Trivia: Actor Nicolas Cage has always strived to make a name for himself based on his work, rather than on his lineage. As the nephew of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, Cage altered his last name to avoid accusations of nepotism. (He chose "Cage" both out of admiration for avant-garde musician John Cage and en homage to comic book hero Luke Cage). Even if he had retained the family name, it isn't likely that anyone would consider Cage holding fast to his uncle's coattails. Time and again, Cage travels to great lengths to add verisimilitude to his roles.Born January 7, 1964, in Long Beach, CA, to a literature professor father and dancer/choreographer mother, Cage first caught the acting bug while a student at Beverly Hills High School. After graduation, he debuted on film with a small part in Amy Heckerling's 1982 classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Following a lead role in Martha Coolidge's cult comedy Valley Girl (1983), Cage spent the remainder of the decade playing endearingly bizarre and disreputable men, most notably as Crazy Charlie the Appliance King in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Hi McDonough in Raising Arizona (1987), and Ronny Cammareri in the same year's Moonstruck, the last of which won him a Golden Globe nomination and a legion of female fans, ecstatic over the actor's unconventional romantic appeal.The '90s saw Cage assume a series of diverse roles, ranging from a violent ex-con in David Lynch's Wild at Heart (1990) to a sweet-natured private eye in the romantic comedy Honeymoon in Vegas (1992) to a dying alcoholic in Mike Figgis' astonishing Leaving Las Vegas (1995). For this last role, Cage won a Best Actor Oscar for his quietly devastating portrayal, and, respectability in hand, gained an official entrance into Hollywood's higher ranks. After winning his Oscar, along with a score of other honors for his performance, Cage switched gears in a way that would prove to be, with the occasional exception, largely permanent. He dove into a series of action movies like the Michael Bay thriller The Rock, the prisoners-on-a-plane movie Con Air, and the infamous John Woo flick Face/Off. Greeted with hefty paychecks and audience approval, Cage forged ahead on a career path lit largely with explosions.There would be exceptions, like 1998's City of Angels, a remake of Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire, and Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead, and the the lightly dramatic romantic comedy The Family Man, but Cage stuck mostly to thrillers and action movies. A spate of such films would fill his resume, like Gone in 60 Seconds, The Life of David Gale, 8MM, and Snake Eyes, but Cage would briefly revisit his roots in character work, teaming with Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze in 2002 for a duel role in the complex comedy Adaptation (2002). With Cage appearing as both screenwriter Charlie Kaufman as well as his fictional brother Donald, Adaptation followed Charlie's attempt to adapt author Susan Orlean's seemingly unfilmable novel The Orchid Thief as a feature film, and Donald's parallel efforts to write his own hacky yet lucrative script by following the guidance of a caustic, Syd Field-like screenwriting instructor (Brian Cox). A weighty role that demanded an actor capable of portraying characters that couldn't differ more emotionally despite their outward appearance, Adaptation brought Cage his second Oscar nomination -- and he was soon back to business as usual.2004 saw the release of the megahit adventure film National Treasure, which cast Cage as an archaeologist convinced there's a treasure map on the back of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. The outrageous film would earn a sequel in 2007, but first Cage made the ill-advised decision to star in Neil LaBute's reworking of the Robin Hardy/Anthony Shaffer collaboration The Wicker Man (2006). Though video compilations of the movie's most hilariously hackneyed moments would become popular on the internet, Cage was soon portraying a motorcycle-driving stuntman who sells his soul to Mephistopheles -- in Mark Steven Johnson's live-action comic book adaptation Ghost Rider. Upon premiering in the States, the film became a big success. In the same year's sci-fi thriller Next, directed by Lee Tamahori, Cage plays Cris Johnson, a man who attains the ability to see into the future and must suddenly decide between saving himself and saving the world; the film failed to ignite the way Ghost Rider did just a couple months before it. Next came Bangkok Dangerous, Knowing, The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans, Drive Angry, Seeking Justice, and Trespass -- all high octane, high adrenaline movies that found Cage diving, leaping, and shooting his way through the story. Cage found himself with a surprise hit in Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass (2010), playing a vigilante former cop in the black comedy film. He voiced the main character in 2013's animated The Croods, but then mostly stuck to action-crime-thriller-type movies for the next couple of years, including films like Left Behind (2014), The Runner (2015) and The Trust (2016).

