Trivia: Actor Channing Tatum might be best known to audiences as a shirtless young man baring his muscular physique for the pages of Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs. His career began when he was cast as an extra in the Ricky Martin video for "She Bangs." Up until then, he'd been drifting from one job to another after the promising football career he prepared for in military school floundered when he entered college. Modeling proved to be a natural fit for Tatum, and he cultivated a successful career appearing in print ads and commercials for such companies as Nautica, Gap, Aeropostale, Emporio Armani, American Eagle, and Pepsi. His charisma in front of the camera didn't go unnoticed and he soon parlayed his modeling career into a shot at acting, landing an appearance on CSI: Miami in 2004. He was soon given a substantial role in the sports drama Coach Carter, which dealt with familiar subject matter for the lifelong athlete. He had no trouble being cast in films geared toward twentysomethings, as 2005 and 2006 brought him roles in Havoc, Supercross, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, She's the Man, and Step Up. Within only a few short years, Tatum had worked with many other up-and-coming actors of his generation, such as Amanda Bynes, Anne Hathaway, Jenna Dewan, and Bijou Phillips. In 2007, Tatum was cast in the leading role in 2007's epic Genghis Khan biopic Mongol: The Early Years of Genghis Khan, directed by legendary Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov, but he was later replaced by Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano amid rumors that Tatum's dominantly caucasian features were ill recieved by producers, who wanted an actor of Asian descent to play the 13th century Mongolian leader. Tatum's career didn't stall as a result of the upset, however, as he was soon working with acclaimed director Kimberly Peirce on the Iraq War drama Stop-Loss. He played Pretty Boy Floyd in Michael Mann's gangster drama Public Enemies in 2009, the same year he had a prominent role in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. In 2010 he appeared in the Nicholas Sparks written romantic drama Dear John. The next year he had a short but memorable part in The Dilemma, but 2012 turned out to be something of a breakout year for the actor when he appeared in a variety of projects. First up was Haywire, Steven Soderbergh's action thriller. While working on that film, the duo cooked up Magic Mike based on stories Channing shared about his days as a male stripper. That film opened in the summer of 2012. Between those two projects, the comedy 21 Jump Street came out, featuring Tatum as an undercover cop working a high school with his best friend and partner played by Jonah Hill. His work paid off when he was named People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive in late 2012. Tatum continued working at a neck-breaking pace the following year, reprising his role in the G.I. Joe sequel G.I. Joe: Retaliation, starring in psychological thriller Side Effects and action film White House Down and appearing in cameo roles in This Is The End and Don Jon.

Trivia: An actor whose wide, affable grin and heavy eyebrows lend him an uncanny resemblance to Tim Allen, Justin Long unwittingly became a footnote to the illustrious history of Britney Spears' ascent to world domination when he appeared with the post-pubescent entertainer in her 2002 film debut, Crossroads. Cast as Britney's prom date, Long shared a kiss with the singer that earned him breathless adulation on Britney websites everywhere.Three years before he locked lips with the peppy pop star, Long made his screen debut as a sci-fi geek in Galaxy Quest, a quirky genre parody that starred Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, and Long's would-be doppelganger, Allen. He then landed a role on the TV sitcom Ed (2000), which he followed in 2001 with a part as a lonely bunkmate in Happy Campers. That same year, he starred in Jeepers Creepers, a sleeper comedy-horror outing that cast him as one of two siblings terrorized by an inhuman monster. Long subsequently appeared in Crossroads, sealing his newfound popularity among teenage girls with a kiss.In 2003, Long popped up briefly in the sequel Jeepers Creepers 2 while continuing to appear on Ed. However, the following year saw the conclusion of Ed and Long embarked on his film career full-time. First up was the sports comedy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. Stealing scenes while co-starring with the likes of Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller, Long proved to critics and audiences alike that his comedic skills could translate from the small-screen to the big one with ease. In the wake of Dodgeball's box-office success, audience's could next find the actor starring in the independent films Raising Genius and Waiting... and adding his voice to the Bill Plympton film Hair High. He appeared opposite Linday Lohan in Herbie: Fully Loaded, executing a perfect pratfall worthy of silent film comics in once scene. In 2006 he was one of the two leads in a series of witty television advertisements for Apple computers directed by Junebug's Phil Morrison. With Accepted, about a high-school graduate who starts his own college after being rejected by the institutions to which he applied, Long was finally allowed to take the lead in a big-screen comedy. The following year found the rising star voicing everyone's favorite singing squirrel in Alvin and the Chipmunks (a role that he would reprise in both the 2009 and 2011 sequels), and in 2001 Long returned to the small screen for a recurring role in FOX comedy series New Girl.

