Trivia: Onscreen for nearly a decade at the time he was cast in director Kevin McDonald's The Last King of Scotland, Glasgow-born actor James McAvoy seemed to many an overnight sensation. The fact is, however, that the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama alumnus had already formed the foundation of an enduring career at the time he was charged with holding his own opposite the formidable -- and, eventually, Oscar-winning -- Forest Whitaker.McAvoy's parents divorced when he was just seven years old. In the aftermath, he and his mother would go to live with his grandparents in Glasgow's housing projects, with the youngster's notable interest in stage and film work eventually leading him to study at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. At 16, McAvoy made his professional acting debut in the child abuse drama The Near Room, with a role in the long-running British crime drama The Bill following in short order. On the heels of a part in 2001's Emmy Award-winning WWII miniseries Band of Brothers, McAvoy caught the eye of critics in the small-screen adaptation White Teeth before being cast in a pivotal role in the sci-fi effort Children of Dune. While roles in such U.K. television dramas as Early Doors, Shameless, and State of Play found McAvoy growing increasingly comfortable on the small screen, feature performances in Bright Young Things, Wimbledon, and Inside I'm Dancing (aka, Rory O'Shea Was Here) brought him to the attention of Hollywood. In 2005, the actor went global in a very big way with a pivotal appearance as Mr. Tumnus in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. But it was his Last King role the following year, as a hard-partying doctor who gradually becomes a captive to one of the 20th century's most notorious dictators, that truly propelled him to international acclaim. With his star-making role in The Last King of Scotland, McAvoy became not only a critical darling, but a serious dramatic talent whose future appeared to hold great things as well. Indeed, his follow-ups to Last King proved to feature him in one lead role after another. He romanced Anne Hathaway in Becoming Jane, a story about the young Jane Austen; anguished over his separation from Keira Knightley in the Oscar-nominated WWII-era romance Atonement; and fell unexpectedly in love with Christina Ricci in the fantasy Penelope. After this string of romantic leading-man roles, McAvoy did an about-face and co-starred as a reluctant but innately talented assassin in the action-packed thriller Wanted opposite Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman. He had the lead role in 2009's drama The Last Station, and played a layer in the historical drama The Conspirator one year later. He voiced the part of Gnomeo in the animated family film Gnomeo & Juliet in 2011, and that same year he was cast as the young Professor X in the action spectacle X-Men: First Class. That role kept him busy for the next couple of years, as he reprised the character in several sequels, including X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) and X-Men: Apocalypse (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: Morgan Freeman has enjoyed an impressive and varied career on stage, television, and screen. It is a career that began in the mid-'60s, when Freeman appeared in an off-Broadway production of The Niggerlovers and with Pearl Bailey in an all-African-American Broadway production of Hello, Dolly! in 1968. He went on to have a successful career both on and off-Broadway, showcasing his talents in everything from musicals to contemporary drama to Shakespeare. Before studying acting, the Memphis-born Freeman attended Los Angeles Community College and served a five-year stint with the Air Force from 1955 to 1959. After getting his start on the stage, he worked in television, playing Easy Reader on the PBS children's educational series The Electric Company from 1971 through 1976. During that period, Freeman also made his movie debut in the lighthearted children's movie Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow? (1971). Save for his work on the PBS show, Freeman's television and feature film appearances through the '70s were sporadic, but in 1980, he earned critical acclaim for his work in the prison drama Brubaker. He gained additional recognition for his work on the small screen with a regular role on the daytime drama Days of Our Lives from 1982 to 1984. Following Brubaker, Freeman's subsequent '80s film work was generally undistinguished until he played the dangerously emotional pimp in Street Smart (1987) and earned his first Oscar nomination. With the success of Street Smart, Freeman's film career duly took off and he appeared in a string of excellent films that began with the powerful Clean and Sober (1988) and continued with Driving Miss Daisy (1989), in which Freeman reprised his Obie-winning role of a dignified, patient Southern chauffeur and earned his second Oscar nomination for his efforts. In 1989, he also played a tough and cynical gravedigger who joins a newly formed regiment of black Union soldiers helmed by Matthew Broderick in Glory. The acclaim he won for that role was replicated with his portrayal of a high school principal in that same year's Lean on Me.Freeman constitutes one of the few African-American actors to play roles not specifically written for African-Americans, as evidenced by his work in such films as Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), in which he played Robin's sidekick, and Clint Eastwood's revisionist Western Unforgiven (1992). In 1993, Freeman demonstrated his skills on the other side of the camera, making his directorial debut with Bopha!, the story of a South African cop alienated from his son by apartheid. The following year, the actor received a third Oscar nomination as an aged lifer in the prison drama The Shawshank Redemption. He went on to do steady work throughout the rest of the decade, turning in memorable performances in films like Seven (1995), in which he played a world-weary detective; Amistad (1997), which featured him as a former slave; Kiss the Girls (1997), a thriller in which he played a police detective; and Deep Impact, a 1998 blockbuster that cast Freeman as the President of the United States. Following an appearance opposite Renee Zellweger in director Neil LaBute's Nurse Betty, Freeman would return to the role of detective Alex Cross in the Kiss the Girls sequel Along Came a Spider (2001). Freeman continued to keep a high profile moving into the new millennium with roles in such thrillers as The Sum of All Fears (2002) and Stephen King's Dreamcatcher, and the popular actor would average at least two films per year through 2004. 2003's Jim Carrey vehicle Bruce Almighty cast Freeman as God (a tall role indeed, and one he inherited from both George Burns and Gene Hackman). The story finds the Supreme Being appearing on Earth and giving Carrey temporary control over the universe - to outrageous comic effect. By the time Freeman appeared opposite Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood in Eastwood's acclaimed 2004 boxing drama Million Dollar Baby, his reputation as one of Hollywood's hardest-working, most-respected actors was cemented in place. When Freeman took home the Best Supporting Actor Oscar at the 77th Annual Academy Awards for his performance as the former boxer turned trainer who convinces his old friend to take a scrappy female fighter (Hilary Swank) under his wing, the award was considered overdue given Freeman's impressive body of work.The Oscar reception lifted Freeman to further heights. In summer 2005, Freeman was involved in three of the biggest blockbusters of the year, including War of the Worlds, Batman Begins and March of the Penguins. He joined the cast of the first picture as the foreboding narrator who tells of the destruction wrought by aliens upon the Earth. The Batman Begins role represented the first in a renewed franchise (the second being 2008's The Dark Knight), with the actor playing Lucius Fox, a technology expert who equips Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) with his vast assemblage of gadgetry. Freeman also provided narration for the most unpredictable smash of the year, the nature documentary March of the Penguins.That fall, Miramax's drama An Unfinished Life cast Freeman in a difficult role as Mitch, a bear attack victim reduced to near-paraplegia, living on a derelict western ranch. The picture was shelved for two years; it arrived in cinemas practically stillborn, and many critics turned their noses up at it. After a brutal turn as a sociopathic mob boss in Paul McGuigan's Lucky Number Slevin (2006), Freeman reprised his turn as God in the 2007 Bruce Almighty sequel Evan Almighty; the high-budgeted picture flopped, but Freeman emerged unscathed. Versatile as ever, he then opted for a much different genre and tone with a key role in the same year's detective thriller Gone, Baby, Gone. As written and directed by Ben Affleck (and adapted from the novel by Dennis Lehane) the film wove the tale of two detectives searching for a missing four-year-old in Boston's underbelly. He returned to the Batman franchise in The Dark Knight, a film that broke box-office records, in 2008, and he would stick with the franchise for its final installment, The Dark Knight Rises, in 2012. Freeman would remain a top tier actor in years to come, appearing in such films as Red, Invictus (which saw him playing Nelson Mandela), Conan the Barbarian, and The Magic of Belle Isle.