Trivia: Next to Liv Tyler, Angelina Jolie is the only actress of her generation who can thank her famous father for the lips that have become her trademark. The actress was born Angelina Jolie Voight to the pillow-lipped Jon Voight and actress Marcheline Bertrand on June 4, 1975, in Los Angeles.Raised mostly by her mother after her parents divorced while she was still a baby, Jolie moved around a lot with her mother and brother. She also did a fair amount of traveling as a professional model, living in such places as London, New York, and Los Angeles before settling for a time in New York as a student at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute and New York University, where she first started acting in theater productions. The fledgling actress soon moved on to film with a small role in 1993's Cyborg 2, followed in 1995 by her turn as a computer hacker in the more widely seen Hackers. The film gave her her first taste of recognition, as well as an introduction to Trainspotting's Jonny Lee Miller, to whom she was married for a short time.After appearing in a number of mediocre films, Jolie finally hit it big in 1997 with her Golden Globe-winning performance as George Wallace's wife in the highly acclaimed TV movie George Wallace. The role, coupled with her Emmy-nominated performance in the title role of HBO's Gia, provided Jolie with a new level of professional respect and recognition. She was soon appearing on talk shows and in magazines, answering questions about everything from her multiple tattoos to her famous father to her brief marriage.She was also netting roles in high-profile projects: In 1998 Jolie headlined an ensemble cast that included Sean Connery, Gena Rowlands, Anthony Edwards, Gillian Anderson, Ryan Phillippe, and Madeline Stowe in Playing By Heart. The following year, she was part of another high-voltage cast in Mike Newell's Pushing Tin, co-starring alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. Although the film was neither a critical nor a financial success, it did little to diminish the rapid ascent of the career of the actress, who was in hot demand for projects that would further elevate her already rising star. In 2000, Jolie's star received one of its greatest boosts to date when the actress won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of a volatile mental patient in Girl, Interrupted. Later that year, her personal life also got a boost in the form of her April marriage to Billy Bob Thornton.Onscreen, Jolie was hard to miss in 2000. She starred in a number of films, including the crime thriller Gone in Sixty Seconds, in which she co-starred as a car thief alongside Nicolas Cage, and Original Sin, a thriller that featured her as the bad-seed bride of a Cuban tycoon (Antonio Banderas). If she was hard to miss in 2000, Jolie was impossible to escape in 2001 with her turn as shapely video-game adventuress Lara Croft in the long anticipated film adaptation of the popular Tomb Raider video-game franchise. Carrying on the tradition of video-game movies that are light on plot but heavy on the action, Tomb Raider (2001) and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life (2003) scored with summer audiences and quickly shot to number one at the box office despite disparaging reviews citing an incoherent story line, unlike Life or Something Like It, the 2002 romantic comedy-drama that critics and audiences alike would rather not have seen. On July 18th, 2002, Jolie filed for divorce from Thornton, claiming that their priorities no longer meshed after having adopted a Cambodian son, Maddox. Though the famously quirky couple were no longer, Angelina's film schedule remained hectic. In 2003 she would play a rich-girl-turned-humanitarian in Beyond Borders, while 2004 saw a host of parts for Jolie, including a role in Oliver Stone's Alexander, an epic biography of Alexander the Great starring Colin Farrell, as well as a turn alongside fellow Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and a role as a tough FBI agent in the thriller Taking Lives. Finally, Jolie closed out the year by lending her voice to Dreamworks' animated kid-flick Shark Tale.While the Jolie-starring Mr. and Mrs. Smith proved one of Summer 2005's biggest money-makers, the actress's name fell on the lips of gossip-mongers for most of the year not for the film itself, but rather for Jolie's relationship with costar Brad Pitt. Though the couple long shirked and denied rumors of an affair, the paparazzi regularly caught them together in public, and Pitt eventually filed for divorce from wife Jennifer Aniston. Subsequently, they not only conceived a child in fall 2005 (whom they named Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, but became foster parents to two adopted children, Maddox and an Ethiopian girl, Zahara Marley. Jolie delivered Shiloh in Namibia, via caesarian section, as May 2006 wrapped, and the couple flew an ob-gyn in from Los Angeles to assist with the birth. By mid-2006, Jolie - as an actress, personality, and sex symbol - claimed an almost matchless status in Hollywood popularity, rivaled only by Jennifer Aniston, ironically. That year saw Jolie claim a supporting role in Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd, and announce her forthcoming role in Beowulf. By late 2007, talk had begun to swirl in the trades regarding Jolie's enlistment in a high-budget action franchise based on the life and adventures of U.S. intelligence operative Kathi Lynn Austin. In 2007, her portrayal of Marianne Pearl in Michael Winterbottom's adaptation of A Mighty Heart earned her strong reviews and nominations for Best Actress from a number of organizations including the Screen Actors Guild. Although Oscar snubbed her for that performance, she landed in the big race the following year with her work in Clint Eastwood's The Changeling. As a mother searching for her kidnapped son, Jolie again garnered nominations from the Hollywood Foreign Press, and the Screen Actors Guild, as well as securing her first Oscar nod since winning years earlier for Girl, Interrupted. For her next several projects, Jolie kept things upbeat and intense, starring in action movies like Wanted, The Tourist, and most notably, 2010's Salt, in which Jolie's performance as the title character Evelyn Salt had many reviewers calling her the female James Bond. Jolie would also provide the voice of Tigress in the childrens' animated film Kung Fu Panda and its sequel, before taking on her next big hurdle: stepping behind the camera.Never timid when it comes to new challenges, Jolie dove into her new role full force, directing as well as producing the 2012 war drama In the Land of Blood and Honey, a tragic love story that takes place during the Bosnian War. The film's uncompromising depiction of the war atrocities that marked the conflict caused some stir in Bosnia, Serbia, and Croatia, but her choices were largely celebrated by Bosnians, as well as most critics in the U.S. and Europe.Jolie returned to acting in 2014, playing the title character in Disney's Maleficent, which would prove to Jolie's biggest live-acting hit, passing the box office totals for Mr. & Mrs. Smith, taking in $600 million.