Trivia: Best known as the son of late director Anthony Minghella (The English Patient) and Chinese choreographer Carolyn Choa, Max Minghella began life in Hampstead, England, and opted to become an actor in his teens for reasons that were (as he later recalled) entirely unrelated to his father's business. He attended Columbia University beginning in the early 2000s, then moved into feature roles, first with a bit part in his dad's Civil War opus Cold Mountain (2003), then striking out on his own with parts in Hollywood features including Syriana (2005), Art School Confidential (2006), How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (2008), and Hippie Hippie Shake (2009). In the years to come, Minghella would appear in numerous major films, like The Social Network, The Ides of March, and The Darkest Hour. In 2013, he landed a recurring role on The Mindy Project.

Trivia: American actress Kate Mara realized many an ingenue's dream in late 2005, when she nearly stole Ang Lee's film Brokeback Mountain. As Ennis Del Mar's (Heath Ledger) 19-year-old daughter, Alma Jr., who becomes one of the first familial recipients of Ennis' newfound ability to project love and affection, Mara walked away with one of the most powerful scenes in the picture. It marked a small contribution but a masterful one, and it made audiences take notice of her for the first time. Admirers of this scene may not have realized that Mara's onscreen history stretched back a decade prior to this.As the great-granddaughter of Pittsburgh Steelers founder Art Rooney and New York Giants progenitor Tim Mara, Kate Mara began life in Bedford, NY, and came of age in nearby Westchester. Mara debuted on-camera in her early teens, in a 1997 episode of Law & Order, and took her cinematic bow two years after that, as Kristin Scott Thomas' daughter in Sydney Pollack's romantic drama Random Hearts. The film struck audiences as laborious and unsatisfying, but great things lay in store for Mara -- and if she scraped bottom with the direct-to-video slasher flick Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005) and paid her dues with bit roles in such blockbuster series as CSI and 24, her extraordinary contribution to Brokeback (playing, ironically, the daughter of an actor only a few years older than the actress herself) paved the way for more covetable assignments.Thanks in no small part to an inherited football passion, Mara particularly warmed to the part of Annie Cantrell in McG's sports drama We Are Marshall. Mara then appeared as Sarah Fenn, opposite Mark Wahlberg, in Antoine Fuqua's action saga Shooter (2007). She followed that up with a role in Machinist director Brad Anderson's tense thriller Transsiberian, alongside Ben Kingsley and Woody Harrelson. In 2010 she appeared in the indie films Peep World and happythankyoumoreplease, as well as having a key role in the Oscar-nominated drama 127 Hours. She had a leading part in the 2011 twentysomething drama Ten Year. She had a supporting role in the first season of American Horror Story, and then appeared on the first two seasons of House of Cards.

Trivia: Born June 21, 1979, native Minnesotan actor Chris Pratt scored his first big break on television as the troubled physician's son Bright Abbott on the WB series drama Everwood, opposite Treat Williams and others, and segued into film with a prominent role in the biting satire Strangers with Candy (2005) alongside Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert. Successive features included Deep in the Valley (2008), Wanted (2008), and Bride Wars (2009) (as the ineffectual fiancé of Anne Hathaway). In 2009, Pratt joined the NBC sitcom Parks & Recreation as a guest star, but his turn as the dim-witted Andy Dwyer was so well-received that he was promoted to series regular for season 2. While on the show, Pratt also juggled some major movie roles, co-starring with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill as baseball player Scott Hatteberg in the blockbuster Moneyball (2011) and appearing as a Navy SEAL in 2012's controversial Zero Dark Thirty.

