Trivia: An alumnus of State University of New York and the University of Massachusetts, American actor Bill Pullman excelled in both wacky comedy and intense drama during his stage years, working with such repertory companies as the Folger Theatre Groupe and the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Before college, he attended a technical institute and studied building construction (years later he used those skills to build his own house in California). In films, Pullman could be relied upon to almost invariably lose the girl, as witness his brace of 1993 films, Sleepless in Seattle and Somersby. He almost lost his screen wife Geena Davis to Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own (1992), but this gratuitous plot point was eliminated from the script. Only since 1994 has Pullman won the heroine's hand with any regularity. The summer of 1995 found Bill Pullman with back-to-back leading roles in two of the season's biggest box-office successes: While You Were Sleeping and Casper: The Movie. Pullman gained even more recognition for his heroic portrayal of the self-sacrificing U.S. president in the special effects blockbuster Independence Day. Up to this point, Pullman was pretty well typecast in "nice guy" roles. In David Lynch's Lost Highway (1996), he broke that mold by appearing as a deeply disturbed husband. In 1995, Pullman began a side career as a producer when he founded his own production company Big Town.

Trivia: Known in turn as Henry Fonda's son, Jane Fonda's brother, counter-culture icon Captain America, and Bridget Fonda's father, Peter Fonda finally got his due as an actor for his superb performance as a Florida beekeeper in Ulee's Gold (1997). Snaring an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe for his work, Fonda was finally able to step out of his celebrated family's shadow, earning recognition for something besides his title as the black sheep of the Fonda clan.Born in New York City on February 23, 1940, Fonda, by his own accounts, grew up trying to live up to his famous father's expectations. An exceptionally bright young man, he entered the University of Omaha as a sophomore at the age of seventeen, without even finishing high school. In Omaha, he broke into acting, appearing in the Omaha Playhouse's production of Harvey. He then went to New York to pursue his acting career, first working with the Cecilwood Theatre and then debuting on Broadway at the age of twenty-one in a production of Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole. His early career took shape under the specter of his famous father, with the young actor incurring comparisons to the elder Fonda with everything he did. His onstage success led to a Hollywood screen test for the part of John F. Kennedy in PT 109. The role in the 1963 film ultimately went to Cliff Robertson, but Fonda made his film debut that same year in the Sandra Dee vehicle Tammy and the Doctor.Fonda continued to be consigned to romantic leads until he appeared in Roger Corman's The Wild Angels in 1966. A motorcycle enthusiast whom Corman cast after the film's original star, George Maharis, demanded a stunt double, Fonda seemed a natural for the role of a motorcycle gang leader. The film, which cast actual Hell's Angels and co-starred Bruce Dern, was a violent, drug-addled affair that catalyzed Fonda's reputation as his father's delinquent spawn and direct antithesis. This reputation was furthered by his starring role in Corman's The Trip, a 1967 film about the healing powers of LSD. Co-starring Dern and featuring a screenplay written by Jack Nicholson, The Trip, with its emphasis on sex, drugs, and societal estrangement, provided a preview of the film that would give Fonda both fame and notoriety.In 1969, Fonda starred in Easy Rider, a film that he also produced. Directed by Dennis Hopper, it starred Fonda, Hopper, and Nicholson as freewheeling, pot-smoking adventurers who find their counter-culture lifestyle threatened by the encroaching confines of the Establishment. One of the cultural landmarks of the late 1960s, tt was also an unexpected commercial success, grossing over $19 million at the box office, earning Fonda an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, and contributing to Hollywood's new interest in young audiences and socially relevant movies.Following the film's success, Fonda, now both a cult hero and a millionaire, went on to collaborate with Hopper again on 1971's The Last Movie. The film didn't enjoy the acclaim of their previous collaboration, and Fonda's subsequent efforts of that decade also failed to live up to the stature of Easy Rider. One possible exception was the 1974 sleeper Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, a film in which Fonda appeared to finance his directorial projects, one of which was Wanda Nevada, a 1979 film that featured his father. Increasingly, Fonda became better-known for his activities off-screen than on: his status as an anti-Establishment figurehead was enhanced when John Lennon wrote the song "She Said She Said" about him. Reportedly, it was inspired by a bad acid trip the musician had taken, during which Fonda repeatedly told him, "I know what it's like to be dead, man."Fonda's screen career continued its downward spiral during the 1980s, and towards the end of that decade it was once again overshadowed by that of a family member, in this case his daughter, Bridget. Fonda, who had exiled himself from L.A. in 1969 to live in Montana, seemed more aware of this than anyone: in an interview, he was quoted as saying, "I was Captain America and where....can you go with that? You can only ride so many motorcycles and smoke so many joints." But in the mid-1990s, Fonda's career began to get some much-needed resuscitation. After making a cameo appearance in Bodies, Rest & Motion, a 1993 film starring his daughter, he had a starring role in Michael Almereyda's Nadja (1994) and essentially parodied himself in John Carpenter's Escape From L.A. (1996). Fonda's true comeback was Ulee's Gold, Victor Nunez's 1997 exploration of loss and family ties. He won raves for his portrayal of the title character, and the Best Actor Oscar nomination he received for the film served as the industry's formal recognition of his re-emergence as a Hollywood player. The actor, always one to play by his own rules, next rejected mainstream Hollywood fare to star in Steven Soderbergh's The Limey in 1999, playing a shifty record producer, and earning uniformly excellent reviews. He also starred in The Passion of Ayn Rand as the author's long-suffering husband; the film premiered at that year's Sundance Film Festival. He branched out into kids films with a leading role in Thomas and the Magic Railroad in 2000, and appeared in The Laramie Project one year later. He continued to work steadily, often taking smaller parts in bigger movies like Supernova, Ghost Rider, and Wild Hogs. He was a fearsome, grizzled, and authentic Western presence in James Mangold's remake of 3:10 to Yuma in 2007. In 2011 he paid tribute to the man who helped launch his career by sitting down for interviews in Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel.