Trivia: Born December 17, 1974, in Los Angeles, Giovanni Ribisi began his career in network television, with recurring and guest roles on a number of shows, including The Wonder Years. As a teenager, he was typecast for several years as a dimwitted slacker in films and on television, with a memorable guest spot in an episode of The X-Files and a recurring role as Lisa Kudrow's brother on Friends. Ribisi was eventually able to break the grunge mold, first with a secondary role in Tom Hanks' That Thing You Do! (1996) and then in Richard Linklater's SubUrbia (1997). It was his role in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998) that caused many critics to dub him one of the leading actors of his generation, a status confirmed by his appearance on the cover of Vanity Fair with a number of fellow up-and-comers. Ribisi was given further opportunities to showcase his sleepy-eyed versatility in such films as 1999's The Mod Squad and The Other Sister. If Ribisi's best roles had been unfairly weighed down by an overabundance of commendable but little seen roles in the previous years, all this would change as the young actor began to focus increasingly on roles that were not only high quality, but high profile as well. His role in the high stakes 2000 drama The Boiler Room may have went largely unseen in theaters, but healthy word of mouth combined with an impressive cast of up and comers found the film an enduring shelf life on cable and DVD. After burning rubber in the fast and furious Nicolas Cage action thriller Gone in Sixty Seconds, Ribisi's memorable performance in director Sam Raimi's southern gothic flavored chiller The Gift preceded a touching turn in the affecting made-for-television drama Shot in the Heart. Ribisi's subsequent role as a conflicted police officer in the 2002 drama Heaven may have been a well-intended commentary on the state of crime and terrorism, but audiences largel dismissed the effort as pretentious tripe and the actor took a brief turn into blockbuster territory with Basic before a turn as an aloof, celebrity obsessed photogapher in director Sophia Coppola's art-house hit Lost in Translation. If his turn as a celebrity who turns convention in its head by stalking a fan in I Love Your Work didn't strike home with viewers, an appearance in the same year's Cold Mountain offered him the chance to flex his dramatic skills alongside an impressive cast that included Jude Law and Nicole Kidman. Of course Ribisi never was one to be predictable with his choice of roles, and following the romantic comedy Love's Brother he essayed a supporting role in the 2004 sci-fi thriller Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow. A handful of largely forgettable roles followed, and on the heels of recurring television roles in My Name is Earn and Entourage, Ribisi dove back into sci-fi with a role as villainous Chief Administrator Parker Selfridge in James Cameron's phenominally successful Avatar. And if Ribisi's performace in that film failed to make your skin crawl, his turn as a psychotic, heavily-tattooed drug dealer in the fast paced 2012 action thriller Contraband was sure to do the trick. He continued his villainous run as a stalker in the surprise hit film Ted (2012). Ribisi later re-teamed with his Ted director, Seth MacFarlane, in 2014's A Million Ways to Die in the West. He also appeared in the Oscar-nominated film Selma that same year.

Trivia: One of Hollywood's most distinguished, popular, and versatile actors, Robert Duvall possesses a rare gift for totally immersing himself in his roles. Born January 5, 1931 and raised by an admiral, Duvall fought in Korea for two years after graduating from Principia College. Upon his Army discharge, he moved to New York to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where he won much acclaim for his portrayal of a longshoreman in A View From the Bridge. He later acted in stock and off-Broadway, and had his onscreen debut as Gregory Peck's simple-minded neighbor Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).With his intense expressions and chiseled features, Duvall frequently played troubled, lonely characters in such films as The Chase (1966) during his early film career. Whatever the role, however, he brought to it an almost tangible intensity tempered by an ability to make his characters real (in contrast to some contemporaries who never let viewers forget that they were watching a star playing a role). Though well-respected and popular, Duvall largely eschewed the traditionally glitzy life of a Hollywood star; at the same time, he worked with some of the greatest directors over the years. This included a long association with Francis Ford Coppola, for whom he worked in two Godfather movies (in 1972 and 1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979). The actor's several Oscar nominations included one for his performance as a dyed-in-the-wool military father who victimizes his family with his disciplinarian tirades in The Great Santini (1980). For his portrayal of a has-been country singer in Tender Mercies -- a role for which he composed and performed his own songs -- Duvall earned his first Academy Award for Best Actor. He also directed and co-produced 1983's Angelo My Love and earned praise for his memorable appearance in Rambling Rose in 1991. One of Duvall's greatest personal triumphs was the production of 1997's The Apostle, the powerful tale of a fallen Southern preacher who finds redemption. He had written the script 15 years earlier, but was unable to find a backer, so, in the mid-'90s, he financed the film himself. Directing and starring in the piece, Duvall earned considerable acclaim, including another Best Actor Oscar nomination.The 1990s were a good decade for Duvall. Though not always successful, his films brought him steady work and great variety. Not many other actors could boast of playing such a diversity of characters: from a retired Cuban barber in 1993's Wrestling Ernest Hemingway to an ailing editor in The Paper (1994) to the abusive father of a mentally impaired murderer in the harrowing Sling Blade (1996) to James Earl Jones's brother in the same year's A Family Thing (which he also produced). Duvall took on two very different father roles in 1998, first in the asteroid extravaganza Deep Impact and then in Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man. Throughout his career, Duvall has also continued to work on the stage. In addition, he occasionally appeared in such TV miniseries as Lonesome Dove (1989) and Stalin (1992), and has even done voice-over work for Lexus commercials. In the early 2000s, he continued his balance between supporting roles in big-budget films and meatier parts in smaller efforts. He supported Nicolas Cage in Gone in 60 Seconds and Denzel Washington in John Q., but he also put out his second directorial effort, Assassination Tango (under the aegis of old friend Coppola, which allowed him to film one of his life's great passions -- the tango. In 2003, Kevin Costner gave Duvall an outstanding role in his old-fashioned Western Open Range, and Duvall responded with one of his most enjoyable performances.Duvall subsequently worked in a number of additional films, including playing opposite Will Ferrell in the soccer comedy Kicking & Screaming, as well as adding a hilarious cameo as a tobacco king in the first-rate satire Thank You For Smoking. In 2006 he scored a hit in another western. The made for television Broken Trail, co-starring Thomas Haden Church, garnered strong ratings when it debuted on the American Movie Classics channel. That same year he appeared opposite Drew Barrymore and Eric Bana in Curtis Hanson's Lucky You.In 2010, Duvall took on the role of recluse Felix "Bush" Breazeale for filmmaker Aaron Schneider's Get Low. The film, based on the true story of a hermit who famously planned his own funeral, would earn Duvall a nomination for Best Actor at the SAG Awards, and win Best First Feature for Schneider at the Independent Spirit awards. He picked up a Best Supporting Actor nod from the Academy for his work in 2014's The Judge, playing a beloved judge on trial for murder.