Trivia: New York-born and bred actress Rosario Dawson made her screen debut in Larry Clark's controversial Kids (1995). Literally picked off the street to play Ruby, one of the film's titular teens, Dawson -- who is of Puerto Rican, Cuban, Black, Irish, and Native American heritage -- had never acted before being cast in the film. Following Kids, she next appeared in Spike Lee's He Got Game (1998) and that same year starred in Side Streets, a series of vignettes about life in New York's five boroughs. Faithful to her New York roots through and through, Dawson has continued to star in films set in her hometown, including Light It Up and Down to You.Soon, Dawson branched into mainstream film, appearing in populist projects like Josie and the Pussycats, Men in Black 2, The Rundown, and the big-screen adaptation of Rent. The actress would also appear in harder films, like Sin City and Death Proof, as well as damanding dramatic roles, like that of a rape victim struggling to recover in Descent.

Trivia: Actress Lynn Collins first caught audience's attention in 2002 when she was cast as Assistant D.A.Jessica Manning on the series Haunted. More prominent roles would follow in movies like The Lake House and Al Pacino's The Merchant of Venice, and Collins would soon score another major TV role, playing Dawn Green on the series True Blood in 2008.

Trivia: After his portrayal of Joseph, the father of Jesus, in New Line Cinema's holiday release The Nativity Story (2006), Guatemalan actor Oscar Isaac also appeared in Scott Z. Burns' made-for-HBO crime thriller The Half Life of Timofey Berezin (2007). His career would kick into high gear after taking a small role as an interpreter in Guerilla (2008), a biopic of Che Guevara. In 2009, Isaac's role as José Ramos-Horta in the drama Balibo earned in an award for Best Supporting Actor from the Australian Film Institute. He co-starred with Rachel Weisz in award-winning director Alejandro Amenábar's Agora (2009), a historical drama in which the actor played the student of a female mathematician in the late 4th century. Isaac portrayed King John in director Ridley Scott's 2010 retelling of Robin Hood, and went on to co-star with Albert Brooks and Ryan Gosling in the thriller Drive (2011).

Trivia: A native of Boston, MA, actress Ari Graynor was born in 1983 and attended Trinity College in Hartford, CT. She broke through to acclaim with her supporting role as Caitlin Rucker, a sexually promiscuous, manic-depressive student at Meadow Soprano's college on the HBO mafia drama The Sopranos (during the third season, in 2001), and thereafter moved into features, with contributions to films from a broad cross-section of genres. These included the gritty drama Mystic River (2003), the bittersweet Jeff Daniels/Sigourney Weaver seriocomedy Imaginary Heroes (2004), and the Christopher Guest satire For Your Consideration (2006). In 2008, Graynor portrayed a flighty and befuddled young urbanite with a passion for turkey sandwiches in the teen-oriented romantic comedy Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. Alongside her film and television work, Graynor has remained fully active on-stage, landing her most prominent role as Alison in the 2005 Broadway outing Brooklyn Boy.

Trivia: New Jersey-born actor Brian Geraghty owed his love of acting -- and concomitant celebrity -- to one role that provided him with depthless inspiration: Sean Penn's turn as convicted murderer Matthew Poncelet in Dead Man Walking. After viewing that performance, Geraghty -- unclear after high school about where he wanted to go or what he wanted to do -- made a beeline from his home of Toms River, NJ, to New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse, where he plunged headfirst into classical theater -- and subsequently received a bid to audition for HBO's organized crime drama The Sopranos. Though Geraghty's turn in that blockbuster constituted a small one at best (he played a bumbling counterman who plugs himself in the foot), it caught the attention of Hollywood producers and casting agents, and helped Geraghty immeasurably during a brief period during which he taught surfing in Los Angeles and attended auditions on the side. Feature roles soon followed, in such pictures as Jarhead (2005), We Are Marshall (2006), and Bobby (2006). He ascended to higher billing (but descended several dozen notches in terms of picture quality) as a quarterback smitten with Lindsay Lohan in the critically reviled horror outing I Know Who Killed Me (2007).

