Trivia: One of Hollywood's sexiest and most magnetic leading men, Denzel Washington's poise and radiantly sane intelligence permeate whatever film he is in, be it a socially conscious drama, biopic, or suspense thriller. More importantly, Washington's efforts, alongside those of director Spike Lee, have done much to dramatically expand the range of dramatic roles given to African-American actors and actresses.The son of a Pentecostal minister and a hairdresser, Washington was born in Mount Vernon, NY, on December 28, 1954. His parents' professions shaped Washington's early ambition to launch himself into show business: from his minister father he learned the power of performance, while hours in his mother's salon (listening to stories) gave him a love of storytelling. Unfortunately, when Washington was 14, his folks' marriage took a turn for the worse, and he and his older sister were sent away to boarding school so that they would not be exposed to their parents' eventual divorce. Washington later attended Fordham University, where he attained a B.A. in Journalism in 1977. He still found time to pursue his interest in acting, however, and after graduation he moved to San Francisco, where he won a scholarship to the American Conservatory Theatre. Washington stayed with the ACT for a year, and, after his time there, he began acting in various television movies and made his film debut in the 1981 Carbon Copy. Although he had a starring role (as the illegitimate son of a rich white man), Washington didn't find real recognition until he joined the cast of John Falsey and Joshua Brand's long-running TV series St. Elsewhere in 1982. He won critical raves and audience adoration for his portrayal of Dr. Phillip Chandler, and he began to attract Hollywood notice. In 1987, he starred as anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko in Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom alongside Kevin Kline, and though the film itself alienated some critics (Pauline Kael called it "dumbfounding"), Washington's powerful performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.Two years later, Washington netted another Best Supporting Actor nod -- and won the award -- for his turn as an embittered yet courageous runaway slave in the Civil War drama Glory. The honor effectively put him on the Hollywood A-List. Some of his more notable work came from his collaboration with director Spike Lee; over the course of the 1990s, Washington starred in three of his films, playing a jazz trumpeter in Mo' Better Blues (1990), the title role in Lee's epic 1992 biopic Malcolm X (for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination), and the convict father of a high-school basketball star in He Got Game (1998).Washington also turned in powerful performances in a number of other films, such as Mississippi Masala (1991), as a man in love with an Indian woman; Philadelphia (1993), as a slightly homophobic lawyer who takes on the cause of an AIDS-stricken litigator (Tom Hanks); and Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), as a 1940s private detective, Easy Rawlins. Washington also reeled in large audiences in action roles, with the top box-office draw of such thrillers as The Pelican Brief (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), and The Siege (1998) attesting to his capabilities. In 1999, Washington starred in another thriller, The Bone Collector, playing a paralyzed forensics expert who joins forces with a young policewoman (Angelina Jolie) to track down a serial killer. That same year, he starred in the title role of Norman Jewison's The Hurricane. Based on the true story of a boxer wrongly accused of murdering three people in 1966, the film featured stellar work by Washington as the wronged man, further demonstrating his remarkable capacity for telling a good story. His performance earned him a number of honors, including a Best Actor Golden Globe and a Best Actor Oscar nomination.After another strong performance as a high-school football coach in Boaz Yakin's Remember the Titans, Washington cut dramatically against his "nice guy" typecast to play a corrupt policeman in Training Day, a gritty cop drama helmed by Antoine Fuqua. Washington surprised audiences and critics with his change of direction, but in the eyes of many, this change of direction made him a more compelling screen presence than ever before. (It also netted him an Oscar for Best Actor.) 2002 marked an uneven year for Washington. He joined the cast of Nick Cassavetes' absurd melodrama John Q., as a father so desperate to get medical attention for his ailing son that he holds an entire hospital hostage and contemplates killing himself to donate his own heart to the boy. Critics didn't buy the film; it struck all but the least-discriminating as a desperate attempt by Washington to bring credulity and respectability to a series of ludicrous, manipulative Hollywood contrivances. John Q. nonetheless performed healthily at the box (it grossed over a million dollars worldwide from a 36-million-dollar budget). That same fall, Washington received hearty praise for his directorial and on-camera work in Antwone Fisher (2002), in which he played a concerned naval psychiatrist, and even more so for director Carl Franklin's 2003 crime thriller Out of Time. Somewhat reminiscent of his role in 1991's crime drama Ricochet, Out of Time casts Washington as an upstanding police officer framed for the murder of a prominent citizen. In 2004, Washington teamed up with Jonathan Demme for the first occasion since 1993's Philadelphia, to star in the controversial remake of 1962's The Manchurian Candidate. Washington stars in the picture as soldier Bennett Marco (the role originally performed by Frank Sinatra), who, along with his platoon, is kidnapped and brainwashed during the first Gulf War. Later that year, Washington worked alongside Christopher Walken and Dakota Fanning in another hellraiser, director Tony Scott's Man on Fire, as a bodyguard who carves a bloody swath of vengeance, attempting to rescue a little girl kidnapped under his watch. Washington made no major onscreen appearances in 2005 -- and indeed, kept his activity during 2006 and 2007 to an absolute minimum. In '06, he joined the cast of Spike Lee's thriller Inside Man as a detective assigned to thwart the machinations of a psychotically cunning burglar (Clive Owen). The film opened to spectacular reviews and box-office grosses in March 2006, keeping Washington on top of his game and bringing Lee (whose last major feature was the disappointing 2004 comedy She Hate Me) back to the pinnacle of success. That same year, Washington joined forces once again with Tony Scott in the sci-fi action hybrid Déjà Vu, as an ATF agent on the trail of a terrorist, who discovers a way to "bridge" the present to the past to view the details of a bomb plot that unfolded days earlier. The Scott film garnered a fair number of respectable reviews but ultimately divided critics. Déjà Vu bowed in the U.S. in late November 2006. Meanwhile, Washington signed on for another action thriller, entitled American Gangster -- this time under the aegis of Tony Scott's brother Ridley -- about a drug-dealing Mafioso who smuggles heroin into the U.S. in the corpses of deceased Vietnam veterans.Washington appeared as New York City subway security chief Walter Garber in the 2009 remake of the 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and begun filming the post-apocalyptic drama The Book of Eli in the same year. He earned a Best Actor nomination in 2012 for his work as an alcoholic pilot in Robert Zemeckis' drama Flight.

