Trivia: The son of a trucking company manager, Brad Pitt was born December 18, 1963, in Shawnee, OK. Raised in Missouri as the oldest of three children, and brought up in a strict Baptist household, Pitt enrolled at the University of Missouri, following high school graduation, studying journalism and advertising. However, after discovering his love of acting, he dropped out of college two credit hours before he could graduate and moved to Hollywood. Once in California, Pitt took acting classes and supported himself with a variety of odd jobs that included chauffeuring strippers to private parties, waiting tables, and wearing a giant chicken suit for a local restaurant chain. His first break came when he landed a small recurring role on Dallas, and a part in a teenage-slasher movie, Cutting Class (1989) (opposite Roddy McDowall), marked his inauspicious entrance into the world of feature films. The previous year, Pitt's acting experience had been limited to the TV movie A Stoning in Fulgham County (1988). 1991 marked the end of Pitt's obscurity, as it was the year he made his appearance in Thelma & Louise (1991) as the wickedly charming drifter who seduces Geena Davis and then robs her blind. After becoming famous practically overnight, Pitt unfortunately chose to channel his newfound celebrity into Ralph Bakshi's disastrous animation/live action combo Cool World (1992). Following this misstep, Pitt took a starring role in director Tom Di Cillo's independent film Johnny Suede. The film failed to score with critics or at the box office and Pitt's documented clashes with the director allegedly inspired Di Cillo to pattern the character of the vain and egotistical Chad Palomino, in his 1995 Living in Oblivion, after the actor. Pitt's next venture, Robert Redford's lyrical fly-fishing drama A River Runs Through It (2002), gave the actor a much-needed chance to prove that he had talent in addition to physical appeal.Following his performance in Redford's film, Pitt appeared in Kalifornia and True Romance (both 1993), two road movies featuring fallen women and violent sociopaths. Pitt's next major role did not arrive until early 1994, when he was cast as the lead of the gorgeously photographed Legends of the Fall. As he did in A River Runs Through It, Pitt portrayed a free-spirited, strong-willed brother, but this time had greater opportunity to further develop his enigmatic character. Later that same year, fans watched in anticipation as Pitt exchanged his outdoorsy persona for the brooding, gothic posturing of Anne Rice's tortured vampire Louis in the film adaptation of Interview With the Vampire. Pitt next starred in the forgettable romantic comedy The Favor (1994) before going on to play a rookie detective investigating a series of gruesome crimes opposite Morgan Freeman in Seven (1995). In 1997, Pitt received a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a visionary mental patient in Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys; the same year, Pitt attempted an Austrian accent and put on a backpack to play mountaineer Heinrich Harrar in Seven Years in Tibet. The film met with mixed reviews and generated a fair amount of controversy, thanks in part to the revelation that the real-life Harrar had in fact been a Nazi. Following Tibet, Pitt traveled in a less inflammatory direction with Alan J. Pakula's The Devil's Own, in which he starred with fellow screen icon Harrison Ford. Despite this seemingly faultless pairing, the film was a relative critical and box-office failure. In 1998, Pitt tried his hand at romantic drama, portraying Death in Meet Joe Black, the most expensive non-special effects film ever made. Pitt's penchant for quirk was prevalent with his cameo in the surreal comic fantasy Being John Malkovich (1999) and carried over into his role as Tyler Durden, the mysterious and anti-materialistic soap salesman in David Fincher's controversial Fight Club the same year. The odd characterizations didn't let up with his appearance as the audibly indecipherable pugilist in Guy Ritchie's eagerly anticipated follow-up to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch (2000).In July of 2000, the man voted "Most Sexy Actor Alive" by virtually every entertainment publication currently in circulation crushed the hearts of millions of adoring female fans when he wed popular film and television actress Jennifer Aniston in a relatively modest (at least by Hollywood standards) and intimate service.Pitt's next turn on the big screen found him re-teamed with Robert Redford, this time sharing the screen with the A River Runs Through It director in the espionage thriller Spy Game (2001). A fairly retro-straight-laced role for an actor who had become identified with his increasingly eccentric roles, he was soon cast in Steven Soderbergh's remake of the Rat Pack classic Ocean's 11 (2001), the tale of a group of criminals who plot to rob a string of casinos. Following a decidedly busy 2001 that also included a lead role opposite Julia Roberts in the romantic crime-comedy The Mexican, Pitt was virtually absent from the big-screen over the next three years. After walking away from the ambitious and troubled Darren Aronofsky production The Fountain, he popped up for a very brief cameo