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: A Big Easy-born actor who honed his skills at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts before completing his education at Juilliard, Anthony Mackie portrayed ill-fated rapper Tupac Shakur in a stage production of Up Against the Wind before taunting Detroit-based rapper Eminem as a member of the rival rhyming crew in the box-office hit 8 Mile. Subsequently appearing onscreen alongside some of the biggest names in the business, Mackie took the lead as a sperm-donating former biotech executive opposite Ellen Barkin and Ossie Davis in Spike Lee's She Hate Me, and proved that he could even hold his own against such screen legends as Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman with a substantial role in the boxing drama Million Dollar Baby. While it may be on the silver screen that Mackie has courted the majority of fame, the ascending star also appeared on the Broadway stage in high-profile productions of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Drowning Crow.Few actors could dream of a career that advanced as quickly as Mackie's did, and the same year he played leading man in She Hate Me, the then-twenty-five-year-old would earn an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his memorable portrayal of a homeless shelter employee struggling with his cultural and sexual identity in Brother to Brother. Just when it seemed as if Mackie's rigorous work schedule couldn't get any more demanding, the actor would appear in no less than six movies in 2006 including the racially charged kidnapping drama Freedomland, the underground street-ball drama Crossover, and opposite Matthew McConaughey and Matthew Fox in the fact-based football film We Are Marshall.Firmly established, he played a supporting role in the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker in 2008, and reprised his role of Tupac Shakur in the Notorious B.I.G. biopic, Notorious (2009). Mackie played a former Black Panther in Night Catches Us (2010) and played a supporting role in The Adjustment Bureau (2011). In 2012, he played the historical figure William H. Johnson, Abraham Lincoln's valet, in the fictionalized (obviously) historical action film, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Mackie joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2014, playing Sam Wilson/Falcon in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and reprised the role in later MCU movies.

Trivia: Comedian and actress Aubrey Plaza honed her skills with the renowned Upright Citizen's Brigade comedy troupe beginning in 2004, as well as performing standup at places like the Laugh Factory. She graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2006, and soon began making the transition to the screen, appearing as Daisy in the 2009 Judd Apatow comedy Funny People, and as Robin on the series Mayne Street. In 2009, Plaza joined the cast of the comedy series Parks and Recreation, acting alongside Upright Citizen's founding member Amy Poehler. Her performance as bored teenage intern April was a hit with audiences, and Plaza followed it the next year with a role in the quirky 2010 graphic novel adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. She appeared in Whit Stillman's Damsels in Distress, as well as the comedy Safety Not Guaranteed opposite the Duplass brothers.

Trivia: Nebraska native Scott Porter got his acting feet wet in an off-Broadway production of the play Altar Boyz, and can be heard on the original cast recording of the show's soundtrack. He began working in front of the camera with a recurring role on the daytime soap opera As the World Turns in 2006, before being cast as wheelchair-bound Jason Street on the popular series Friday Night Lights, a show based on the movie of the same name, about a small town in Texas where high-school football is among the most important things in life. In 2007, Porter played the former bandmate of Hugh Grant in the romantic comedy Music and Lyrics; he then signed on to appear in the remake of the classic horror film Prom Night, as well as the live-action adaptation of the old-school anime series Speed Racer. Porter co-starred with Channing Tatum for two movies in a row, 2010's Dear John, based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, and 2012's Ten Years, taking place at a high school reunion. He also had recurring roles on Syfy's Battlestar Galactica prequel series Caprica and the CBS legal drama The Good Wife. In the years to come, Porter remained active on screen, notably appearing in the CW's Hart of Dixie, playing George Tucker.

