Trivia: Actress Rooney Mara didn't exactly come from a show business family. One great-grandfather founded the Pittsburgh Steelers; another founded the New York Giants. Despite her heritage, Mara opted to go into acting instead of sports, and made her professional debut with a bit-part in the direct-to-video Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (which starred her older sister, Kate). She followed this with a handful of appearances on episodes of shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and The Cleaner, eventually scoring a number of film roles, appearing in 2009's Tanner Hall, Youth in Revolt, and Friends (With Benefits).Her career changed forever when David Fincher cast her in a small but key part in The Social Network, and then trusted her to play Lisbeth Salander in his English-language adaptation of the international best-seller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, a part that earned young performer Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for Best Actress. She appeared in Spike Jonze's Her and Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects, both in 2013. In 2015, Mara was controversially cast as Tiger Lily in Joe Wright's Pan. She followed that up with Todd Haynes' Carol, playing opposite Cate Blanchett; Mara nabbed her second Oscar nomination for her work in the film.

Trivia: Actor Kyle Gallner commenced film and television roles in the early 2000s; he specialized in supporting portrayals of individuals who fall prey to the destructive influences of more dominant and malevolent characters. Though Gallner began his Hollywood tenure with guest roles on series including Touched by an Angel, Third Watch, and Judging Amy, he quickly moved into more prominent assignments, including season-long runs on the youth-oriented detective show Veronica Mars (as Beaver Casablancas, the younger brother of a twisted bully and the victim of child abuse), and season three of CSI: NY (as Reed Garrett, a former foster child-turned-kidnapping victim). Gallner subsequently moved into feature roles; he was particularly memorable as the son of a mentally ill, emotionally tortured mother (Marisa Tomei) in the independent feature Danika (2006), and Harold, an accomplice of a twisted teen who shoots an old man's dog, in the revenge-fueled thriller Red (2008).

Trivia: Thomas Dekker first appeared as a child actor in the mid-'90s, with a couple of television guest appearances, and then a small role in Star Trek Generations, playing Thomas Picard, the son of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in an alternate timeline. At the age of seven, he toke on a more elaborate part, playing one of the homicidal, otherworldly tykes in John Carpenter's sci-fi horror remake Village of the Damned (1995). After a couple of appearances that same year as Henry on Star Trek: Voyager, and assignments voicing anthropomorphic mouse Fievel in two direct-to-video American Tail sequels, Dekker played Nick, one of the Szalinski kids, on the TV series version of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, which ran for three seasons. He also portrayed the young pop star Donny Osmond in the 2001 telemovie Inside the Osmonds. In the ensuing years, Dekker continued to primarily work in television, in guest roles on such popular series as Boston Public and House. He also took on a recurring part in 2005 as Vincent on the long-running family drama 7th Heaven, but he didn't truly break through to major success until he was cast on the soon-to-be major hit show Heroes in 2006. Though Dekker only played the unlikely friend of indestructable cheerleader Claire Bennet, the exposure helped earn him one of his biggest roles yet, that of young hero-to-be John Connor on the heavily promoted sci-fi film-to-TV adaptation Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (premiering in 2008).Over the following years, Dekker would continue to act in movies like My Sister's Keeper and on shows like The Secret Circle.

Trivia: The career of Jackie Earle Haley should be inspirational for any former child star or out-of-work actor. In his preteen years, Haley earned his living as a TV commercial actor and voice-over artist (he voiced the son on Hanna-Barbera's animated All in the Family clone Wait Till Your Father Gets Home). At 13, Haley was cast as the juvenile delinquent with home-run power in Michael Ritchie's superb little-league comedy The Bad News Bears, earning a cult following for his portrayal of the swaggering, cool loner. He repeated the iconic role in two sequels, one of the few members of the original cast to do so. Peter Yates cast Haley, alongside future celebrities Dennis Quaid and Daniel Stern, as a member of the bike-racing team in the Oscar-winning Breaking Away (1979). Earle disappeared from screens after some fitful television work through the '80s, but stayed busy behind the camera as a writer and an accomplished director of commercials. After more than a decade off the big screen, Haley made a spectacular return in 2006, first as the menacing bodyguard/driver Sugar Boy in All the King's Men, and then with an Oscar-nominated turn as a suburban pedophile in Todd Field's Little Children. He had a small part in the 2008 Will Ferrell comedy Semi-Pro, and the next year he was cast as Rorschach, arguably the most psychotic member of The Watchmen. In 2010 he appeared in a memorable one-scene cameo in Shutter Island and took the iconic part of Freddy Kruger in the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Two years later he was cast by Tim Burton in his big-screen version of Dark Shadows and by Steven Spielberg in the director's long-planned biopic Lincoln.

