Trivia: An actress noted as much for her exotic, almost otherworldly beauty as she is for her considerable talent, Uma Thurman is one of the most renowned actors of her generation. The daughter of celebrated professor of Buddhist studies Robert A.F. Thurman and Nena von Schlebrugge, a model and psychotherapist who was once married to Timothy Leary, Uma was born in Boston on April 29, 1970. Raised with three brothers in Amherst, where her father taught at Amherst College, she enjoyed a fairly bohemian upbringing, one that was marked by visits from Eastern holy men and Tibetan refugees. Encouraged to think for herself and be independent, Thurman, who had been interested in acting from an early age, left her Massachusetts boarding school at the age of 15 to pursue an acting career. Moving to New York, she earned a living by washing dishes and modeling, though the latter means of support never agreed with her.The fledgling actress made her debut in Kiss Daddy Goodnight (1987), a forgettable film that cast her as a teen vamp who seduces and robs unsuspecting men. She had a starring role in the teen comedy Johnny Be Good (1988) and also made an eye-catching appearance in Terry Gilliam's underseen fantasy adventure film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988). But it wasn't until her casting in Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons (1988) as Cécile de Volanges, the impressionable convent girl deflowered by John Malkovich's slimy Vicomte de Valmont, that Thurman first gained recognition. Her scenes with Malkovich, particularly the one in which he offers to teach her a few bedroom terms in Latin, proved to be some of the most memorable of the year, resulting in a sizable helping of fame for the young actress. Further recognition followed with Thurman's portrayal of Henry Miller's wife -- and the object of both his and Anaïs Nin's affections -- in Philip Kaufman's Henry & June (1990). Unfortunately, the actress' role in the NC-17 film -- which required her to take part in explicit love scenes with Maria de Medeiros -- inspired a great deal of unwelcome, stalker-like attention from any number of "fans," causing Thurman to shy away from doing a subsequent number of films. The projects she did take part in all proved to be forgettable affairs: Robin Hood (1991), Final Analysis (1992), Jennifer 8 (1992), Mad Dog and Glory (1993), and Gus Van Sant's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1994). By the time Thurman received the script for Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, her career was in great need of resuscitation. Fortunately, Pulp Fiction provided just that. A huge, unanticipated success, it was the most talked-about film of the year, eventually becoming recognized as one of the most influential films of the decade. For her part, Thurman gave a sly, smoldering performance as Mia Wallace, the coke-snorting wife of gangster Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), and soon found herself enjoying both a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination and an accompanying resurgence in Hollywood popularity. She followed the success of Pulp Fiction with three relatively modest romantic comedies: A Month by the Lake (1995), The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996), and Beautiful Girls (1996). The 1997 future dystopia Gattaca did little for Thurman but introduce her to co-star and future husband Ethan Hawke. (The two married in May of 1998 and had a daughter later that year; Thurman had been married once before, to Gary Oldman). Batman & Robin, that same year, was less than a high point in Thurman's career. 1998 proved to be similarly disappointing, with both The Avengers, which cast the actress as the cat-suited Emma Peel opposite Ralph Fiennes' John Steed, and Bille August's Les Miserables experiencing swift deaths at the box office. Thurman resurfaced in 1999 in Woody Allen's widely acclaimed Sweet and Lowdown. The story of a famed jazz guitarist (Sean Penn) whose talent is inversely proportional to his merits as a human being, the film cast Thurman as his worldly, unfaithful wife. The following year, she had starring roles in two lavish period dramas, Merchant-Ivory's The Golden Bowl and Roland Joffé's Vatel. The former, a Henry James adaptation that premiered to great acclaim at the 2000 Cannes Festival, featured Thurman as a commoner caught up in a forbidden love affair with an impoverished prince (Jeremy Northam); the latter, which also premiered at Cannes, cast Thurman as a French noblewoman during the reign of King Louis XIV. Supporting performances in Richard Linklater's Tape and husband Hawke's Chelsea Walls (both 2001) were soon to follow, and though Thurman's performances were solid as ever, the limited release of both films found her gaining minimal exposure. Though Thurman was virtually unrecognizable in her role as a lovelorn Jersey girl in the HBO feature Hysterical Blindness (2002), her bravado performance earned her a Best Actress Golden Globe and the downbeat drama found audiences once again compelled by her marked versatility. Little did audiences know that her next role couldn't be more different. Thurman may had done action before in such efforts as Batman & Robin and The Avengers, but her role as the vengeful Bride in Quentin Tarantino's eagerly anticipated Kill Bill nevertheless found viewers' jaws planted firmly on the popcorn-littered multiplex floors. With the production initially delayed due to Thurman's pregnancy, the two-time mother quickly shed her excess weight shortly after giving birth to son Roan; after a vigorous training program, the violent revenge epic was back on track. Even though Thurman made no secret of the fact that balancing the difficult tasks of motherhood and superstardom often took their toll on her during the production of Kill Bill, the dedicated actress pulled off the physically demanding role without a hitch. Debuting in October 2003 to overwhelmingly positive reviews, Kill Bill Vol. 1 (the film was split into two halves after being deemed too long by studio Miramax) still managed to split audiences due to its virtually nonstop, extremely graphic violence. With Kill Bill Vol. 2 scheduled to roll into theaters four months later, fans wasted no time in speculating on The Bride's carnage-laden quest to even the score with the titular Bill (David Carradine) after the ruthless killer gunned her down on her wedding day.In the wake of the Kill Bill extravaganza, it seemed that Thurman was having an especially difficult time finding her footing at the box office when the Get Shorty sequel Be Cool, the romantic comedy Prime, and the musical comedy remake The Producers failed to make any real impact with viewers. Her career in serious need of a pick-me-up after three notable misfires, Thurman would make yet another grab for laughs when, in the summer of 2006, she starred as needy superhero who uses her powers to seek revenge against an ex-boyfriend attempting to move on in My Super Ex-Girlfriend. In 2010, Thurman joined the cast of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief in the role of Medusa, the snake-haired gorgon who could turn a man to stone with no more than a look. The actress played a decidedly different type of character in Ceremony (2010), a critically acclaimed independent comedy that featured Thurman as a woman in her late thirties with a tendency to date the wrong type of guy. In 2012, Thurman co-starred in the period drama Bel Ami and had a recurring role on the musical TV series Smash. She had a supporting role in Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac in 2013.

