearce was three. Following the elder Pearce's tragic death in a plane crash, Pearce's mother decided to keep her family in Australia when young Pearce was eight, and it was there that he grew up. Interested in acting from a young age, he wrote to various members of the Australian television industry requesting a screen test when he was 17. His efforts proved worthwhile, as he was invited to audition for a new soap called Neighbours. Pearce won a significant part on the show and was part of it from 1986 to 1990. Following his stint on Neighbours, Pearce found other work in television and made his screen debut in the 1992 film Hunting. He acted in a few more small films and in My Forgotten Man, a 1993 TV biopic of Errol Flynn, before coming to the attention of film audiences everywhere in the 1994 sleeper hit The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. As the flamboyant and often infuriating Adam/Felicia, Pearce gave a performance that was both over the top and immensely satisfying. The role gave him the international exposure he had previously lacked and led to his casting in Curtis Hanson's 1997 adaptation of James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential. The film was an all-around success and drew raves for Pearce and his co-stars, who included Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, Kim Basinger (who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance) and fellow Australian Russell Crowe.After the success of L.A. Confidential, Pearce went on to make the independent A Slipping Down Life, which premiered at Sundance in 1999. He followed that with the highly original but fatally unmarketable Ravenous (1999), Antonia Bird's tale of chaos and cannibalism which cast Pearce alongside the likes of David Arquette and Robert Carlyle. Though his role in the following year's military drama Rules of Engagement would offer a commendable performance by the rising star, it was another film that same year that would cement his status as one of the most challenging and unpredictable performers of his generation. Cast as a vengeance seeking, tattoo-covered widower whose inability to form new memories hinders his frantic search for his wife's killer, Pearce's unforgettable performance in the backwards-structured thriller Memento drove what would ultimately become one of the biggest sleepers in box office history. Pearce was now officially hot property on the Hollywood scene, and producers wasted no time in booking him for as many upcoming blockbusters as they could. A memorable performance as the villain in The Count of Monte Cristo found Pearce traveling back in time for his next film, and his subsequent role in The Time Machine would find him blasting so far into the future that mankind had reverted to the days of prehistoric times. A trip to the land down under found Pearce next appearing as a hapless bank robber in the critically panned crime effort The Hard Word, and the popular actor would remain in Australia for the elliptical drama Till Human Voices Wake Us (2002). In 2004, Pearce played a lion hunter in the family-oriented epic Two Brothers.Yet despite his increasing prominence as an international movie star, Pearce continued to display a flair for unusual, often demanding roles that would send lesser actors running. His performance as an outlaw tasked with killing his own brother in John Hillcoat's The Proposition earned Pearce a well-deserved AFI nomination for Best Lead Actor in 2005 (an honor he would share with his co-star Ray Winstone, though the award ultimately went to Hugo Weaving for Little Fish), and on the heels of an appearance as Andy Warhol in George Hickenlooper's Factory Girl he could be seen as famed magician Harry Houdini in Gillian Armstrong's Death Defying Acts -- a role which found a second AFI award slipping though his fingers. Though Pearce's turn as a military man in 2008's The Hurt Locker found him in fine form, it was Jeremy Renner who stole the show in Katherine Bigelow's multiple Oscar-winner and, curiously enough, the actor's next AFI nomination would come from his appearance in the Adam Sandler fantasy/comedy Bedtime Stories. A brief reunion with Hillcoat in The Road preceded a grim turn as a grieving father in the harrowing 2009 true crime drama In Her Skin, and in 2010 Pearce lost yet another AFI award to a talented co-star when Joel Edgarton took home the Best Supporting Actor award for his memorable performance in Animal Kingdom (which found Pearce cast in the role of an honest cop reaching out to a troubled youth). As if to balance out all of the awards disappointment in recent years, Pearce nabbed an Emmy for his performance opposite Kate Winslet in the made-for-cable drama Mildred Pierce following a brief appearance as KIng Edward VIII in the Oscar-winning historical drama The King's Speech, with additional roles in Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and Lockout proving that respected actors can still have a bit of fun on the big screen from time to time. Meanwhile, after an almost unrecognizable appearance in Ridley Scott's quasi-Alien prequel Prometheus, Pearce prepared to team up with his frequent collaborator Hillcoat once again, this time as a special agent determined to get his piece of the bootlegging pie in Lawless, which also starred Tom Hardy and Shia LeBeouf. He played the main antagonist, Aldrich Killian, in Iron Man 3, and earned an AACTA nomination for Best Lead Actor for his work in the dystopian film The Rover (2014).

