Trivia: Hailing from South West London, dashing and luscious-lipped young actor Tom Hardy started off his career in war dramas alongside other hunky newcomers. He began his studies at the prestigious Drama Centre, but left early for a part in the award-winning HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. He made his feature film debut in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down, with Josh Hartnett. He then appeared with Paul Bettany in The Reckoning, a British film based on the novel Morality Play. In 2002, he remained in the U.K. for the independent film Dot the I, sharing the bill with the handsome Gael García Bernal. He then traveled to North Africa for Simon: An English Legionnarie, a story of the French Foreign Legion. In the same year, he gained some heavy international exposure as Shinzon, a clone of Captain Picard in Star Trek: Nemesis. He returned to England for the 2003 thriller LD 50. He was in the 2004 crime film Layer Cake, but scored prime roles in a number of 2005 films including Minotaur and Elizabeth I: The Virgin Queen. Sofia Coppola cast him in Marie Antoinette in 2006, and two years later he had a crucial role in the international hit Bronson. He scored his biggest American hit to that point in 2010 when he was part of the crew in Christopher Nolan's Inception. He played one of two battling brothers in 2011's Warrior, and had a major part in the Oscar nominated remake of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy. He enjoyed is highest profile role to date playing the bad guy Bane in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises in the summer of 2012. Hardy had a monster 2015, taking over the title role in the hugely successful Mad Max: Fury Road and scoring his first Oscar nomination for his turn in Alejandro G. Iñárritu's The Revenant.

Trivia: As semi-reformed bad girl Jennifer Lindley on Dawson's Creek, actress Michelle Williams garnered a certain type of notoriety unavailable to her more morality-inclined co-stars. In spite of this notoriety--or perhaps because of it--the role provided Williams with a wealth of opportunities, making her one of the foremost teen stars of the late 1990s. Born September 9, 1980 in small-town Kalispell, Montana and raised there until she was ten, Williams started acting after her family moved to San Diego. Beginning with roles in community theatre productions, she was soon shuttling back and forth to Los Angeles for auditions. Williams made her film debut in 1994 with Lassie, and then had a small but memorable part as the young version of the nubile and bloodthirsty alien in Species (1995). After the dismal and virtually unseen Timemaster (1995), Williams moved on to more auspicious fare with Jocelyn Moorhouse's A Thousand Acres (1997). Williams was cast as Michelle Pfeiffer's daughter, and the film's small-town setting must have given her some context for her next role, that of Jenn in Dawson's Creek. The show, which premiered in January of 1998, gave Williams her break-out role, and in short time she was besieged with movie offers and a stream of interviews.Williams' first film to exploit her newfound Dawson's fame was Halloween: H2O (1998), in which she starred opposite Jamie Lee Curtis. The film opened to poor reviews but a strong box office performance, and paved the way for her to star in future films, including 1999's thoroughly weird political satire Dick. The film, which looks at the Watergate scandal from the point of view of two teenage girls (played by Williams and Kirsten Dunst), provided Williams with a chance to expand her range beyond the constraints of her Dawson's Creek character. As the new millennium began, Williams found herself more and more comfortable exploring independent film, participating in smaller but often extremely influential projects like Perfume (2001), The Station Agent (2003) and Prozac Nation (2003). In 2005, Williams signed on to appear in the groundbreaking Ang Lee film Brokeback Mountain. The critical acclaim surrounding the movie was overwhelming, bringing Williams a new level of notoriety. Her popularity was also bolstered when the public learned that she and costar Heath Ledger had become involved during filming. The two became engaged and had a daughter together, Matilda, in 2005, and though they would later separate in 2007, they remained close for the well being of their daughter. Tragically, Ledger was found dead of an accidental overdose the following year. The heartbreaking loss for both Williams and her daughter forced the actress to deal with additional public scrutiny at a time when she was most vulnerable, but she coped with the grief as best she could, by investing more energy in her work. In 2008 alone she would appear in numerous films, including the drama Incendiary with Ewan McGregor and the highly anticipated Charlie Kaufman directorial debut Synecdoche, New York.Williams persisted in working with very good directors, as well as indie helmers who could offer her challenging work. She earned strong reviews for her starring role in Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy, and they worked together again on the western Meek's Cutoff. In addition, she worked with Martin Scorsese in his adaptation of Shutter Island.She also continued to earn awards for a steady string of impressive work including Blue Valentine, where her work as the female half of a failing marriage scored her Oscar, Golden Globe, and Independent Spirit nominations for Best Actress. Then in 2011 she took on the challenge of playing Marilyn Monroe in My Week With Marilyn, and was rewarded with rave reviews as well as Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild nominations for Best Actress.