Trivia: Sydney Pollack -- one of Meryl Streep's collaborators time and again -- once proclaimed her the most gifted film actress of the late 20th century. Most insiders would concur with this assessment. To avid moviegoers, she represents the essence of onscreen dramatic art. Like Hoffman (and De Niro), she demonstrates a transcendent ability to plunge into her characters and lose herself inside of them, transforming herself physically to meet the demands of her roles. A luminous blonde with nearly translucent pale skin, intelligent blue eyes, and an elegant facial bone structure, Streep sustains a fragile, fleeting beauty that allows her to travel the spectrum between earthily plain (Ironweed), and ethereally glamorous and radiant (Manhattan, Heartburn).Born June 22, 1949, in Summit, NJ, Streep took operatic voice lessons, and subsequently cultivated a fascination with acting while she attended Bernards High School. Upon graduation, Streep studied drama at Vassar, Dartmouth, and Yale, where she appeared in 30 to 40 productions with the Yale Repertory Theater. With a five-star education and years of collegiate stage work under her belt, Streep headed for the New York footlights and launched her off-Broadway career. Streep's performance in Tennessee Williams' 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, for which she received a Tony nomination, constitutes a particularly strong theatrical highlight from this period. She made her television debut in Robert Markowitz's The Deadliest Season (1977). That year she also appeared onscreen for the first time in Fred Zinnmann's Julia (1977) as Anna Marie, opposite heavyweights Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, and Hal Holbrook. The following year, Streep picked up an Emmy for her performance in Marvin J. Chomsky's miniseries Holocaust. She first teamed with De Niro in Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978).Around this time, Streep became involved with the diminutive performer John Cazale, whom she met on the set of the Cimino film. Tragically, this marriage was ill-fated from day one, Cazale's frail body ridden with bone cancer. Forty-two at the time, he passed away in March 1978, nine months prior to the premiere of The Deer Hunter. Streep later wed Don Gummer, who was not associated with Hollywood in any capacity.Streep next appeared as Woody Allen's ruthless lesbian ex-wife in his elegiac comedy drama Manhattan (1979) and Alan Alda's Southern mistress in the scathing political satire The Seduction of Joe Tynan. Her shattering interpretation of the scarred and torn Joanna Kramer opposite Dustin Hoffman in Robert Benton's heartbreaking divorce saga Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1980 -- which she famously left on top of a toilet at the festivities -- alongside a plethora of L.A. Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, and Golden Globe Awards for the Allen, Benton, and Alda films.Streep continued her ascent over the next decade by establishing herself as Hollywood's top box-office draw and a critical darling. Her double performance in the innovative Karel Reisz/Harold Pinter triumph The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), her gut-wrenching interpretation of the titular Holocaust survivor in Alan J. Pakula's haunting adaptation Sophie's Choice (1982), and her thoughtful evocation of Karen Silkwood in Mike Nichols' drama Silkwood were highlights of the period. In the latter, she portrays a real-life victimized nuclear-plant worker who mysteriously disappears just prior to turning in crucial evidence against her employers.Streep's decision to headline Sydney Pollack's lush epic Out of Africa (1985), as Karen Blixen, sustained her reputation. She would go on over the next decade to appear in projects like but Ironweed, Heartburn, She-Devil, Postcards from the Edge, and Death Becomes Her. In 1994, she again surprised her fans when she appeared as a muscular expert whitewater rafter who must fight a raging river and two dangerous fugitives to save her family in the action thriller River Wild (1994). In interviews, she said she did the film because she wanted to have an adventure like Harrison Ford and to overcome a few of her own fears.Streep returned to the depth and multifacetedness of her early roles -- with much concomitant success -- when she took a more low-key role as a dowdy, Earthbound farm wife who finds Illicit love with an itinerant photographer (Clint Eastwood) in The Bridges of Madison County. Following the critical and commercial heights of Bridges, Streep picked up yet another Oscar nomination for her performance as a terminally ill wife and mother in Carl Franklin's One True Thing (1998).Streep then signed on to replace Madonna as the lead in 1999's Music of the Heart, tackling what outwardly appeared to be a cookbook Hollywood plot (a teacher on a mission to teach violin to a class of inner-city youth in Harlem) with absolute commitment, teaching herself to play the violin by practicing six hours a day for eight weeks. In the new millennium, Streep hit audiences with the back-to-back with lauded performances in Adaptation and The Hours, earning an Oscar nomination for the former and a Golden Globe nomination for the latter.On the heels of this success, Streep won an Emmy in 2004 for her participation in longtime friend and collaborator Mike Nichols' Angels in America mini-series. She soon afterward won even greater audience and critic approval for her biting role as a corporate and political conspirator in Jonathan Demme's remake of the 1962 thriller The Manchurian Candidate. Streepfollowed this up with a part in the lighthearted comedies Prime, A Prairie Home Companion, and The Devil Wears Prada.In 2007 Streep starred in a pair of timely dramas about the Iraq War, Lions for Lambs and Rendition, before returning to the musical comedy milieu with 2008's Mamma Mia!. The adaptation of the smash stage musical shattered box-office records, becoming the highest grossing film in the history of the United Kingdom, and the biggest American hit of her illustrious career. She followed that up with the lead role in John Patrick Shanley's adaptation of his award-winning play Doubt, a performance that earned her fifteenth acting nomination from the Academy, as well as nods from the Screen Actors Guild, and the Hollywood Foreign Press.The renowned actress was nominated yet again for the Academy Award and the Screen Actors Guild the following year for her turn as Julia Child in the comedy Julie & Julia, a role that also garnered her a win for Best Actress from the New York Film Critics as well as the Golden Globes. That same year she played the lead for Nancy Myers in the box office hit It's Complicated, only to dive directly back into the Oscar spotlight again the next year with her acclaimed performance as English Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 2012's The Iron Lady. The role garnered Streep her 17th Academy Award nomination -- resulting in her third win, this time for Best Actress, in addition to Best Actress wins from the New York Film Critics Circle and the Golden Globes. She was back in the Oscar race in 2014, securing yet another nomination in the Best Supporting Actress category for her work as the wicked witch in Rob Marshall's big-screen adaptation of the musical Into the Woods.