in pal George Clooney's 2002 directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and lent his voice to the animated adventure Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, but spent the majority of his time working on the historical epic Troy (2004). Directed by Wolfgang Peterson, the film employed a huge cast, crew and budget.The media engulfed Pitt's next screen role with tabloid fervor, as it cast him opposite bombshell Angelina Jolie. While the comedic actioner Mr. and Mrs. Smith grossed dollar one at the box office, the stars' off-camera relationship that made some of 2005's biggest headlines. Before long, Pitt had split from his wife Jennifer Aniston and adopted Jolie's two children. The family expanded to three in 2006 with the birth of the couple's first child, to four in 2007 with the adoption of a Vietnamese boy, and finally to six in 2008, with the birth of fraternal twins.In addition to increasing his family in 2006, Pitt also padded his filmography as a producer on a number of projects, including Martin Scorsese's The Departed, the Best Picture Winner for 2006. He also acted opposite Cate Blanchett in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's drama Babel. Interestingly, that film hit theaters the same year as The Fountain, a film that was originally set to star the duo. Pitt also stayed busy as an actor, reteaming with many familiar on-screen pals for Ocean's Thirteen. At about the same time, Pitt teamed up with Ridley Scott to co-produce a period western, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford; Pitt also stars in the film, as James. The year 2007 found Pitt involved, simultaneously, in a number of increasingly intelligent and distinguished projects. He signed on to reteam with David Fincher for the first occasion since Fight Club, with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - a bittersweet fantasy, adapted by Forrest Gump scribe Eric Roth from an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, about a man who falls in love while he is aging in reverse. When the special effects heavy film hit theaters in time for awards season in 2008, Pitt garnered a Best Actor nomination from both the Academy and the Screen Actors Guild. Also in 2007, Pitt produced an adaptation of Marianne Pearl's memoir A Mighty Heart that starred Angelina Jolie. In the years that followed, Pitt remained supremely busy. He delivered a funny lead performance as Lt. Aldo Raine in Quentin Tarantino's blistering World War II saga Inglourious Basterds (2009), then did some of the most highly-praised work of his career as a disciplinarian father in Terence Malick's The Tree of Life (2011) - a sprawling, cerebral phantasmorgia on the meaning of life and death that became one of the critical sensations of the year. He also won a great deal of praise for his turn as Billy Beane in Bennett Miller's adaptation of the non-fiction book Moneyball, a role that not only earned him critical raves but Best Actor nominations from the Academy, BAFTA, the Broadcast Film Association, the Golden Globes, and won him the New York Film Critics Circle award (though the institution also recognized his work in Tree of Life as figuring into their decision).In 2013, Pitt's Plan B production company produced 12 Years a Slave (he also appeared in the film, in a small supporting role), which earned Pitt an Academy Award when the film won Best Picture. The next year, Pitt won an Emmy as part of the producing team of the HBO tv movie The Normal Heart.

Trivia: Was discovered by Gerard Depardieu, who offered her a role in an upcoming project while she was visiting the set of the movie Asterix et obelix contre Cesar. Felt a connection to her role in Inglourious Basterds, because her Jewish grandfather was deported from Poland due to the Nazi occupation. Contributed to a special cover recording of the song "Beds Are Burning," to benefit the Kofi Annan Global Humanitarian Forum. Recorded and released an album in 2011, En T'Attendant. Hosted the opening ceremonies at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

Trivia: Austrian-born actor Christoph Waltz began his career on the stage, making a name for himself at prestigious venues like Zurich's Schauspielhaus Zürich and Vienna's Burgtheater. He would eventually study at the Lee Strausberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York, and branch out into on-camera acting, appearing in Austrian TV productions. His film career blasted into the stratosphere in 2009, however, when he was cast as Colonel Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. His role as the feared "Jew Hunter" earned him the best supporting actor award from just about every critics group in the country, as well as from the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.Flush with this worldwide success, he played bad guys in The Green Hornet and The Three Musketeers, and played the heavy in Water for Elephants, but he earned his best reviews as part of the foursome in Roman Polanski's adaptation of the award-winning play Carnage. In 2012 he reteamed with Tarantino, playing a bounty hunter in Django Unchained, again earning superb revierws as well as a second Best Supporting Actor Oscar at that year's Academy Awards ceremony.