Trivia: When British actor Joe Anderson debuted onscreen in the mid-2000s, he immediately evinced a predilection for seeking out supporting roles in the most conceptually interesting and dynamic material available to him. Anderson's chosen projects -- which spanned a wide variety of genres -- never felt less than arresting. These included the Agnieszka Holland Beethoven biopic Copying Beethoven (2006), Julie Taymor's much-anticipated Beatles drama Across the Universe (2007) and the critically praised biopic of post-punk singer Ian Curtis, Control (2007).

Trivia: An earthy strawberry blonde who has skirted typical leading lady roles to build a respectable career out of commendable supporting performances, talented Kathy Baker has time and again proven her cinematic worth with indispensable turns in such films as Edward Scissorhands (1990) and The Cider House Rules (1999). A native of Midland, TX, who received a degree in French from the University of California at Berkley, Baker studied briefly at the California Institute of Arts before abandoning her further education to reside in Paris for a number of years. After returning stateside to make a name for herself on stage and screen, Baker found 1983 to be a pivotal year for her career when she won an Obie for her role in Sam Shepard's Fool for Love and made a lasting impression in director Philip Kaufman's space program drama The Right Stuff. Subsequent roles as a prostitute in Street Smart (1987) and a recovering alcoholic and victim of domestic abuse in Clean and Sober (1988) proved a testament to Baker's considerable onscreen skills; her performance in Street Smart earned her Best Supporting Actress awards from the Boston Society of Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics as well as an Independent Spirits awards nomination.Baker was increasingly prevalent in quirky dramas throughout the 1990s, but it was her work on the small screen that earned Baker the majority of her recognition in that decade. Her winning performance as a small-town doctor and family woman proved a key component in the success of the small-screen drama Picket Fences during the show's 1992-1996 run, and though she would focus her attention on the series, Baker still made time to appear in such theatrical releases as Mad Dog and Glory (1993) and To Gillian in Her 37th Birthday (1996). Frequently alternating between high-profile releases and independent efforts, no matter what the quality of the films, Baker's performances were consistently solid. The new millennium once again found Baker scoring a hit with her role in the popular television comedy drama Boston Public, and though she only served a two-season stint on the series, she soon returned to television work with Murphy's Dozen on 2003. Her role as an overbearing mother tackled the issue of teenage pregnancy to surprising effect in the 2002 made-for-television effort Too Young to Be a Dad. Following a supporting performance in Robert Duvall's Assassination Tango (also 2002), Baker could be spotted in director Anthony Minghella's eagerly anticipated Civil War romance Cold Mountain (2003).