Trivia: Sporting a memorably handsome, clean-cut, all-American look, actor Bryan Greenberg parlayed that image into a series of roles that directly played off of it. Greenberg grew up as the son of two psychologists in the Omaha, NE area, and entered the arena of professional performance via ballet. At the age of seven, he began local ballet classes and was tapped to perform in the Omaha Ballet's touring production of The Nutcracker -- an assignment that lasted two months. Five years later, the family moved to St. Louis and Greenberg caught his first taste of national exposure (in a commercial for Cookie Crisp cereal), but decided, along with his parents, to put his career on the back burner while he finished high school and formally studied acting at New York University. In seemingly no time, Greenberg secured an agent and began regularly landing roles, both before and after graduation. Prominent features with Greenberg in the cast included the 2005 romantic comedy Prime (the lead, opposite Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep, as a 23-year-old Jewish boy caught up in a May-December romance with a 37-year-old WASP); the 2007 crime comedy Nobel Son (another lead, this one opposite Alan Rickman as a Ph.D. student kidnapped by some hapless crooks); and the 2008 Kate Hudson-Anne Hathaway romantic comedy Bride Wars. In addition to his work on the big screen, Greenberg had recurring part on One Tree Hill (2003-2006) and took on the regular role of Nick Garrett on the ABC drama October Road in 2007, before moving to cable and starring on HBO's How To Make It In America. Greenberg also branched out into music. In 2007, he released his first album Waiting for Now, which was followed by a second, entitled We Don't Have Forever, in 2011.

