Trivia: A child performer who went on to become an adult actor in one of the more radical transformations in the history of the American entertainment industry, Sarah Jessica Parker has captained both a career and a public image that could be accurately classified under the heading Revenge of the Nerd. As a pubescent actor most famous for her roles in the acclaimed high school-set TV series Square Pegs and in the big screen's Footloose and Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Parker played the skinny girl with frizzy hair who was either the sidekick or underdog; when she wasn't cleaning up after Lori Singer in Footloose, she was battling snotty rich girls for the right to dance on local television in Girls Just Want to Have Fun. However, thanks to perseverance, talent, a fabulous stylist, and an HBO series called Sex and the City, Parker had emerged, by the end of the 1990s, as one of the most glamorous and employable actors around, known as much for the designer frocks she wore to awards ceremonies as for her work on the screen.Born in Nelsonville, OH, on March 25, 1965, as the fourth of eight siblings, Parker grew up in relative poverty following the divorce of her mother, an elementary school teacher, and her father, an aspiring writer. Raised by her mother and often out-of-work stepfather, she trained as a dancer and singer, bringing home paychecks from a young age. As a fledgling actor, Parker landed her first TV show at the age of eight; in 1976, after winning her first Broadway role in The Innocents, her family moved to New Jersey to encourage her career. Parker worked on the stage for the next few years, touring -- with four of her siblings -- in the national company of The Sound of Music and getting her first major break when she was chosen to take over the title role of Annie on Broadway, from 1979 to 1980.Continuing her training at the American Ballet Theater and the New York Professional Children's School, Parker made her film debut in the 1979 Rich Kids, which co-starred John Lithgow, Trini Alvarado, and Olympia Dukakis. In 1982, she won her first starring role in the aforementioned Square Pegs, and then received additional attention thanks to her role as Lori Singer's best friend and Chris Penn's girlfriend in the 1984 hit Footloose. The following year, Parker kept on dancing -- this time alongside a very young Helen Hunt -- in the similarly winning Girls Just Want to Have Fun. The actor's success in both films paved the way for steady work through the rest of the decade; in addition to her work on the big screen, Parker also starred in a number of TV shows, including the 1986 miniseries A Year in the Life and the drama series Equal Justice.The early '90s saw Parker segue into more adult roles, playing the Southern Californian creation SanDeE* alongside Steve Martin in L.A. Story (1991), then earning both critical and cult credibility as Nicholas Cage's fiancée in Honeymoon in Vegas (1992) and as the wife of consummate schlockmeister Ed Wood in Tim Burton's celebrated 1994 film about Wood's life and times. Offscreen, as well, she was garnering notice for her attachment to actor Matthew Broderick; Parker -- who had been in high-profile relationships with Robert Downey Jr. and John F. Kennedy Jr. -- married Broderick in 1997.Following a turn as Mia Farrow's daughter in the widely panned Miami Rhapsody (1995), supporting work in The First Wives Club and Burton's Mars Attacks! (both 1996), and a number of New York productions (including Sylvia, for which she earned a Drama Desk Award nomination), Parker landed the starring role of New York sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw on the new HBO series Sex and the City. Touted by some observers as the luckiest break in the actor's career to date, the show, which focused on the sex lives of four close friends (played by Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, and Kristin Davis) became a huge hit among both critics and viewers, ensuring Parker -- who won the Golden Globe for her work in 2000, 2001and 2002 -- both steady employment and an unimpeachably chic image that was eons removed from the bony elbows and frizzy bangs of her days as a square peg.Parker continued to appear in film roles during and after the Carrie Bradshaw years; among them include a starring role in The Family Stone (2005), and a supporting role in the 2008 comedy drama Smart People. In 2010 she starred in Sex and the City 2, and played a devoted mother attempting to balance her family with her career in 2011's comedy drama I Don't Know How She Does It.