Trivia: After her debut film Mississippi Masala (1992) became an art house hit, Sarita Choudhury was determined not to "go Hollywood," focusing her acting energies on independent film instead. Raised in Jamaica, Mexico, and Italy, the half-Indian, half-English Choudhury studied economics at Queens University in Ontario before switching to acting. She casually auditioned for Mississippi Masala and wound up cast as the lead opposite Denzel Washington in the singular interracial romance between a Southern African American man and a transplanted Indian woman. Despite the film's surprise success, Choudhury stuck to her non-Hollywood roots, putting her exotic looks and talent to versatile use as a Pakistani country-western singer in Wild West (1992), a Chilean maid in Bille August's adaptation of The House of the Spirits (1993), and a lesbian mother in Fresh Kill (1994). Choudhury worked with Mississippi Masala director Mira Nair again in The Perez Family (1995) and played the cuckolded queen Tara in Nair's frankly-sensual feminist parable Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996). By the late 1990s, Choudhury added a touch of Hollywood to her repertoire with supporting roles in the glossy Alfred Hitchcock remake A Perfect Murder (1998) and the John Cassavetes retread Gloria (1999).Back in more original territory, Choudhury regained her footing somewhat with a series of television roles on such small-screen dramas as Homicide: Life on the Streets, Deadline, 100 Centre Street, and Law and Order. A series of key roles in such little-seen independents as Rhythm of the Saints, Marmalade, and Indocumentados was offset by lesser roles in wuch wide-release efforts as It Runs in the Family, She Hate Me, and M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water, proving that even if she didn't headline every movie she appeared in, Choudhury was still a worthy supporting player who was always worth watching.

Trivia: A native of New Delhi, India, British character actor of theater and film Roshan Seth honed the skills he learned at London's Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in British repertory theater. His first break came in Peter Brook's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which toured in 1972. Seth entered feature films in Richard Lester's Juggernaut (1974), but because subsequent filmmakers only wanted Seth for ethnic roles, his career abruptly stalled. Discouraged, he abandoned acting and returned to India, where he worked as an editor and journalist until the early '80s, when Richard Attenborough asked Seth to play Pandit Nehru in Gandhi (1982). Shortly thereafter, Seth essayed Indian author Victor Mehta and toured the globe in playwright David Hare's biography A Map of the World. After the play's Broadway run, Seth's movie career took off, with roles in Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and David Lean's A Passage to India (1984). Seth's subsequent film credits include Mississippi Masala (1992), Street Fighter (1994), and The Journey (1997).

Trivia: Played the role a child bride in Satyajit Ray's Apur Sansar (1959). Made her Bollywood debut with the movie Kashmir Ki Kali (1964). Converted to Islam and took up the title Begum Ayesha Sultana after her marriage. Is the first Indian actress to appear on screen in a bikini in the movie An Evening in Paris (1967). Also posed in a bikini for the Filmfare magazine in 1968. Bagged the National Film Award for the Best Actress for her role in the movie Mausam (1975). Worked for the Indian Film Censor Board from 2004 to 2011. Became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2005. Was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2013 for her contribution to the film industry.