Trivia: Born in Texas, actor Aaron Yoo attended the University of Pennsylvania and initially pursued a career in writing before a summer workshop in Shakespeare opened him up to the theretofore untapped challenge of drama. (Yoo later admitted that he unequivocally bombed in the said workshop, and that the difficulty of the experience compelled him to travel to New York and learn the acting craft.) The performer achieved his career breakthrough in 2007, with a plethora of supporting roles in A-listers that often cast him as best friends and/or emotional supports for the lead characters. That year alone, Yoo played the buddy of the lead character in the teen-oriented thriller Disturbia (2007), the hyperkinetic friend of a high-school debate team member in Rocket Science (2007), and a WWII-era Japanese teenager who must contend with extreme bigotry and discrimination when he and his family are unjustly thrown into an internment camp in Desmond Nakano's inspirational drama American Pastime (2007). In 2008, Yoo portrayed Choi, an Asian-American MIT student and member of a Las Vegas card-counting ring, in Robert Luketic's inspired-by-real-events thriller 21.

Trivia: Born in Nutley, NJ, model-cum-actor Nick Zano developed an enduring infatuation with cinema well before his 13th birthday, reportedly from watching Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas (1990). The experience convinced Zano to dramatically turn away from his intention to become a Navy SEAL and pursue a career in film, with initial plans to hone his skills behind the camera. Shortly thereafter, Zano's family relocated to southeastern Florida, and Nick began to realize his show-business dreams, both on-stage (with involvement in high-school drama productions) and in broadcast (with production duties at the high school's in-house television station). Zano also began impetuously scripting and directing his own short-subject films -- an accomplishment that led to a victory in the JVC-Universal short film competition three years in a row, and that prompted West Palm Beach-based Prelude Pictures to give the young upstart a prestigious development job in feature film and television immediately after graduation from secondary school.Not long after, Zano decided to shift gears and focus on acting; he moved to Los Angeles in June 2001 and commenced an endless series of auditions for parts in various productions, and achieved perhaps his greatest coup by landing a covetable assignment as an MTV correspondent on its cinema-themed talk program Movie House, and later on the makeover-themed reality show Why Can't I Be You? Zano's cinematic breakthrough arrived in 2008 with a plum role in the teen comedy College; that year, he also signed on for the fourth installment of the long-running Final Destination franchise. In 2011 he landed a recurring role on the successful CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls.

Trivia: A former dancer whose sizzling moves alongside such musical icons as P. Diddy, Janet Jackson, and Ricky Martin found her well prepared to step into the spotlight on the big screen, brunette beauty Jenna Dewan lit up the stage with the best of them before making her screen debut as the vengeful Tamara in the supernatural thriller of the same name. It was on the small screen that Dewan would receive her first big break, with appearances in a variety of heavily-circulated music videos preceding a pair of early appearances on the television sitcoms Quintuplets and Joey. Intense in her spirituality despite her witchy onscreen debut, Dewan would get her first taste of success when tabloids began falsely speculating on a romance with fellow dancer Justin Timberlake. Easy to shrug off the rumors and quick to stay on her feet, it was Dewan's impressive footwork that landed her a subsequent role in the 2006 Antonio Banderas musical drama Take the Lead. Though Dewan's screen time may have been a bit brief in that particular effort, a role in the same year's dance romance Step Up found the rising star doing precisely that as she danced away juvenile delinquency alongside She's the Man's Channing Tatum in a role that truly allowed her to cut loose for the cameras. Dewan married her Step Up co-star Tatum in 2009 and the two went on to found their own production company, 33andOut Productions. In addition to roles in several independent films throughout the 2000s, Dewan starred in NBC's much-hyped, but ultimately short-lived, prime time drama The Playboy Club in 2011.