Trivia: Whether on stage or the big screen, Delroy Lindo projects a powerful presence that is virtually impossible to ignore. Though it was not his first film role, his portrayal of manic depressive numbers boss West Indian Archie in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992) is what first attracted attention to Lindo's considerable talents. Since then, his star has slowly been on the rise and the actor has had steady opportunity to display his talent in a number of diverse films.The son of Jamaican parents, Lindo was born in London, England, on November 18, 1952. He was raised in Lewisham, England, until his teens, when he and his mother moved across the Atlantic to Toronto. Following a move to the U.S. a short time later, he became involved in acting, eventually graduating from San Francisco's renowned American Conservatory Theater. After graduation, he landed his first film role, that of an Army sergeant in More American Graffiti (1979). He would not appear in another film for a decade, spending the intervening years on the stage. In 1982, Lindo debuted on Broadway in Master Harold and the Boys, directed by the play's author, Athol Fugard. Six years later, he earned a Tony nomination for his portrayal of Harold Loomis in Joe Turner's Come and Gone.Although possessing obvious talent and the potential for a distinguished career, Lindo found himself in something of a rut during the late '80s. Wanting someone more aggressive and appreciative of his talents, he changed agents (he'd had the same one through most of his early career). It was a smart move, but it was director Spike Lee who provided the boost that the actor's career needed. The director was impressed enough with Lindo to first cast him in Malcolm X and then as patriarch Woody Carmichael in his semi-autobiographical comedy Crooklyn (1994), a role for which Lindo earned some long overdue praise. 1995 proved to be another big year for the actor, as he landed substantial supporting roles in two major films, playing a mercurial drug dealer in Barry Sonnenfeld's Get Shorty and another drug dealer in Lee's Clockers. The following year, he could be seen in yet another villainous role in Feeling Minnesota. However, he also proved that he could portray the other side of the law, in the Mel Gibson thriller Ransom, in which he played an FBI agent, and John Woo's Broken Arrow, which cast him as a colonel. He made good as baseball player Satchel Paige in the upbeat Baseball in Black and White that same year, winning himself an NAACP Image nomination in the process.Following a turn as a jaded angel opposite Holly Hunter in Danny Boyle's A Life Less Ordinary (1997), Lindo returned to a more earthly realm, further proving his talent for playing shadesters in The Cider House Rules (1999), in which he portrayed a cider house foreman who impregnates his daughter, and Romeo Must Die (2000), a loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet that cast him as a vengeful mob boss. Following roles in Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000), Heist (2001), and The Last Castle (also 2001), Lindo re-teamed with Romeo star Jet Li for another high-kicking action opus, The One, in late 2001. Supporting roles in such high profile Hollywood films as The Core, Sahara, and Domino kept Lindo in the public eye over the course of the following decade, and in 2009 the actor lent his voice to the character of Beta in the runaway Pixar hit Up.

Trivia: Bearing the kind of sharp-eyed, vaguely sinister good looks that often get actors cast as charismatic drug dealers or murder suspects, Timothy Olyphant first impressed film audiences playing none other than the resident charismatic drug dealer of Doug Liman's Go (1999). Born in Hawaii on May 20, 1968, Olyphant grew up in California. After attending the University of California, where he swam competitively, the actor made his professional debut in the Playwrights Horizons' production of The Monogamist, for which he won a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Debut Performance. Olyphant's first film appearance came courtesy of a miniscule role in The First Wives Club (1996); somewhat more substantial work followed in 1997's Scream 2, in which the actor was cast as one of Neve Campbell's friends. After a turn in When Trumpets Fade (1998), a critically acclaimed made-for-TV WWII drama, and a memorable guest-shot on an episode of Sex and the City, Olyphant gave a scene-stealing performance in Go, managing to stand out in an ensemble cast that included Sarah Polley, Katie Holmes, Taye Diggs, and Scott Wolf. His work caught the notice of more than one industry observer, and by the following year, the actor had a number of projects in the works. Included among them were The Broken Hearts Club, a comedy that cast Olyphant as a gay photographer; Gone in Sixty Seconds, which featured him as a detective on the trail of a car thief (Nicolas Cage); and Auggie Rose, a drama about assumed identity in which Olyphant played the ex-cellmate of a dead con man. In 2001, Olyphant would turn up in the tale of an aspiring singer who gets to live a dream, Rock Star.Once touted as "the next big thing," Olyphant's stock seemed to drop after attaching himself to a string of duds, most notably the aforementioned Rock Star, Dreamcatcher, and A Man Apart, the latter two both released in 2003. Fortunately, the following year saw things looking up for the actor, with a starring role on the critically acclaimed series from HBO, the Western Deadwood. Over the next several years, Olyphant would appear in films like Live Free or Die Hard and I Am Number Four, in addition to a role on the night time drama Damages, as well as the massively popular series Justified.