Trivia: Perhaps the actor most closely associated with director Mike Leigh, Timothy Spall has acted in productions for the director on both the stage and screen. Spall made a particularly strong impression in Leigh's Life is Sweet (1991), which cast him as a socially awkward gourmet chef, and Secrets & Lies (1996), in which his starring performance as a portrait photographer struggling with marital problems earned him award nominations from the British Academy and the London Film Critics Circle. In addition to his work with Leigh, Spall has appeared in a number of disparate productions. He made his film debut with a supporting role in the Who's Quadrophenia in 1979 and spent the next decade splitting his time and energy between the stage and screen. He acted extensively for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, and he also did acclaimed work on television, most notably as Mr. Venus in the BBC production of Charles Dicken's Our Mutual Friend, for which he received a BAFTA Best Actor nomination.Spall began to gain recognition and respect as a film actor in the 1990s, thanks in large part to his collaborations with Leigh. In addition to his work with the director, Spall was particularly memorable in Brian Gibson's Still Crazy (1998), a comedy that cast him as the drummer for a defunct 1970s rock band trying to make a come-back. In 1999, the actor enjoyed another collaboration with Leigh in Topsy-Turvy, an acclaimed drama about the partnership between Gilbert and Sullivan that featured Spall as an effeminate opera diva. The following year, he could be seen as Don Armado in Kenneth Branagh's musical adaptation of Love's Labour's Lost, and heard as a chicken farm denizen in Nick Park's animated Chicken Run. In recognition of his contributions to the arts, Spall was named an Officer of the Order of British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth on New Year's Eve, 1999.

Trivia: Born December 29, 1969, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the home of her novelist father John Ehle, Ehle was raised largely in nearby Asheville. She spent a great deal of her childhood following her mother's career engagements back and forth between the States and the U.K., attending over 18 schools in the process. Ehle eventually settled in London to study drama at the Central School, but dropped out in 1991 to take the part of Calypso in Peter Hall's lauded TV adaptation of The Chamomile Lawn. Further television and stage roles followed, and in 1993, Ehle made her screen debut with a small role in Iain Softley's Backbeat as Cynthia Powell, John Lennon's first wife. Ehle's career entered a new and more lucrative phase with her award-winning turn as Pride and Prejudice's heroine, Elizabeth Bennett; in addition to its success in Britain, the miniseries -- which also launched Colin Firth to international fame in his role as Mr. Darcy -- proved to be a runaway hit in the States. More film work duly came Ehle's way: she could be seen playing Oscar Wilde's wife, Constance, in Wilde (1997); a prisoner of war alongside Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Cate Blanchett, and Julianna Margulies in Paradise Road (1997); and a woman who finds herself becoming involved with her supposedly gay former boyfriend in Bedrooms & Hallways (1998). Ehle was cast in perhaps her most high-profile screen role to date in 1999, when she starred as the wife of a Hungarian lawyer (Ralph Fiennes) in István Szabó's epic Sunshine, a historical drama tracing the fortunes of three generations of a Hungarian Jewish family. However, the actress' involvement in the film, which also starred real-life mother Harris as the older version of her character, was overshadowed in theatrical circles by her work on the stage that same year. For her performance as Annie, the wife of a brilliant but emotionally evasive playwright (Stephen Dillane) in the Broadway production of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, Ehle found herself up against her mother, who starred in Waiting in the Wings, for a 2000 Best Actress Tony Award. Ehle ultimately won the award, the latest honor in what looked to be, like her mother's, a very long and vibrant career. Indeed, as the years rolled by, Ehle would continue to appear regularly on screen in films like The King's Speech, Contagion, The Adjustment Bureau, and on the series A Gifted Man.