Trivia: Kristin Davis first earned recognition as the pretentiously rich "schemer" she played on Fox's Melrose Place in the mid-'90s. As Brooke, she was constantly creating problems for the more regular characters, and just a year after gaining full-time character status, she had to be written off the show because of viewer dissatisfaction. However, doe-eyed Davis would find an abundance of work on television and in film, and demonstrate more versatility than she had as the "meanie" on Melrose. She was born on February 24, 1965, in Boulder, CO. After moving to Columbia, SC, with her family, she attended Rutgers University. She then moved to New York City, where she worked in theater and commercials for some time. In order to work on Melrose Place, starting in 1994, she relocated to Los Angeles. Davis made many television miniseries and movie appearances after her bout with Melrose Place, including appearances on ER and General Hospital. She had a bit part in Nine Months in 1995, and was featured in a TNT made-for-TV movie, The Heidi Chronicles, also starring Jamie Lee Curtis, that same year. In 1998, she had a small part in Sour Grapes, a comedy by Seinfeld writer Larry David. She then starred in two television motion pictures: Atomic Train in 1999, as Megan Seger, and Take Me Home: The John Denver Story in 2000, as Annie Denver, and co-starring with Chad Lowe. Also in 2000, she starred in the feature film Blacktop, and in 2001, appeared in a TV movie called Three Days with comedian Tim Meadows.When Sex and the City came to an end, she appeared in a handful of films including The Shaggy Dog and Deck the Halls before next appearing in the big-screen version of her iconic HBO series. She then appeared in Couples Retreat before taking part in the Sex and the City movie sequel. In 2012 she was the clueless mother in the family adventure movie Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.On the HBO series Sex and the City, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Davis played the innocent and adorable Charlotte York, a sweet and sensitive counterpart to the more blunt crassness of the program's three other female main characters. A striking contrast to the role she played on Melrose Place, Charlotte has provided Davis with a more diverse character range within the genre of drama-comedy on television.

Trivia: A true-blue New York actress who has worked on the stage and screen since her adolescence, Cynthia Nixon is probably best known to pop culture aficionados as Miranda Hobbes, the high-powered lawyer who has dated some of New York City's most dysfunctional men on HBO's Sex and the City. Although Nixon's starring role on the hugely popular series may have brought her to the attention of a new audience, observers of the New York theater had been watching the actor on and off Broadway since 1980, where she had performed in productions that included David Rabe's Hurlyburly, Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing, Angels in America, and Indiscretions, for which she earned a Tony nomination.Born in New York City on April 9, 1966, Nixon made her film debut in the 1980 movie Little Darlings. She worked steadily through the rest of the decade, appearing in films ranging from Sidney Lumet's Prince of the City (1981) to Milos Forman's Oscar-winning Amadeus (1984) to Robert Altman's satirical Tanner '88, which cast her as the daughter of the titular politician. Nixon also worked on television, popping up in various miniseries, including the 1982 abortion drama My Body, My Child, in which she co-starred with Vanessa Redgrave and future Sex and the City co-star Sarah Jessica Parker. Continuing to appear on-stage in productions of Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles, Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (for which she won a Los Angeles Drama Critics Award), and Philadelphia Story (for which she won a Theater World Award), Nixon also became a founding member of the off-Broadway theater group The Drama Dept. In 1998, after appearing onscreen sporadically throughout the 1990s, in such films as Addams Family Values (1993), the actor landed the most widely recognized role of her career up to that point, on Sex and the City. Co-starring alongside Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, and Kristin Davis, Nixon, as the hilariously caustic Miranda, enjoyed critical praise and a number of awards and nominations for her work on the show, which formed another entry on an already long and varied resumé. She would reprise the role for big screen adaptations of the show, in addition to movie roles in Lymelife and An Englishman in New York, as well as a popular turn on the Showtime series The Big C.