Trivia: Actor Will Patton successfully divides his time between mainstream and independent features, television films, and a stage career on and off-Broadway. Born and raised in North Carolina, the son of a Lutheran minister, Patton learned his craft at the North Carolina School of the Arts and at New York's Actor's Studio where he studied under Lee Strasberg. In addition, Patton studied at the Open Theater under Joseph Chaikin before making it to the New York stage. Patton has won two Obie Awards for Tourists and Refugees No. 2 and for Sam Shepard's Fool for Love. Patton also has had experience working at London's Royal Court Theatre. Upon his return to New York, Patton joined the experimental Winter Project troupe. During the 1970s, Patton performed in two soap operas, Search for Tomorrow and Ryan's Hope. Patton first appeared on film in the short underground film Minus Zero(1979). During the early '80s, Patton appeared in such New York-based independent films as Michael Oblowitz's King Blank and Variety (both 1983). After playing a small but important villainous role in Susan Seidelman's Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Patton was cast in his first big-budget film, Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1985), where he played a brutish boyfriend with a thing for leather and chains. His best portrayal of a villain can be found in the Gene Hackman-starring thriller No Way Out (1987). In the '90s he could be seen in The Rapture, In the Soup, Romeo Is Bleeding, Copycat, the infamous Kevin Costner project The Postman, and the Michael Bay blockbuster Armageddon. At the beginning of the 21st century Patton continued to remain busy with major roles in Remember the Titans, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Mothman Prophecies, and The Punisher, as well as smaller roles in diverse films like Into the West, Wendy and Lucy, Meek's Cutoff, and Brooklyn's Finest.

Trivia: A remarkable actor who brings a vibrant intensity to his performances, Christopher Eccleston is widely held to be one of the most talented British actors of the 1990s. Primarily known for his portrayals of working-class men, Eccleston, who possesses a lanky, stone-faced physical appeal, has won international attention for his work in such films as Jude and Elizabeth.A product of the Northwestern English town of Salford, where he was born on February 16, 1964, Eccleston enjoyed a happy working-class upbringing. A poor student with a love of television, he initially wanted to be a professional soccer player. At the age of 19, however, he realized that acting was his calling, and enrolled in London's Central School of Speech and Drama. As an actor, his early influences had been Ken Loach's Kes and Albert Finney's performance in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, but he soon found himself interpreting the classics, performing the works of Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Molière. At the age of 25, he made his professional stage debut in the Bristol Old Vic's production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Relatively unemployed as an actor for some years after his graduation, Eccleston took a variety of odd jobs at a supermarket, on building sites, and as an artist's model. His luck began to change in 1991, when he was chosen to play the protagonist of Let Him Have It. He won acclaim for his haunting portrayal of Derek Bentley, whose real-life murder of a policeman and subsequent hanging for the crime was the subject of dispute in the British legal system, as Bentley had the mental age of a nine-year-old. Eccleston's handling of the role paved the way for more work, and he was soon starring opposite Robbie Coltrane in Cracker, a popular British television series. He stayed with the show from 1993 until 1994, when he was cast in Shallow Grave, the stylish thriller from Danny Boyle, John Hodge, and Andrew MacDonald, the team who would later make Trainspotting. The film, which starred Eccleston, Ewan McGregor, and Kerry Fox as three flatmates with a corpse on their hands, proved a success, and Eccleston won praise for his portrayal of an unhinged accountant.More television work followed in the form of Hillsborough (1996), and that same year, Eccleston won the title role in Michael Winterbottom's Jude. Co-starring with Kate Winslet, he garnered widespread praise for his interpretation of Thomas Hardy's tragic hero, and he began to attract the attention of American audiences. This attention was heightened two years later when he was cast as the dastardly Duke of Norfolk in Elizabeth; both his chilling performance and the film itself received wide acclaim. The same year, Eccleston starred alongside Renée Zellweger as an Orthodox Jew in A Price Above Rubies. The film was a relative disappointment, but it did allow the actor to break away from the character types that he usually played. In 1999, Eccleston could be seen in David Cronenberg's eXistenZ and in Heart, a black comedy in which he starred as a man so consumed with jealousy over his wife -- whom he believes to be having an affair -- that he gives himself a heart attack. The same year, he collaborated again with director Winterbottom on With or Without You, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival.He found no small amount of success in 2005 and 2006, when he took on the role of the ninth incarnation of Dr. Who in the fantastical television series of the same name, and a man with the ability to become invisible in the first season of NBC's Heroes. In 2009 he co-starred in Amelia, a biopic chronicling the life of the legendary aviator Amelia Earhart. He took on the starring role of Beatle John Lennon in Lennon Naked (2010), another biopic, and continued to work steadily throughout the 2010s.