Trivia: Madhur Jaffrey grew up in her native Delhi, India, as a self-described tomboy. At an early age, she realized the limitations that were placed on her by Hindu society, due to the fact that she is a woman. She thus strove to accomplish what was most difficult to achieve, which was occupational and personal success independent of male intervention.Fortunately, her parents were among her biggest supporters and she was allowed to travel to London, England, in order to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Upon completion of her degree, she moved to New York and married fellow actor Saeed Jaffrey. Reportedly, it was the Jaffreys that introduced director James Ivory to producer Ismail Merchant, with whom Madhur would later develop a longstanding working relationship. The foursome collaborated on the film Shakespeare Wallah, for which Jaffrey won a Best Actress award at the Berlin Film Festival in 1965. When her marriage to Saeed fell apart, she came upon hard financial times. During this period, Madhur began to study Indian cooking and she eventually authored a series of cookbooks about her native cuisine, which established a second career for her. Because of the success of her cookbooks, she has appeared on numerous cooking shows and she has also developed a line of mass-marketed cooking sauces. In 1969, she remarried, this time to famed violinist Sanford Allen. The two met as Jaffrey was working part time as a tour guide at the Lincoln Center, while Allen was performing with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. She has three children, all by first husband Saeed. The youngest, Sakina Jaffrey, is also an actor and has appeared three times with her mother, in the films Chutney Popcorn, The Perfect Murder, and Cotton Mary.