Trivia: Set up his own club called Hit & Run while studying at Oxford. Has a hip hop career under the name Riz MC; was chosen as a BBC Introducing artist in 2007 and performed at various events including the Glastonbury Festival and the BBC Electric Proms. Signed to the independent label Tru Thoughts in 2011 and released his debut album Microscope the same year. In 2017, made Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential figures in the world; his entry was written by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. Is a childhood friend of Propercorn founder Ryan Kohn; together they raised over $85,000 to help Syrian refugees in 2017.

Trivia: Played basketball in high school.Discovered his passion for acting after enrolling in a high school play.Met James Franco after a show at the Stella Adler Academy of Acting and Theatre, and had remained good friends and collaborated in many projects since then.In order to prepare himself for his role in Child of God, he had to stay in an isolated cabin in the woods in Tennessee for months. In 2006, he founded The Sherry Theater in North Hollywood, California. It was named after his mother. Created the Rattlestick West theater company along with fellow actor James Franco.

Trivia: Fell in love with acting after his mother encouraged him to join the drama club in the sixth grade to help curb a stuttering problem. As a teenager, briefly attended an all-boys military academy, where he performed in school productions of Dead Poets Society and various Shakespearean plays. Landed guest stints on That '70s Show, What I Like About You, American Dreams and Bones. Breakout role was on the controversial 2003 sitcom It's All Relative. In 2006, joined the cast of My Boys, TBS's first original sitcom.

Trivia: Comedian Jenny Slate graduated from Columbia University before making waves in New York as one half of the comedy team Gabe & Jenny. After making a memorable appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Slate went on to join the 2009 cast of Saturday Night Live, where she made a serious impression by accidentally using an expletive on live television. Slate was let go at the end of the season (seemingy because of her on-air slip), but she bounced back quickly with the short film Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, which she created with her then-husband. The film gained a following online and gave Slate some favorable press after her SNL incident. Since then, she has carved out an impressive TV career with both guest and recurring arcs on shows like Parks and Recreation and House of Lies and doing voice-over work on shows like Bob's Burgers. In 2014, Slate starred in Obvious Child, her first starring role, and recieved a Critics' Choice Award for her work.