Trivia: First earning renown in Great Britain as a star footballer, Vinnie Jones smoothly parlayed his physically formidable "hard man" sports rep into a second career as a charismatic movie tough guy. Raised on the estate where his father worked as a gamekeeper, Jones began his professional sports career with the Wimbledon FC soccer team in 1986. Becoming famous for his aggressive athleticism, Jones played for several other teams before returning to Wimbledon in 1994. A multimedia celebrity in Britain as well as a sports star, Jones also hosted TV and radio talk shows, published a book, and wrote a weekly column for the Sun during his years as an athlete. Jones found his next calling when tyro writer/director Guy Ritchie cast him as paternal enforcer Big Chris in the flashy London gangster romp Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1999). A major hit in England, and an art house success in the U.S., Lock, Stock earned Jones several British prizes. Jones officially retired from soccer in 1999, and turned his attention full time to acting. After a featured role as "The Sphinx" in the bombastic Hollywood car heist blockbuster Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), Jones rejoined Ritchie's lad-movie universe as Bullet Tooth Tony in the charmingly titled diamond caper Snatch (2001). Having proven that he could hold his own among such Hollywood stars as Nicolas Cage and Brad Pitt, Jones was subsequently cast a series of films like Swordfish, Mean Machine, Hell Ride, The Heavy, and Kill the Irishmen. He would also find success on the dark superhero series The Cape.

Trivia: The eldest son of actor James Caan, Scott Caan started to make a name for himself in such films as Enemy of the State and Varsity Blues. Five feet-five inches of muscle and machismo, the actor was born in 1976 and spent his childhood shuttling between his divorced father and mother. Although as a child he preferred sports to acting, Caan was offered the title role in the 1995 drama A Boy Called Hate. Following his performance in the film, he attended acting classes at Los Angeles' West Playhouse and acted in a few subsequent features, including Gregg Araki's 1997 Nowhere. In 1998, the actor got another break with a part in Tony Scott's thriller Enemy of the State and went on to make a number of small films that same year, including Wild Horses, which was co-directed by a post-Punky Brewster Soleil Moon Frye. In 1999 came Varsity Blues and an accompanying rush of exposure for Caan, who supplied the film's comic relief as a hell-raising wide receiver. In addition, the actor increased his indie credibility with Saturn, which was screened at the 1999 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival.As the new decade began, Caan appeared in Boiler Room, but he landed one of his most high-profile role in 2011 when he became one of Ocean's Eleven, playing a number of funny scenes opposite Casey Affleck. In 2005 he was in the thriller Into the Blue, and the next year had a small role in the indie comedy Friends With Money.Over the course of the decade he would return to the Ocean's franchise two more times, and take a major part in the Eddie Murphy comedy Meet Dave. He would act opposite his famous father in 2009's Mercy, a film he also wrote. In 2010 Caan would find success on the small-screen in the reboot of Hawaii Five-O.

Trivia: Perhaps best known for his work as a black-clad muse for Gregg Araki, James Duval has built a career on playing alienated, melancholic lost boys. Part of his ability to capture such alienation comes from the actor's own real-life experiences: of French, Vietnamese, Native American and Irish descent, he was constantly picked on by schoolmates while growing up. A native of Detroit, Michigan, where he was born on September 10, 1973, Duval made his way to Hollywood, where, eighteen and down on his luck after a band to pursue an acting career, he had his fateful encounter with Araki. The two met in a café that Duval frequented; Araki approached him, asked if he was an actor, and proceeded to cast him in Totally F***ed Up, the first installment of his so-called "teen-angst trilogy." The 1993 film, which focused on a group of alienated gay teens in Los Angele, was a cult hit, giving its director cult status and Duval more employment opportunities. After a turn as a biker in Mod Fuck Explosion, Jon Moritsugu's 1994 tale of urban teen dysfunction, Duval again collaborated with Araki, this time on The Doom Generation (1995). Cast as Jordan White, a lamb-for-the-slaughter role Araki had written specifically for him, the actor again got to demonstrate his capacity for disillusioned brooding and his readiness to take on less than salubrious subjects. The second installment of Araki's "teen-apocalypse" trilogy, The Doom Generation was also the most controversial, mainly due to its liberal inclusion of graphic violence--the most shocking of which centered on Duval's character. No such controversy surrounded Araki and Duval's subsequent collaboration, 1997's Nowhere. The last of the trilogy, it starred Duval as yet another bored, alienated Los Angeles teen and covered Araki's familiar stomping grounds of sexual experimentation, urban disillusionment, and the search for true love amid L.A.'s cultural wasteland. It met with a degree of success on the independent circuit, further establishing Duval as one of Araki's most visible mouthpieces. Aside from his work with Araki, Duval has also appeared in a number of independent films, including SLC Punk and Doug Liman's Go (both 1999). He has also made the occasional foray into mainstream film, appearing in the 1996 summer blockbuster Independence Day.