Trivia: A popular screen figure of the 1980s and '90s whose casting in HBO's runaway hit series Sex and the City provided her career with a solid second wind, Emmy-winning actress Kim Cattrall has endured to prove that older women can retain their sexuality and femininity while simultaneously maintaining a vital screen presence. Born in Liverpool, England, Cattrall's parents immigrated the family to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, when the future actress was three years old. After returning to England at age 11 to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, Cattrall finished high school in Vancouver, and at age 16 struck out on her own after winning a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Though director Otto Preminger would sign Cattrall to a five-year contract and give the actress her film debut in Rosebud (1975), Universal would soon step in to buy out her contract, making Cattrall one of the last actors to participate in the now defunct Universal Contract Player System. Following with television appearances in Starskey and Hutch and Charlie's Angels, and turning up in such features as Deadly Harvest (1977), it appeared as if good things were in store for Cattrall in the future. The dawn of the 1980s found Cattrall's star ascending in such features as Porky's (1981), and with the release of Police Academy in 1984 her face was becoming a familiar one to film and television audiences.Following up with such typically '80s fare as Turk 182! (1985), Cattrall essayed the role of the green-eyed girl whose fate was questionable in John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China (1986), the year before her most famous (until Sex and the City of course) role in Mannequin (1987). Essentially a typical '80s throwaway comedy, Cattrall's effervescent presence, combined with Starship's catchy title tune "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now," gave the film such a boost that it even spawned a Cattrall-less sequel. It was following Mannequin that Cattrall's career began to stall in the wake of such instantly forgettable films as Honeymoon Academy (1990) and the Gary Busey actioner Breaking Point (1993), though her role in 1995's Live Nude Girls proved a curious precursor to her role on Sex and the City. A frank and funny HBO series based on the writings of New York Observer columnist Candace Bushnell, Sex and the City gave Cattrall a chance to shine as a lusty an unabashedly sexual PR executive whose confidence in the bedroom rivals only her confidence in the boardroom. A runaway hit that's popularity only grew as the show entered is sixth season, Sex and the City once again made Cattrall a household name as it influenced everything from fashion to the drinks of the New York scene. Cattrall's character made her a bigger pop culture icon than ever, and she would stick with the franchise throughout its spin-off movies, while also appearing in feature films like Ice Princess and The Ghost Writer.

Trivia: Ron Livingston first came to the attention of film audiences in 1996, when he portrayed one of Jon Favreau's Rat Pack-obsessed cronies in Swingers. Over the next few years, the actor began taking more and more leading roles, earning recognition and making a name for himself in the process. A graduate of Yale, where he received a B.A. in Theatre Studies and English Literature, Livingston began acting at the Williamstown Theatre Festival while in college. After graduation, he headed to Chicago, where he performed at the Goodman Theatre. Livingston made his film debut in the 1992 Dolly Parton comedy Straight Talk, and the following year he had a supporting role in the independent film Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade. After catching the eyes of audiences in the cult-hit Swingers, Livingston began to take on increasingly more prominent film roles. In 1999 he could be seen in no less than three films, beginning with the comedy Office Space, in which he had the starring role. While the film performed theatrically, it slowly gained an audience on home-video and was later regarded as a modern comedy classic. In 2001, Livingston turned to the small screen, first in the Stephen Spielberg-produced miniseries Band of Brothers, then with a short-lived starring role on ABC's The Practice. He could be seen in theaters again in 2002, stealing scenes as a smarmy agent in the critically-acclaimed Adaptation and returned to television the following year, with a recurring role as one of Carrie's boyfriends on Sex and the City.Livingston would go on to appear in a number of feature films over the coming years, like Little Black Book, Dinner for Schmucks and The Life Coach, before going on to find success on the small screen once again with shows like Standoff and Defying Gravity.