Trivia: An actor since 1967, eternally boyish leading man Anthony Andrews first gained notice as one of the teenaged protagonists of the Irish-filmed TV drama A War of Children. Andrews played bits in a couple of films, then co-starred as Stephen Kelko in QB VII (1974), the first of his many TV miniseries appearances. Of his later ventures into serialized teledramas, Andrews' most famous assignment was the role of Sebastian Flyte in the internationally popular Brideshead Revisited (1981). He has also played the title characters in the early-1980s TV adaptations of The Scarlet Pimpernel and Ivanhoe, was seen as Nero in AD (1985), and impersonated Professor Moriarty in the 1990 Sherlock Holmes adventure Hands of a Murderer. Perhaps the best of Anthony Andrews' comparatively few theatrical-film stints was his performance as the half-brother of tosspot Albert Finney in John Huston's Under the Volcano.

Trivia: While taking drama lessons at Badminton, Guildhall School, and the Central School of Speech and Drama, Claire Bloom began appearing on BBC radio, and made her stage debut at 15 with the Oxford Repertory. She made her London bow in 1947, and the following year was effusively praised for her performance as Ophelia in a Stratford-upon-Avon production of Hamlet. Also in 1948, she appeared in her first film, The Blind Goddess (1948). While gainfully employed at the Old Vic in 1952, Bloom was selected by Charlie Chaplin to portray the suicidal ballerina Terry in Chaplin's Limelight. Though the film was inadequately distributed due to Chaplin's "questionable" political beliefs, Limelight made Bloom an overnight star -- after only nine years in the business. Her next major film assignment was Lady Anne in Olivier's Richard III (1955), which led to a steady stream of costume roles in films like Alexander the Great (1956), The Brothers Karamazov (1959), The Buccaneer (1959), and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962). Of her "contemporary" film roles, several are standouts: the sexually unstable housewife in The Chapman Report, the lesbian psychic in The Haunting (1963), the compassionate psychiatrist in Charly (1968), and Martin Landau's Jewish-suburbanite wife in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Her TV work has included Edith Galt Wilson in Backstairs at the White House (1979) and Lady Marchman in Brideshead Revisited (1982). Whenever her schedule has allowed, Bloom has returned to her first love, the theater; her favorite stage role is Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Married three times, Bloom's first husband was actor Rod Steiger, with whom she co-starred in 3 Into 2 Won't Go (1969) and The Illustrated Man (1969); her second was producer Hillard Elkins, who packaged Bloom's 1973 film version of The Doll's House; and her third was novelist Philip Roth. In 1982, Claire Bloom published her autobiography, Limelight and After: The Education of an Actress.Bloom would remain active on screen in the decades to come, appearing most notably in movies like Crimes and Misdemeanors, The Age of Innocence, Mighty Aphrodite, and the King's Speech.

Trivia: Best known for her work on the stage, British actress Eve Best studied English at Lincoln College, Oxford, before studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. After graduating, she appeared in a popular production of 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore, the first of many plays that would earn Best a series of nominations and awards. She appeared in several more productions on London's West End, and later transitioned to Broadway for A Moon for the Misbegotten, which earned her a Tony award. Best would also try her hand at on-camera acting, appearing on British shows like Shackelton and Prime Suspect, as well as the HBO series Nurse Jackie.

