Trivia: The lithe and alluring African-American actress Golden Brooks began life in San Francisco in late 1970, and grew up in both the Bay Area and the City of Angels. As a young woman, she attended the University of California at Berkeley as a sociology major, later earning her master's degree from Sarah Lawrence College. Brooks first broke into films in the mid-'90s, with a small role in Spike Lee's phone sex-themed comedy drama Girl 6 (1996); the 2000 series Girlfriends, however, brought Brooks her first recognition in the American press. This rabidly popular sitcom -- which reeled in critical kudos and maintained a broad fan base -- constituted the pet project of Frasier star Kelsey Grammer and producer Mara Brock Akil. It told of four African-American female friends in the Los Angeles -- all white-collar women -- struggling to balance personal and professional demands. Brooks played an assistant at a legal firm and the only woman in the ensemble with a happy marriage and a growing family. After scattered roles in acclaimed features through the first several years of the new millennium, Brooks made the pivotal decision to join the cast of the Queen Latifah-starrer Beauty Shop, about the colorful proprietors and denizens of an Atlanta-based hair salon. The following year, she also starred in Sanaa Hamri's acclaimed dramedy Something New.

Trivia: An esteemed African-American playwright and actor whose roles almost invariably contend with the politics and dynamics of race (frequent collaborator Spike Lee once famously described him as a "racial cheerleader"), thespian Roger Guenveur Smith grew up in Berkeley and debuted onscreen in the late '80s. Over the ensuing years, Smith cultivated and sustained a reputation for tackling demanding, challenging, and thought-provoking assignments with immense aplomb. He achieved much of his success thanks to repeated collaborations with Lee, who cast him as Yoda in the musical School Daze (1988) and Smiley, the hipster street philosopher in Do the Right Thing (1989); in fact, Lee later noted that Smith was the one who devised the idea for the juxtaposed photographs of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X in one of Thing's pivotal scenes. Meanwhile, Smith remained extremely active in regional theater, both by authoring his own efforts (such as a musical about Christopher Columbus that painted commonly accepted versions of the man's life story as historical revisionism) and by teaching drama to juvenile delinquents. As the years passed, Smith's onscreen activity crescendoed; he signed for plum roles in such contemporary classics as King of New York (1990), Deep Cover (1992), and Eve's Bayou (1997), and, significantly, extended his professional relationship with Lee to many additional projects. The celebrated director cast Smith in such features as Malcolm X (1992), Get on the Bus (1996), He Got Game (1998), and Summer of Sam (1999), all of which received considerable acclaim. Their actor-director working relationship culminated in the little-seen (but arguably brilliant) A Huey P. Newton Story (2001) -- a Lee-directed film of Smith's one-man stage show on the life of controversial Black Panther leader Huey P. Newton. The film preserves the original Smith-authored play, and stars the thespian as Newton; Lee augments the film with visual pyrotechnics and interpolates archival footage to give the feature depth and dimension. Unfortunately, the project failed to receive even a limited theatrical release, and premiered instead on the Black Starz cable network. Thereafter, Smith continued his theatrical work (albeit very infrequently) with such plays as the 2003 Iceland, a psychological drama about four unrelated characters that debuted in Philadelphia. He also continued his frequent film roles, with assignments including Shade (2003), God's Waiting List (2006), Confessions of a Call Girl (2006), and Ridley Scott's American Gangster (2007).

Trivia: Owns her own Record Label called Roseland Records. Has modelled for Victoria's Secret, Noxzema, Frederick's of Hollywood, Escada and many more. Has appeared in numerous adverts including Fanta, Old Spice and Bacardi. Got her first film role in 2002 in The Scorpion King.