Trivia: Pronounced "shy," like the colloquial term for his hometown of Chicago, Chi McBride didn't get into acting until he was 30 years old. He is probably most recognized for his role as principal Steven Harper on Fox's Boston Public. Before his first movie, he worked for a phone company, trained as a gospel singer, and joined the hip-hop band Covert. With McBride as a producer and vocalist, the band released their first and only album For Your Bootay Only in 1991. Not soon after, he started appearing as a guest star on Fox sitcoms, including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. His feature-length debut happened a year later in Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation. Billed as simply Chi, he then gained small roles for the Eddie Murphy movie The Distinguished Gentleman and the Tina Turner story What's Love Got to Do With It? In 1993, McBride found a spot for himself on NBC for The John Larroquette Show, playing the janitor Heavy Gene. Teaming up next with the Hudlin brothers, he then appeared in the HBO Twilight Zone-style trilogy Cosmic Slop, hosted by George Clinton. His next few diverse projects were supporting roles in Peter Jackson's horror comedy The Frighteners, Bill Duke's period crime flick Hoodlum, and the action thriller Mercury Rising. McBride's first leading role came in the form of the short-lived and controversial UPN sitcom The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, playing the stuffy English title character who was mistakenly enslaved to Abraham Lincoln. After appearances in Gone in 60 Seconds and Disney's The Kid, he found his well-known spot on Boston Public. While gaining high marks for his role on the David E. Kelley drama, McBride parlayed his increased notoriety into a number of higher-profile big-screen roles.2002 found McBride as a police captain in the intense cop-thriller Narc, and the over-the-top Chief in the comedy Undercover Brother. And while the following year saw Boston Public cancelled, the free-time afforded to McBride by the show's end only allowed him to sign on to roles in two of 2004's most anticipated films, the Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks dramedy The Terminal and I, Robot, an action sci-fi flick starring Will Smith. Over the course of the next decade the reliable McBride became increasingly active on the small screen, essaying recurring roles on such hit shows as House and Pushing Daisies. Later, in 2012, he voiced the role of Nick Fury in the animated superhero series Ultimate Spider-Man.

Trivia: To say that Grace Zabriskie has specialized in maternal roles is hardly adequate. Many of the mothers portrayed by Zabriskie in films and on TV are the sort of parents that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy: clinging, castrating, and constantly jabbering away about nothing in particular (to be fair, she has essayed a few benign, likeable moms). She has been prominently featured in such films as Norma Rae (1979), Drugstore Cowboy (1988), and The Big Easy (1989). Her TV work includes the roles of Laura Palmer's hysterical mother in Twin Peaks (1990) and the recurring part of Thada Duvall in the NBC daytimer Santa Barbara. Undoubtedly, Zabriskie's most bizarre screen assignment was her S&M sex scene in Chain of Desire (1991). As brash and outspoken as ever, Grace Zabriskie played Granny in first-time director Anjelica Huston's controversial Bastard out of Carolina (1996).

Trivia: Handsome and versatile American actor Harry Van Gorkum tackled a series of character roles from the late '80s onward, vacillating with great fluidity and ease between big- and small-screen work. He was memorable on a 1996 episode of Seinfeld as Craig, the wig master in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; portrayed the colorful MC in Joel Schumacher's 1997 Batman & Robin; and landed a role opposite Sylvester Stallone and Madeleine Stowe in the 2002 crime comedy Avenging Angelo. In 2007, Van Gorkum donned sandals and a toga and played Vortgyn in Doug Lefler's Ancient Roman period epic The Last Legion.

Trivia: One of the actresses most indelibly associated with the descriptor "fiery redhead," Frances Fisher has enjoyed a long career as a respected stage, screen, and television performer. In addition to her professional work, she also earned recognition for her long relationship with Clint Eastwood, by whom she had a daughter.Born in Milford on Sea, England, Fisher spent much of her childhood traveling all over the world, thanks to her father's job as an international oil refinery construction supervisor. After time spent in England, Colombia, France, Canada, Brazil, Turkey, and Italy, the family settled in Orange, Texas, where Fisher completed her schooling. Deciding to follow her interest in theatre, she eventually moved to New York, where she subsequently enjoyed a 14-year stage career in regional and off-Broadway productions. During this time, she also became involved with the Actors Studio, where she studied with the legendary Lee Strasberg. Fisher segued into screen work via television, getting her start with regular roles on a number of soap operas. She began her film career with some help from Henry Jaglom, for whom she made her 1980 screen debut in Sitting Ducks, and went on to star in his Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (1983) and Babyfever (1994). Fisher spent the 1980s and 1990s appearing in a wide variety of film and TV productions, including the made-for-TV Lucy and Desi: Before the Laughter (1991), which cast her as Lucille Ball; Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992); the Texas Dust Bowl drama The Stars Fell on Henrietta (1995); James Cameron's Titanic (1997), in which she starred as Kate Winslet's mother; and The Big Tease (1999), a Scottish hairdressing mockumentary that featured her as a publicist in need of a new 'do.