Trivia: Born January 30, 195, Charles Dutton attended the Yale School of Drama, and in 1983 he first appeared off-Broadway in Richard III. Before long he was delivering Tony-calibre performances in such Broadway productions as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and The Piano Lesson. In films since 1986's No Mercy, the forceful, thunder-voiced Dutton has been seen in movies ranging from the mirth-provoking Crocodile Dundee 2 to the spine-chilling Alien 3. In 1991, Charles Dutton began a long TV run as the star of the Fox Network sitcom Roc.Dutton became an actor while serving a seven and a half-year prison sentence for stabbing a man during a street fight. While in prison, Dutton was stabbed in the neck with an ice pick during a fight with another inmate. The incident proved to be the turning point in Dutton's life when he refused to retaliate. Shortly thereafter, he became interested in drama and while serving his sentence completed a two-year college degree course. Upon his release from prison, Dutton was admitted into the Yale School of Drama. There he studied under playwright August Wilson and director Lloyd Richards.In 2000, Dutton directed The Corner, an acclaimed miniseries from HBO adapted from David Simon and Ed Burns' novel "The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood". The Corner won several awards, including an Emmy for Best Miniseries, and Dutton himself was honored for his direction. This would not be the last Emmy he received; the actor won Emmy Awards in 2002 and 2003 for supporting roles in televisiond dramas The Practice and Without a Trace. In 2003, Dutton starred in the made-for-TV drama D.C. Sniper: 23 Days of Fear, and continued to make appearances on popular television shows including The L Word, The Sopranos, and House, M.D. Dutton joined the cast of Threshold in 2005. While the CBS science fiction series gained a loyal following, the show was short-lived. The actor went on to appear in filmmaker John Sayles' 2007 drama Honeydripper, which follows the owner of a blues club that was revitalized by a young electric guitarist.

Trivia: Black character actor Joe Seneca almost always brought a sense of dignity and social consciousness to his roles. Born and raised in Cleveland, OH, he began performing with the Three Riffs song and dance trio. Early in his career, he penned songs such as "Break It to Me Gently" (co-written with Diane Lampert) and "Talk to Me." In 1981, Seneca made his Broadway debut in The Little Foxes with Elizabeth Taylor. He made his feature film debut seven years prior in The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3 (1974). Seneca has also appeared frequently on television on programs like The Cosby Show and in dramatic specials such as A Gathering of Old Men (1987). Seneca died on August 15, 1996, during an asthma attack while in his Roosevelt Island, NY, home.

Trivia: Acting started in childhood for him; was a part of Sai Paranjpe's group called Children's Theatre. Became a part of an organisation called Maharashtriya Kalopasak while in school. Was a part of the Progressive Dramatic Association during his college days. Founded the Grips Theatre in 1989; it is based on the theatre's Berlin model, with children's plays revolving around real life experiences. Received two German awards, Bundesverdienstkreuz (the Cross of Order of Merit) in 2001 and the Goethe Medal in 2004, for establishing Grips in India. Won the Padma Shri Award, India's fourth highest civilian honour, for his contribution to Arts in 1990. In 1991, founded the Maharashtra Institute of Mental Health (MIMH) at Pune. A psychiatrist by profession, he also serves as a professor of Psychiatry at his alma mater.

Trivia: Actress Yvette Hawkins appeared on Broadway, in films, and on television. Her film credits include Nighthawks (1981), Lean on Me (1989), and Zebrahead (1992). As a television guest star, she appeared on dramas like Law & Order and soap operas such as Guiding Light.

Trivia: Born in India, filmmaker Mira Nair studied at the University of New Delhi before earning a degree in Sociology from Harvard in 1976. Based in New York City, she worked on her own independent short films, eventually winning the Best Documentary prize at the American Film Festival for India Cabaret, an investigation of Bombay's stripper subculture. In 1988, she made her feature-length narrative film debut with Salaam Bombay!, co-written by Sooni Taraporevala. An exploration of actual kids struggling to survive on the streets of Bombay, the film was nominated for Best Foreign Film by the Academy and won several festival awards, including the Camera d'Or at Cannes. In 1991, she teamed up with writing partner Taraporevala again for the romantic drama Mississippi Masala, about an Indian family moving from Uganda to the Southern U.S. to run a motel. Following the theme of immigration with her next film, The Perez Family featured a Cuban family moving to the States. In 1997, she took a brief turn toward historical epics with Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, set in 16th century India. Following the Showtime special My Own Country and the documentary short The Laughing Club of India, she made the international hit Monsoon Wedding. Focusing on an arranged marriage in New Delhi, the comedy drama won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and established Nair as an accomplished filmmaker. In 2002, she made a surprising turn to a New Jersey setting for the gritty HBO drama Hysterical Blindness, starring Uma Thurman, Juliette Lewis, Gena Rowlands. The same year she directed a segment of the French-produced anthology film 11'09"01, featuring short films from 11 international filmmakers in response to September 11. Along with teaching at Columbia University, Nair would next direct the film Vanity Fair, based on the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray and starring Reese Witherspoon.