Trivia: With his soulful, deep-set blue eyes and a dark, eerily beautiful countenance, Jim Caviezel has inspired more than a few comparisons to Montgomery Clift. Thus, it was somewhat fitting -- and more than a little ironic -- that Caviezel first broke through to the American public as The Thin Red Line's Private Witt, a character loosely based on Clift's Private Prewitt in From Here to Eternity. A native of Washington state, Caviezel was born in Mount Vernon in 1968, one of five children in a devout Catholic family. A gifted athlete as a young man, he performed brilliantly on the basketball court and dreamt of joining the NBA. He attended Seattle's O'Dea High School, and later Burien Kennedy High, attending Bellevue Community College after graduation (where he continued to play ball), but a foot injury forced him to withdraw from the team and try acting instead. He debuted cinematically with a bit part as an airline clerk in Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho (1991), Caviezel landed an equally minor role in Michael Ritchie's disappointing boxing yarn, Diggstown (1992). Accepted at Juilliard that same year, he declined the school's offer in favor of a supporting role in Lawrence Kasdan's 1994 Wyatt Earp. Unfortunately, this film (like Diggstown) flopped, and for the next several years, Caviezel bounced back-and-forth, between minor roles in big budget Hollywood films like The Rock (1996) and G.I. Jane (1997) and more substantial roles in turkeys such as Bill Couturie's Ed (1996). Fortunately, in 1998, the long-dormant Terrence Malick came calling with a role in his war opus The Thin Red Line (adapted from James Jones's Guadalcanal Diary) and Caviezel struck gold. The film received a number of Oscar nominations including Best Picture, and its stellar ensemble cast, which included Ben Chaplin, Sean Penn, George Clooney, and Nick Nolte, earned almost unanimous acclaim. The following year, Caviezel gained further recognition with his role as one of a group of renegade Civil War soldiers in Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil and his portrayal of a football coach's embittered son in Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday. In 2000, Caviezel starred in the supernatural thriller Frequency, as a fireman who -- through a supernatural occurrence -- communicates with his long-dead father (Dennis Quaid) over a ham radio. The low-budgeted film became a modest hit.Later that same year, Caviezel starred in Mimi Leder's shameless tearjerker Pay it Forward as a homeless junkie befriended by a young boy (Haley Joel Osment). He then landed a role opposite Jennifer Lopez in the heady romantic drama Angel Eyes (2001); the picture died a quick death at the box office, yet Caviezel's performance in the film dramatically increased his prominence, and critics further took note of the actor's ability.The following year's period adventure The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) boasted a similarly fine lead performance by Caviezel, and though the film - and the actor's work - drew favorable reviews from critics, that motion picture failed to attract audiences. Before embarking on a blood-soaked revenge spree in Highwaymen (2004), Caviezel took a turn as a mysterious former Marine in High Crimes and a lower-key role in the Paul Feig drama I Am David. Audiences who had followed Caviezel's career thus far had no doubt taken note of the actor's vocal religious convictions. With his role as Jesus in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ -- not to mention the actual suffering that he endured when his shoulder was separated during the crucifixion sequence -- the actor pushed to more extreme lengths than almost any performer of his generation. The story of the film is, by now, notorious; in time it became one of the highest grossers in movie history, capping $600 million worldwide, despite savaging critical assessments from many reviewers and accusations of anti-Semitism. Millions viewers flocked to the motion picture and turned it into one of the seminal moviegoing events of 2004, evi.As the 2000's and 2010's rolled on, Caviezel continued to enjoy success as a bankable actor, enjoying success on the new frontier of modern TV with shows like the remake of The Prisoner and the drama Person of Interest

Trivia: Was persuaded to try acting by his friend and fellow actor Robert Carlyle. Got his start with a theater company in his native Glasgow in the early 1990s after working as a dance-club DJ. First TV roles were in a 1992 episode of the BBC anthology series Screen One and a '93 episode of Taggart, a long-running Scottish detective series. His breakout movie was Braveheart (1995). The scars on his face are the result of a mugging by knife-wielding assailants, an incident that occurred before he began acting.