Trivia: Actress Doris Belack was born in New York City in 1926. She began her acting career in the realm of television, appearing on shows like Treasury Men in Action and The Patty Duke Show in the '50s and '60s. Belack soon expanded her career to include the stage as well, most notably in Broadway productions like 1960's Semi-Detached and The Last of the Red Hot Lovers. She continued to act throughout the next several decades, and while she occasionally expanded her on-camera work to include movies (like 1982's Tootsie), she would find the most prolific success with television, making appearances on shows like The Doctors, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Mr. Belvedere, Picket Fences, Touched by an Angel, and Sex and the City. Belack also played recurring and starring roles on a number of shows, like Family Album, Doug, and Law and Order. Her last role came in 2008, when at age 82, she provided the voice of Maureen McReary for the video game Grand Theft Auto IV. Belack died in October 2011 at age 85.

Trivia: Though best known for his work in screen comedies, actor Zak Orth felt at home in a surprisingly diverse array of genres including earnest drama. An Illinois native and the son of a piano teacher and opera singer, Orth began his acting career on the New York-area stage, with plum roles in productions including Suburbia (1994), Misalliance (1997), and The Eros Trilogy (1999), but concurrently branched off into film, landing one of his first A-list parts with a bit role in the Frank Oz-directed comedy In & Out (1997). Orth then traveled to the other end of the emotional spectrum with a small role in Scott Hicks' sincere historical drama Snow Falling on Cedars (1999), and landed supporting roles in the teen-oriented comedies Loser and Down to You ( both 2000).Beginning in 2001, Orth commenced a longstanding association with the cast members of the MTV sketch comedy program The State, appearing in their big-screen outings Wet Hot American Summer (2001), The Baxter (2005), and The Ten (2007). Supporting roles in two additional features -- the comedies Melinda and Melinda (2004) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) witnessed Orth collaborating with maestro Woody Allen.

Trivia: Took her great-grandmother's maiden name as a stage name. Trained in England at London's Holborne Center for Performing Arts. In 2001, her role as Julia Lindsay Snyder on As the World Turns earned her a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Young Actress. Before joining the Law & Order cast in its 15th season as ADA Alexandra Borgia, she played an exotic dancer in a May 2002 episode titled "Attorney Client." Has been an active stage actress, appearing in Broadway's Prelude to a Kiss (2007) and starring in the title role of the play Becky Shaw (2009). Taught a class called Acting for the Camera at Fordham University.

Trivia: North Carolina native Aubrey Dollar got her start in show business when she was only 13 years old with a small role in Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice. She worked more sporadically as a youngster, allowing plenty of time for her education. After graduating from Needham B. Broughton High School, she scored a recurring role in 2000 as Marcy Bender on the hit one-hour dramedy Dawson's Creek. She followed this up the next year with another recurring role, this time on the soap Guiding Light. Nominated for a Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Newcomer for her performan in the series, Dollar was cast in one of the starring roles in the supernatural thriller series Point Pleasant in 2005, though sadly, the cult hit failed to catch on with mainstream audiences and was canceled after 13 episodes. Things looked up for Dollar in 2007, however, when she scored another major role in a TV series, this time on a new police procedural show called Women's Murder Club. And though that show, too, was short-lived, she remained active with appearances in Ugly Betty, The Good Wife, Blue Bloods, and Weeds though 2012

Trivia: Is of Ghanaian descent. First tried acting in college, when he auditioned for a production of Paper Moon on a dare. Took acting classes at the Acting Studio in New York. Appeared in an off-Broadway production of Tallboy Walking. Cofounded the writing and performance group the Defiant Ones. Published a stage play, Black Thang, in 2003.

Trivia: Debuted on Broadway at age 17 in Abby's Song. Has appeared in commercials for Burger King, Coca-Cola, Ford and Toyota. Like his My Generation character, is a real-life musician.