Trivia: Lead actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: The star of Republic Pictures' notoriously bad Daughter of the Jungle (1949), and, she claims, a second cousin to both Charles Lindbergh and Gig Young, Lois Hall was discovered by an agent while performing with the famed Pasadena Playhouse. She had a walk-on in the Cary Grant comedy Every Girl Should be Married (1948) and then settled into a long stint as a leading lady to such B-Western stars as Charles Starrett, Johnny Mack Brown, and Whip Wilson. Hall also did the inevitable serials, The Adventures of Sir Galahad (1949) and Pirates of the High Seas (1950), and was frequently seen on television's The Range Rider series until semi-retiring in 1958 to care for her family. Widowed in 1995, Hall works as an ambassador for the Baha'i One World Faith but has returned to acting on such television shows as Profiler (2000) and in the feature films Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000) and Bad Boy (2002).

Trivia: Helped found the Buffalo Nights Theatre Company in 1991, a Los Angeles-based group that has garnered various awards for its productions. A drummer since childhood, has played under the pseudonym Kenny Bob Thornton in a tongue-in-cheek rockabilly band called Trainwreck. Named one of "TV's Top Ten Scene Stealers" in 2005 by TV GUIDE. Is active in raising awareness and research money to fight Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Trivia: Citing Danny Kaye as one of his foremost idols, American actor Arye Gross has done well for himself in a variety of supporting roles in television and film; like Kaye, he shows a particular talent for playing affable, if quirky, young men. While his feature debut was rather unremarkable -- he was credited as, simply, "Turbo" in 1984's forgettable The Exterminator 2 -- he was able to achieve top billing throughout the late '80s and mid-'90s for his performances in House 2: The Second Story (1987), The Couch Trip (1988), Coupe de Ville (1990), For the Boys (1991), and Hexed (1993). 1992's A Midnight Clear earned him particular acclaim for his role as a GI alongside Ethan Hawke and Gary Sinise. However, it wasn't until 1994, when Gross landed the part of good-hearted but somewhat hapless Adam on the award-winning sitcom Ellen, that he found prominent mainstream recognition. Gross continued to work in film during Ellen's four-year run -- in 1996, he was able to act with Kirsten Dunst and Nick Nolte in Keith Gordon's war-themed satire Mother Night, and during that same year, he played Tadpole opposite Tony Curtis in The Continued Adventures of Reptile Man and His Faithful Sidekick Tadpole. Several years later, critics praised Gross' performance as a metropolitan artist forced to return to his hometown in Montana in Big Eden. After appearing in Seven Girlfriends (2000) and Burning Down the House (2001), Gross played the ill-fated, would-be criminal Howard Marks in Steven Spielberg's Minority Report. In 2003, Gross could be seen in a recurring role on HBO's hit series Six Feet Under.

Trivia: Some might recognize Tyler Patton for his minor appearances in a handful of projects -- he's appeared in Gone in Sixty Seconds, Spy Hard and more -- but he's spent most of his career working behind the scenes. He began working as a set dresser in the late '80s, eventually working as a property master for many movies, as well as for the TV series House, M.D., on which he made a number of appearances as a surgeon.

Trivia: Argenziano, a supporting actor, appeared onscreen from the '70s.

Trivia: Adept at essaying a broad array of roles, Michael Peña launched his career with guest appearances on such series as NYPD Blue, Homicide: Life on the Street, and ER, as well as longer stints on Felicity and The Shield. Though his big-screen work officially stretches back several years prior to Million Dollar Baby (2004), that Clint Eastwood-directed Best Picture winner represented Peña's first major Hollywood credit. His involvement only amounted to a small part, but he re-teamed with Baby scripter Paul Haggis for higher (supporting) billing in the latter's Crash (2005) -- also a Best Picture Winner, and this one a searing, acerbic indictment of inner-city racism. Peña scored one of his first leads under the aegis of director Oliver Stone, co-starring opposite Nicolas Cage in the taut, suspenseful thriller World Trade Center (2006) -- a docudrama about the two New York City Port Authority rescue workers trapped beneath the rubble of the fifth building when the towers fell. Peña followed it up with a turn as a genial, resourceful FBI agent who assists a government-conned scapegoat (Mark Wahlberg) in Antoine Fuqua's conspiracy thriller Shooter (2007), and essayed a key supporting role in director Robert Redford's ensemble drama Lions for Lambs, opposite Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise. As the years followed, Peña would find continued success in comedy endeavours like Observe and Report, 30 Minutes or Less, and Tower Heist, as well as on the TV series Eastbown & Down.

Trivia: Character actor John Carroll Lynch first gained notice for his performance as Frances McDormand's sweet and supportive husband in the Coen brother's critically acclaimed Fargo. He subsequently appeared on the ABC sitcom The Drew Carey Show as the title character's cross-dressing brother. The role was initially a recurring one, but Lynch was eventually added as a full-time cast member. Along the way, he also popped up in a number of small roles in large films like 1997's Volcano and 2000's Gone in 60 Seconds.Following the cancellation of The Drew Carey Show, Lynch switched gears from comedy to drama, but stayed on the small screen, taking a role on HBO's bleak and bizarre Carnivàle. That stint was followed by a season on the CBS legal drama Close to Home. And in 2007, he was cast alongside Anthony Anderson and Cole Hauser in Fox's post-Hurricane Katrina cop show K-Ville. That same year, he could be seen on the big-screen in David Fincher's Zodiac. Lynch would remain an active perormer for years to come, appearing in movies like Shutter Island and Crazy, Stupid, Love, as well as starring on TV shows like Body of Proof.