Trivia: Rough-hewn and soulful, Terence Stamp was one of the most recognizable faces of 1960s British cinema. During that decade, he became immortalized on the screen and off, his working-class charisma and battered good looks making him both a natural for leading man roles and a poster boy for the swinging Sixties lifestyle.Born in Stepney, London on July 22, 1939, Stamp made his film debut in 1962 as the martyred hero in Peter Ustinov's adaptation of Herman Melville's Billy Budd. He turned in a star-making performance that earned him an Oscar nomination and established him as part of a new wave of talent in British cinema. Stamp next made his mark in William Wyler's The Collector (1965), winning a Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of a warped recluse who kidnaps an art student he has lusted after from afar. Stamp spent the rest of the decade earning recognition for both his work and real-life exploits. On the screen, he worked with the likes of John Schlesinger (Far From the Maddening Crowd), Joseph Losey (Modesty Blaise), Ken Loach (Poor Cow), Pier Paolo Pasolini (Teorema), and, for Tre Passi nel Delirio, Federico Fellini, Roger Vadim, and Louis Malle. Off the screen, Stamp was known for his friendships with the likes of Michael Caine and his relationships with such preeminent beauties as Julie Christie and model Jean Shrimpton. He and Christie were immortalized in Ray Davies's song "Waterloo Sunset" in the lines, "Terry and Julie cross over the river, where they feel safe and sound."Despite the promise of his early career, Stamp spent much of the next couple of decades in relative obscurity. He popped up in a number of fairly forgettable films and was cast as a villain in the first two Superman movies. He also appeared in such disparate projects as Legal Eagles (1986), Wall Street (1987), and Young Guns (1988). In 1994, Stamp truly re-entered the filmgoing consciousness, going delightfully against type to play a world-weary transsexual in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The film was a surprise success, and Stamp's portrayal was singled out for particular notice. Once one of the cinema's most reliable hard men, Stamp revived his career with a poignent portrayal of a character who wore more make-up than most of the screen's actresses put together.Stamp followed this success with a turn as a mysterious tantric sex therapist in Bliss (1996). In 1999, he could be seen doing supporting work in Bowfinger, in which he had a hilarious turn as a L. Ron Hubbard-esque "guru;" and Star Wars: Episode I-The Phantom Menace. That same year, he starred in Steven Soderbergh's The Limey, back in top form as a grizzled ex-con bent on avenging his daughter's death. One of the film's highlights was the inclusion of footage from the 1968 Poor Cow, which allowed Stamp to appear as a younger version of himself. Building off the best buzz he'd had in quite some time, Stamp began the 21st century in Red Planet, and voiced Jor-El on the television series Smallville, before appearing in Get Smart, Valkyrie, Yes Man, The Adjustment Bureau, and Song for Marion.