Trivia: Known for his outrageous, divinely comedic performances on stage and screen, Nathan Lane has led a career encompassing Broadway, television, and film. Born Joe Lane in Jersey City, New Jersey on February 3, 1956, Lane took his stage name from Nathan Detroit, the character he played to great acclaim in the 1992 Broadway version of Guys and Dolls.Lane made his film debut in 1987's Ironweed, and he spent the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s playing secondary roles in films like Joe Versus the Volcano (1990), Frankie and Johnny (1991), and Addams Family Values (1993). During this time, his stage career was thriving; in addition to his celebrated turn in Guys and Dolls (for which he won a Tony nomination, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards), he frequently collaborated with playwright Terrence McNally, who cast him in a number of his plays, including The Lisbon Traviata, in which Lane played an opera queen, and Love! Valour! Compassion!, in which he starred as Buzz, an HIV-positive musical aficionado who provides much of the play's comic relief and genuine anger. The actor won particular acclaim for his portrayal of the latter character, taking home Obie and Drama Desk Awards, as well as other honors, for his work.In 1994, the same year that he starred in the stage version of Love! Valour! Compassion! (his role was played in the film version by Jason Alexander), Lane gained fame of a different sort, lending his voice to Timon, a hyperactive meerkat in Disney's animated The Lion King. He reprised the role for the extremely successful movie's 1998 sequel. Two years after playing a meerkat, Lane finally became widely visible to screen audiences as Robin Williams' flamboyantly limp-wristed lover in The Birdcage, Mike Nichols' remake of La Cage aux Folles. The film helped to establish Lane--who was at the time starring on Broadway in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum--as a comic actor worthy of big-screen exposure, and in 1997 he was given his own vehicle to display his talents, Mouse Hunt. Unfortunately, the film was a relative disappointment, as was Encore! Encore!, a 1998 sitcom that cast the actor as a Pavorotti-like opera singer alongside Glenne Headly and Joan Plowright. However, Lane continued to work steadily, appearing both on stage and in film. In 1999, he could be seen in At First Sight and Get Bruce, a documentary about comic writer Bruce Vilanch. The same year, he could also be heard in Stuart Little, a live action/animated adaptation of E.B White's celebrated children's book.Over the coming years, Lane would appear in several films, including a new big screen adaptation of The Producers and the fairy tale Mirror Mirror.

Trivia: The bald and slightly diminutive, affable character actor Evan Handler began his career in big-screen features with a handful of memorable portrayals in films such as the military actioner Taps (1981); the gentle, underrated coming-of-age dramedy Sweet Lorraine (1987); and Oliver Stone's gonzo anti-media orgy Natural Born Killers (1994). After 1996, Handler focused almost exclusively on television, with both guest and recurring roles on popular programs (Friends, 24, Lost) and short-lived series (Hot Properties, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). He is perhaps best-known for his recurring role on Sex and the City (in seasons five and six) as Charlotte's divorce lawyer, Harry Goldenblatt, who ultimately won her heart and became her husband. In 2007, Handler joined David Duchovny and Natascha McElhone with a regular role as Hank Moody's (Duchovny) agent and best friend, Charlie, on the quirky Showtime series comedy Californication. He reprised his role as Harry Goldenblatt for Sex and the City 2 in 2010, and worked in the HBO docudrama Too Big to Fail in 2011.Off-camera, Handler remains active in the theater; he essayed respectable performances in such New York-based stage productions as I Hate Hamlet (1991), Big Al (1992), and Time on Fire (1993).

Trivia: A bald and frequently bespectacled screen presence whose "average Joe" appearance and keen talent allow him the unique ability to truly transform into the character at hand, Willie Garson may have won over Sex and the City viewers as protagonist Carrie's (Sarah Jessica Parker) endlessly loyal friend, but with over a decade of film and television appearances to his credit by that time, his success should certainly be labeled more "long-time coming" than "overnight sensation." Garson began training as an actor at New York's Actor's Institute in his early teens, and in the years following high school graduation he studied theater and psychology at Wesleyan University. It didn't take long for the talented stage and screen presence to find roles following his higher education, with guest appearances in such popular television shows as Family Ties, Mr. Belvedere, and Quantum Leap eventually leading to a supporting role in the well-received made-for-television feature The Deliberate Stranger. If his film roles throughout the majority of the '90s were generally of the thankless variety, Garson nevertheless grew increasingly active thanks to roles in such high-profile features as Groundhog Day, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, The Rock, and There's Something About Mary. A three-year stint in a supporting role in NYPD Blue showed Garson lending the series a decidedly human presence as Detective Simone's (Jimmy Smits) landlord. The stage-minded actor never forgot his roots, remaining constantly active with such New York-based theater companies as The Manhattan Theatre Club and The Roundabout Table. A long-time friend of actress Parker, Garson's friendship with the actress no doubt contributed to the easy rapport shared by the duo in the hit HBO series Sex and the City. With subsequent roles in Steven Spielberg's acclaimed sci-fi miniseries Taken, and in addition to such features as Freaky Friday proving that he was as much an "actor's actor" as a crowd-pleaser, Garson's post-Sex and the City career seemed as healthy as ever. He worked steadily in projects such as House of D, Fever Pitch, and in appeared in Jackass: Number Two. He returned to the small-screen as the lead in the series White Collar in 2009. In his increasingly non-existent spare time, Garson can be found reading to school children on a weekly basis as part of the Screen Actors Guild popular "Bookpals" program.