Trivia: Known almost as much for his off-screen pastimes as his on-screen characterizations, Woody Harrelson is an actor for whom truth is undeniably stranger than fiction. Son of a convicted murderer, veteran of multiple arrests, outspoken environmentalist, and tireless hemp proponent, Harrelson is colorful even by Hollywood standards. However, he is also a strong, versatile actor, something that tends to be obscured by the attention paid to his real-life antics. Born in Midland, TX, on July 23, 1961, Harrelson grew up in Lebanon, OH. He began his acting career there, appearing in high-school plays. He also went professional around this time, making his small-screen debut in Harper Valley P.T.A. (1978) alongside Barbara Eden. While studying acting in earnest, Harrelson attended Indiana's Hanover College; following his graduation, he had his first speaking part (one line only) in the 1986 Goldie Hawn vehicle Wildcats. On the stage, Harrelson understudied in the Neil Simon Broadway comedy Biloxi Blues (he was briefly married to Simon's daughter Nancy) and at one point wrote a play titled Furthest From the Sun. His big break came in 1985, when he was cast as the sweet-natured, ingenuous bartender Woody Boyd on the TV sitcom Cheers. To many, he is best remembered for this role, for which he won a 1988 Emmy and played until the series' 1993 conclusion. During his time on Cheers, Harrelson also played more serious roles in made-for-TV movies such as Bay Coven (1987), and branched out to the big screen with roles in such films as Casualties of War (1989) and Doc Hollywood (1991). Harrelson's big break as a movie star came with Ron Shelton's 1992 sleeper White Men Can't Jump, a buddy picture in which he played a charming (if profane) L.A. hustler. His next film was a more serious drama, Indecent Proposal (1993), wherein he was miscast as a husband whose wife sleeps with a millionaire in exchange for a fortune. In 1994, Harrelson appeared as an irresponsible rodeo rider in the moronic buddy comedy The Cowboy Way, which proved to be an all-out clinker. That film's failings, however, were more than overshadowed by his other film that year, Oliver Stone's inflammatory Natural Born Killers. Playing one of the film's titular psychopaths, Harrelson earned both raves and a sizable helping of controversy for his complex performance. Following work in a couple of low-rated films, Harrelson again proved his mettle, offering another multi-layered performance as real life pornography magnate Larry Flynt in the controversial People Vs. Larry Flynt (1996). The performance earned Harrelson an Oscar nomination. The next year, he earned further praise for his portrayal of a psychotic military prisoner in Wag the Dog. He then appeared as part of an all-star lineup in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998), and in 1999 gave a hilarious performance as Matthew McConaughey's meathead brother in EdTV. That same year, he lent his voice to one of his more passionate causes, acting as the narrator for Grass, a documentary about marijuana. In 2000, Harrelson starred in White Men collaborator Ron Shelton's boxing drama Play It to the Bone as an aspiring boxer who travels to Las Vegas to find fame and fortune, but ends up competing against his best friend (Antonio Banderas). The actor temporarily retired from the big screen in 2001 and harkened back to his television roots, with seven appearances as Nathan, the short-term downstairs boyfriend to Debra Messing's Grace, in producer David Kohan's long-running hit Will and Grace (1998-2006). After his return to television, Harrelson seemed content to land supporting roles for several years. He reemerged in cineplexes with twin 2003 releases. In that year's little-seen Scorched, an absurdist farce co-starring John Cleese and Alicia Silverstone, Harrelson plays an environmentalist and animal activist who seeks retribution on Cleese's con-man for the death of one of his pet ducks. Unsurprisingly, most American critics didn't even bother reviewing the film, and it saw extremely limited release. Harrelson contributed a cameo to the same year's Jack Nicholson/Adam Sandler vehicle Anger Mangement, and a supporting role to 2004's critically-panned Spike Lee opus She Hate Me. The tepid response to these films mirrored those directed at After the Sunset (2004), Brett Ratner's homage to Alfred Hitchcock. Harrelson stars in the diamond heist picture as federal agent Stan Lloyd, opposite Pierce Brosnan's master thief Max Burdett. Audiences had three chances to catch Harrelson through the end of 2005; these included Mark Mylod's barely-released, Fargo-esque crime comedy The Big White , with Robin Williams and Holly Hunter; Niki Caro's October 2005 sexual harrassment docudrama North Country, starring Charlize Theron; and the gifted Jane Anderson's period drama Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio. In the latter, Harrelson plays, Leo 'Kelly' Ryan, the drunken, increasingly violent husband of lead Julianne Moore, who manages to hold her family together with a steady stream of sweepstakes wins in the mid-fifties, as alcoholism and the financial burden of ten children threaten to either tear the family apart or send it skidding into abject poverty. Harrelson then joined the cast of maestro auteur Robert Altman's ensemble comedy-drama A Prairie Home Companion (2006), a valentine to Garrison Keillor's decades-old radio program with a strong ensemble cast that includes Meryl Streep, Lindsay Lohan and Kevin Kline. He also works wonders as a key contributor to the same year's Richard Linklater sci-fi thriller Through a Scanner Darkly, an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1977 novel that, like one of the director's previous efforts, 2001's Waking Life, uses rotoscoping to animate over live-action footage. It opened in July 2006 to uniformly strong reviews. As Ernie Luckman, one of the junkie hangers-on at Robert Arctor's (Keanu Reeves) home, Harrelson contributes an effective level of despondency to his character, amid a first-rate cast. After Harrelson shot Prairie and Scanner, the trades announced that he had signed up to star in Paul Schrader's first UK-produced feature, Walker, to co-star Kristin Scott-Thomas, Lauren Bacall, Ned Beatty, Lily Tomlin and Willem Dafoe. Harrelson portrays the lead, a Washington, D.C.-based female escort; Schrader informed the trades that he envisions the character as something similar to what American Gigolo's Julian Kaye would become in middle-age. Shooting began in March 2006. He also signed on, in June of the same year, to join the cast of the Coen Bros.' 2007 release No Country for Old Men, which would capture the Academy Award for Best Picture. Harrelson showed off his versatility in 2008 by starring in the Will Ferrell basketball comedy Semi-Pro as well as the thriller Transsiberian. He continued to prove himself capable of just about any part the next year with his entertaining turn in the horror comedy Zombieland, and his powerful work as a damaged soldier in Oren Moverman's directorial debut The Messenger. For his work in that movie, Harrelson captured his second Academy Award nomination, as well as nods from the Golden Globes, the Independent Spirit Awards, and the Screen Actors Guild - in addition to winning the Best Supporting Actor award from the National Board of Review. In 2012, the actor appeared as the flawed but loyal mentor to two young adults forced to compete to the death in the film adaptation of author Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games.