Trivia: Originally trained as an Olympic swimmer, German actor Thomas Kretschmann began his career in the theater as part of the Schiller Ensemble in Berlin. In 1989, he started working steadily in German-language theater productions, television, and film. He moved to Vienna, Austria, in 1991 and won the Max Ophül prize for Best Young Actor. He broke into international feature films with the German war drama Stalingrad and the Italian thriller The Stendhal Syndrome. At this point, he was developing a knack for playing authority figures and other tough guys in action-packed situations. In addition to his numerous other appearances in European films, he gained pivotal roles in Coppia Omicida, Tease, and the American film Total Reality. In 2000, Hollywood was introduced to Kretschmann with the submarine adventure U-571 and the action thriller Blade II. Though he relocated to Hollywood, he continued working in international features for the historical epic I cavalieri che fecero l'impresa as well as Roman Polanski's The Pianist. Other projects for 2004 included a starring role in the romance Head in the Clouds and a return to submarine action for In Enemy Hands.

Trivia: Best known for his individualistic promulgation of jazz-rap during the 1990s -- a decade when gangsta rap threatened to take over much of the urban music scene -- underground rapper Common attained recognition for the sophisticated lyrics and ever-present political subtexts in his raps. Something of a critics' favorite, Common also achieved commercial success with such albums as Can I Borrow a Dollar? (1992, his debut), Like Water for Chocolate (2000), Electric Circus (2002), and Be (2005). During the first 15 years or so of his career, the Chicago native's filmed activity remained generally confined to music videos, performance films, and also urban and rap-themed documentaries such as the 2003 Soundz of Spirit, the 2004 Letter to the President, and 2005's jubilant Dave Chappelle's Block Party. By 2007, Common began branching out into dramatic roles. That year, the rapper landed supporting parts in such films as Joe Carnahan's darkly comic action thriller Smokin' Aces and Ridley Scott's period crime drama American Gangster.In 2008 he appeared in Wanted, and the next year he landed a role in the high-profile sequel Terminator Salvation. He played the part of an scary bad guy in the comedy Date Night in 2010, the same year he played the lead opposite Queen Latifah in the romantic comedy Just Wright. He was one of the many members of the ensemble cast in 2011's New Year's Eve, and lent his vocal talents to Happy Feet Two that same year. In 2012 he appeared in the family fantasy film The Odd Life of Timothy Green.

Trivia: Made her TV debut with a small part in the 2005 Lifetime miniseries Beach Girls. Starred in the poorly received horror sequel AVPR: Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem in 2007.

Trivia: British actor Marc Warren got a taste for performing while involved with the National Youth Theatre, though he didn't begin a professional career until he was 20, when he landed the starring role in a production of the musical Godspell in 1988. He subsequently began taking on work in odd areas of show business, providing voice-over work for TV commercials, and acting as a storyboard stand-in for Ewan McGregor for Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace. As the actor eventually started to land recurring roles on TV productions like The Vice, Band of Brothers, and Highlander: The Series, he slowly but surely became a recognizable face to all audiences. Warren found no shortage of memorable roles as he rounded out the first decade of the new millennium, playing casino operator Tony Crane on the acclaimed U.K. series Life on Mars, and starring as the Messiah in the series Messiah V: The Rapture.

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.