Trivia: Best known as Steve, the boyishly charming nice-guy bartender (and the perfect complement to his onscreen romantic partner, snappish Miranda Hobbes) in HBO's blockbuster original series Sex and the City, the slightly diminutive, raven-haired American character actor David Eigenberg was born in Manhasset, NY, on May 17, 1964. As the only boy in a family of six children, Eigenberg moved with his parents and sisters at age four to Naperville, IL, a farming community just outside of the Windy City -- where he remained through the end of adolescence. Eigenberg reportedly struggled as a student, barely scraping by; a handful of run-ins with the law and minor recreational drug abuse allegedly ensued. Eigenberg did graduate from Naperville High School in 1982, however, and was promptly accepted to the University of Iowa, where he planned to study social work. For better or worse, this was not to be, for the Chicagoan ripped his dormitory apart during the first semester and was promptly booted out of the university after five weeks.A stint in the Marines and various construction jobs followed, instilling in Eigenberg healthy amounts of much-needed self-discipline and a sharply honed work ethic. These skills paved the way for Eigenberg's true calling: acting. A love of the dramatic arts had already taken root for the thespian when -- at age 12 -- he had signed on to play a key role in a local production of Kurt Vonnegut's Happy Birthday, Wanda June, and received an outstanding review from a local critic. These fond memories doubtless came flooding back when an adult Eigenberg auditioned -- and was selected for -- a large part in the Dennis Rosa-directed Chicago stage musical One Shining Moment, opposite Megan Mullally and Alan Ruck. Dissatisfied with a mere taste of the theatrical arts and eager to extend acting into a full-time passion, Eigenberg subsequently moved to New York and attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, working odd jobs on the side (construction et al.) to put himself through school.Scattered roles followed, including a guest appearance on The Cosby Show and a bit part in the awful 1989 generation-gap comedy Rude Awakening (co-starring Cheech Marin and Eric Roberts), but Sex and the City (which Eigenberg auditioned for out of innumerable hopefuls) represented the actor's first huge break. He reportedly auditioned for a small part, and though the show's producers did not deem him right for the characterization, they felt so impressed by Eigenberg's presence that they created the character of Steve Brady especially for him, as an extension of his own personality; the plan, again, was to create a sincere, committed, down-to-earth male paramour to offset Miranda's (Cynthia Nixon) cynicism.Though initially intended as a temporary part, the popularity of the character among viewers (and Eigenberg's onscreen chemistry with Nixon) led to Eigenberg's permanent inclusion on the show, as well as subsuquent movies.Circa 2002, Eigenberg expanded into film roles by playing the business partner of Richard Gere in Mark Pellington's underrated supernatural thriller The Mothman Prophecies. When Eigenberg's Sex and the City run ended with the wrap-up of that series (at the end of the 2003-2004 season), he continued his cinematic work, first voicing Nermal the Cat in the FX-extravaganza Garfield: The Movie, then playing Reggie, the lover of Alicia Goranson's Myra, in Adrienne Weiss' quirky indie romantic comedy Love, Ludlow. Eigenberg returned to the same genre amid a cast of unknowns with the 2007 film The Trouble with Romance, directed by Gene Rhee. He reprised his role in the Sex and the City movie in 2008 and the sequel in 2010. In 2012, he joined the cast of NBC's Chicago Fire, playing a firefighter in the Windy City.