Trivia: One of Britain's most revered stage performers, Michael Gambon (born October 19th, 1940) was described by the late Sir Ralph Richardson as "The Great Gambon." The fierce-looking Irish actor joined Britain's National Theatre in 1963 after being personally selected by Sir Laurence Olivier. He quickly worked his way up to leading parts and became particularly well known for his work in a number of Alan Ayckbourn plays. Gambon's career received a major boost in 1980, when he took the title role in John Dexter's production of The Life of Galileo; he subsequently became a regular player with both the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. The actor received particular acclaim for his work in A View from the Bridge, for which he won all of the major drama awards in 1987, and Volpone, for which he won the 1995 Evening Standard Award. Gambon made his Broadway debut in 1997 in New York's Royal Theatre production of David Hare's Skylight.While he was busy racking up an impressive number of plays, Gambon also found time to nurture a film career. Although he made his screen debut in a 1965 adaptation of Othello, the actor appeared only sporadically in films until the late '80s, when he began earning recognition for his work in such films as Peter Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989), which cast him as the sadistic titular thief. He went on to do starring work in a number of diverse films, including A Man of No Importance (1994), The Browning Version (1994), Dancing at Lughnasa (1998), and Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow (1999). Extremely busy during the millennial turnover, Gambon once again caught the attention of audiences in Robert Altman's much-praised comedy Gosford Park before taking over the late Richard Harris's role as Albus Dumbledore in 2004's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, subsequently portraying the character for the remainder of the films. Gambon, who became a familiar face to PBS devotees via his title role in Dennis Potter's quirky TV serial The Singing Detective (1986-1987), was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1992.The actor would further demonstrate his range by appearing in 2004's highly stylized sci-fi adventure Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the British crime thriller Layer Cake, and The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, an edgy comedy from director Wes Anderson. Gambon continued in his role of Dumbledore until the Harry Potter film franchise came to an end in 2011 with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II.

Trivia: All expectations of staid English cinema aside, British actor Adrian Scarborough often forsook more conservative projects to essay a series of genial supporting roles (usually a common everyman) in edgy, occasionally provocative material, nearly always in his native U.K. His resumé includes a turn as biographer Daniel Farson in John Maybury's Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon (1998), garage owner Frank (the angelic title character's brother-in-law) in Mike Leigh's Vera Drake (2004), and a minor role in Richard Eyre's visceral psychological drama Notes on a Scandal (2006). Scarborough also tackled period work with a bit part in Shekhar Kapur's period drama Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007).

Trivia: Walkden, England, native David Bamber nearly avoided the proscenium altogether, with early plans to enter a training program for special education instructors. At the last yawning moment, however, Bamber decided to jump ship and head into acting, courtesy of the dramatic arts program at Bristol University and -- later -- a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). As a student, the thespian distinguished himself from many of his colleagues by acquiring a marked preference for contemporary material over classicist plays. As a stage actor, Bamber (though openly heterosexual, with a wife and children) sustained a particularly fine reputation for convincing portrayals of (often repressed) gay characters in such plays as My Night with Reg and Pride and Prejudice. He also gained recognition for comic physicality deemed brilliant by many critics. In terms of on-camera work, Bamber's work (somewhat ironically) has leaned more toward period material than his stage efforts. Following an appearance in the all-star British seriocomedy Privates on Parade (1982), he signed for roles in such projects as the made-for-television outings The Merchant of Venice (2001) and Pollyanna (2002), and the HBO miniseries Rome (2005) as Marcus Tillius Cicero. In 2008, Bamber joined co-stars Tom Cruise, Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh, and others for the Cruise-produced Hitler assassination thriller Valkyrie with a frightening turn as Adolf Hitler.

Trivia: Supporting actor, onscreen from the '70s.

Trivia: Spent part of his childhood in a Ghana fishing village, where his parents helped build an education system. Earned three degrees, in English, biology and education, from Queens University; worked as a teacher before his acting career took off. Won a 2001 TV GUIDE Award for Actor of the Year in a New Series for Ed. Bearing a striking resemblance to actor Zach Braff, he played his older brother in a recurring role on Scrubs. In 2008, played a professor in an off-Broadway production of the play Some Americans Abroad. Starred as a detective in The Capture of the Green River Killer (2008), Lifetime's first original miniseries. In 2009, paired with Eric McCormack to headline TNT's short-lived drama series Trust Me.