Trivia: Katie Cassidy -- the daughter of onetime Partridge Family sensation and teen idol David Cassidy and fashion model Sherry Williams -- jump-started her fame not as an actress but as a teen pop star, à la Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson. A trained vocalist from the age of 12, Katie teamed up with music mega-producer Joel Diamond in 2004, and released her first single that summer, banking off of her father's fame with a remake of "I Think I Love You." In 2005, Cassidy appeared in a recurring role on the popular family drama 7th Heaven as Zoe. She slid into the feature arena inauspiciously, as Kelli, one of the slasher victims in the grotesque, critically panned gorefest Black Christmas, then traveled the comedic route with supporting roles in the Adam Sandler vehicle Click (2006), the ensemble picture You Are Here (2007, as an aspiring Hollywood climber), and the Cary Elwes comedy Walk the Talk (2007). Cassidy is perhaps best known, however, for her recurring role as Ruby on Supernatural, a program about a couple of young men journeying across the country in their black Impala and fighting off evil supernatural forces. In 2008 she appeared in the box office smash Taken, and followed that up with one of the main parts in the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Trivia: Actor Kellan Lutz has a face that feels eerily familiar, partly because of his many appearances on shows like CSI and Six Feet Under and partly because even before his acting career took off Lutz's face could be seen gracing the pages of Abercrombie catalogs. The model-turned-actor soon graduated from TV to film roles with appearances in movies like Stick It and Prom Night, and by the time he was 23, he'd been cast in the role of Emmett Cullen in the highly anticipated 2008 film adaptation of the young-adult novel Twilight, making him an even more familiar face to legions of fans. Lutz would remain active for the next several years, appearing in the Twilight sequels, as well as movies like A Warrior's Heart.

Trivia: A tall, intense, hulking actor who was a natural to play Frankenstein's monster in The Bride (1985), Clancy Brown has utilized his naturally menacing exterior for a career's worth of villainous roles, most notably in films such as Highlander and The Shawshank Redemption. With good looks that could be described as somewhat Neanderthal in nature, he has also found the occasional sympathetic portrayal, and been equal to the task of acting it. Clancy Brown was born on January 5, 1959, in Urbana, OH, the son of a newspaperman-turned-U.S. congressman. He was raised in both Urbana and Washington, D.C., and claims to have been introduced to acting by a neighbor who got him into Shakespeare at a young age. Brown acted in high school and during his teenage summers before enrolling at Northwestern University on a track scholarship as a discus hurler. He graduated with a degree in speech and went on to mix drinks in Chicago while working in local theater. Brown's first film role established the trend for how his services would be used throughout his career. He appeared as Viking in the Sean Penn "juvy" drama Bad Boys (1983), in which he threw around his muscle as one of the detention center's intimidators. Next he appeared in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) as the cowboy Rawhide, then as Highlander's sword-wielding embodiment of evil, Kurgan, in the 1986 cult classic. A succession of roles as bruising heavies, often corrupt cops, followed during the late '80s and '90s, in films such as Dead Man Walking (1996) and The Hurricane (1999). The most memorable among these was Captain Byron Hadley, the crooked prison guard with the deadly billy club in the multiple-Oscar-nominated The Shawshank Redemption (1994). In 1997, he played one of his more infrequent good guy roles as Sergeant Zim in Starship Troopers. From 1997-1998, he had a prominent recurring guest role as a doctor on NBC's ratings champ ER. His prolific television career also includes a role on the sci-fi series Earth 2 (1994). In 2002, Brown appeared among an ensemble cast in the HBO film The Laramie Project, which was about the beating death of gay Wyoming teen Matthew Shepard. The next year, he took on the prominant role of Brother Justin Crowe on HBO's cryptic period drama Carnivàle, joining another talented ensemble cast and once again tapping into his dark side. Brown's distinctive voice has been in high demand throughout his career, resulting in dozens of voice-over credits in animated features such as The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) and television series. Of course his distinctively brute face was still very much an important part of his career, with an onscreen role in the hit television series Lost serving well to provide viewers with a valuable history of the mysterious "hatch." A trip back in time found the hulking Brown assuming the role of a monstrous viking in director Markus Nispel's Pathfinder, and later that same year the actor could once again be spotted on the big screen in the Kevin Costner Coast Guard drama The Guardian. In 2008 he appeared in the college football film The Express, and the next year had small but crucial roles in the indie drama The Twenty, as well as Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! He continued to land small parts in bug budget Hollywood spectacles like the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Cowboys & Aliens, and Green Lantern.

Trivia: A leading and supporting actress of television and feature films, willowy, green-eyed, red-haired Connie Britton may be best known for playing Nikki opposite Michael J. Fox in the ABC sitcom Spin City. Prior to that, she had a semi-regular role on the network's comedy Ellen. Born in Boston, she has a fraternal twin sister (whom she claims is her exact opposite). They were raised in Lynchburg, VA, after the age of seven. Britton's interest in acting developed at a young age, something her parents avidly supported. While majoring in Asian studies at Dartmouth, she still found time to participate in theatrical productions. For a while she studied Chinese in Beijing, an exercise she states helped her as an actress because it broadened her view of the world. Following graduation, she spent two years studying under Sanford Meisner at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse and another two years appearing on the New York stage. Movie director Ed Burns was responsible for her film debut playing Molly in his acclaimed The Brothers McMullen (1995). The film was a hit at Sundance and won two major awards. Shortly thereafter, she moved to Hollywood, obtained an agent, and before long found herself joining the cast of Spin City. She would go on to star in series like 24, Friday Night Lights, and American Horror Story.

Trivia: A slightly tough and weathered character actor who specialized in playing gruff, domineering types (including guards, Mafiosos, and authoritarian fathers), Christian Stolte debuted onscreen in the early '90s and went on to distinguish himself with bit parts in films including Novocaine (2001), Road to Perdition (2002), and Stranger Than Fiction (2006). On the small screen, Stolte took on the recurring role of C.O. Keith Stolte during the first two seasons (2005-2007) of the cult series Prison Break. Back on the big screen, he received unusually prominent billing with his wry comic turn as a Mafia hitman assigned to rub out his cousin, in the character comedy Osso Bucco (2007).