Trivia: A versatile actress who can bring a keen emotional edge to either comic or dramatic roles, Melora Walters is best known for her work with director Paul Thomas Anderson, who, more than anyone, seems to have known how to best utilize her gifts onscreen. Melora Walters began her career in acting doing off-Broadway theater in New York before she began to make a name for herself in television, in 1989 scoring a small recurring role as Debbi on the popular sitcom Roseanne. After making her film debut in an undistinguished low-budget thriller, 1988's Underground Terror, Walters earned her Screen Actors Guild card for her work as Gloria in the 1989 hit Dead Poets Society. Over the next several years, Walters made a number of appearances on episodic television shows, including such hits as The Wonder Years, Seinfeld, and NYPD Blue, while playing small roles in several forgettable films, as well as occasional high-profile items such as Cabin Boy, Ed Wood, Eraser, and the critically respected indie film Twenty Bucks. In 1996, Walters was cast in a small role in a little-seen independent film called Hard Eight. However, the film's director, first-time feature filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, was impressed enough to cast her in a much meatier role in his second feature. Walters played Jessie St. Vincent, a soft-hearted second-string porn actress in the breakthrough hit Boogie Nights, and the film made a name for both Anderson and Walters. Walters' new notoriety helped her land a regular role as Felicity on the television drama series L.A. Doctors, but the show only lasted a single season. Thankfully, Anderson once again had plans for Walters, and cast her as Claudia, a cocaine-addled woman on the verge of emotional collapse in Magnolia; hers was one of the strongest performances in one of the year's most eagerly anticipated films, and the critical response to her intense portrayal led to a string of leading roles in independent films, including Rain, Desert Saints, and Jupiter City. She continued to work steadily, bouncing between Hollywood projects and indie fare like Wisegirls, Runaway Jury, Cold Mountain, Melvin Goes to Dinner, and The Butterfly Effect. In 2006 she was cast in the HBO drama series Big Love as Wanda Hendricks. After her run on that show came to an end, she could be seen in I Melt With You, and she made cameo in Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master.

Trivia: Is a poet who regularly shared his work at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City during the late 1990s. Member of LAByrinth Theater Company, where he worked closely with Philip Seymour Hoffman. Recognized for Sustained Excellence of Performance at the 2007 Obie Awards. Performed in numerous off-Broadway productions, including Titus Andronicus in 2011, The Exonerated in 2012 and Between Riverside and Crazy in 2014. Starred in the titular role of Richard III for the Public Theater's Mobile Shakespeare Unit, a series of free performances for schools, homeless shelters, prisons and senior-living facilities. Played Crooks, opposite James Franco and Chris O'Dowd, in the 2014 Broadway production of Of Mice and Men at the Longacre Theatre.

Trivia: At age 6, got the role of Conner in TV movie Hearts of Spring after his very first audition.Was able to go in the Indian Ocean's only submarine during a trip to Mauritius.Hiked for six hours on Rangitoto Island in New Zealand.Toboggan down and walked on the Great Wall of China during a visit to Beijing.A certified Junior Lifeguard and Padi Scuba Diver.

Trivia: Has one sister and twin brothers. Moved to Los Angeles to pursue his comedy career when he was 24. Was cast in the 2010 NBC pilot Beach Lane alongside Matthew Broderick, but the pilot was not picked up. Made guest appearances on the comedy programs Traffic Light and Happy Endings in 2011, and Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 in 2012. Has a son with wife Suzanne Trudelle. Starred in the American adventure horror comedy film Dave Made a Maze (2017). Has performed on The Tonight Show, Comedy Central Presents and The Laugh Factory.