Trivia: Ask any horror filmmaker about the influences for their celluloid nightmares and chances are they'll come back with something about their childhood fears and attempting to realize the things that scare them most. For Hostel and Cabin Fever director Eli Roth it has ultimately become a deeply disturbing mixture of the two. Roth's proliferation in the horror genre coupled with his giddy willingness to play the role of cinema outlaw came at just the time the PG-13 blues were leading many genre aficionados to wonder if there really were anymore filmmakers out there who were still willing to break the rules.As a young horror fanatic, the future New York Film School graduate obsessed over keeping pace with the career trajectory of Evil Dead director Sam Raimi. With a target of 21 as the age by which he should direct his first feature, the ambitious 20-year-old sat down to write a script based on a series of frightening medical incidents that happened to him in his youth. Paralyzed at 12 by a rare virus that strikes one in a million, stricken with a water-borne parasite for which he had to drink poison to stop from eating his insides at 17, and infected with a bacteria that literally caused his skin to peel from his face at 19, Roth adapted the ailments that plagued him into a script for the alternately funny and frighteningly repulsive Cabin Fever in 1995 along with a little help from friend Randy Pearlstein. An independent homage to the 1970s and '80s shockers on which Roth was weaned, Cabin Fever was shot for a paltry 1.5 million dollars in the same North Carolina woods in which his childhood idol had filmed The Evil Dead and went on to spark an unprecedented bidding war when it premiered at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival. When Lion's Gate released Cabin Fever into theaters the following year, Roth was immediately hailed by many horror fans as the true future of the genre. Though some were turned off to the humorous approach that Roth had taken to terror, the more grotesque aspects of Roth's bacterial skin-crawler hinted at a filmmaker not afraid to break from genre convention and play dirty in order to keep his audience squirming in their seats. Of course when your first film creates as big a buzz as Cabin Fever did, what's a filmmaker supposed to do for a follow-up? Armed with the knowledge that his sophomore effort could either make him or break him in the eyes of the horror community, Roth pondered a Cabin Fever sequel and pored through studio scripts in an effort to find the idea that truly terrified him. As fate would have it, friend and fellow film fanatic Harry Knowles of the popular movie website "Ain't it Cool News" contacted Roth just around this time with a story concerning a website that had been brought to his attention where, for a nominal fee, anyone wishing to experience death firsthand could personally murder another human being; the resulting profit generally going to the unfortunate participant's impoverished family. The groundwork for Hostel had been laid. Frustrated by the American film machine and encouraged by like-minded horror fan Quentin Tarantino to press forward with the idea at all costs, Roth locked himself away to pound out the screenplay for the brutally unforgiving Hostel while still thriving on the energy of the Red Sox win at the 2004 World Series. Filmed in Prague for under five million dollars as a way for Roth to visit a place he had always loved (and deliver a notable kiss-off to American unions), Hostel told the tale of two hard-partying American backpackers and their horny Icelandic friend who, while backpacking through Europe, all fall into a grim trap after being lured to a small Slovakian town with the promise of plentiful drugs and beautiful women. By largely abandoning the humor of Cabin Fever to set a more ominous and menacing tone and not allowing his camera to flinch during some of the film's more sanguine moments, Roth proved with Hostel that he could stand alongside such genre innovators as Takashi Miike to effectively test the limits of even the most desensitized genre fan. A financial success at the box office in addition to being one of the few horror films released at the time that wasn't a sequel or a remake, Hostel truly delivered on the promises made in Cabin Fever to prove that Roth's initial success was indeed no fluke. Outside of his feature directorial work, Roth has also teamed with filmmakers Boaz Yakin and Scott Spiegel to form Raw Nerve, an exclusively horror-oriented production company dedicated to producing truly boundary-pushing genre films that never compromise the filmmaker's vision. Roth's hilariously obscene, foul-mouthed produce-howler The Rotten Fruit proved that the playful director was even fairly adept at stop-motion animation. Of course, American horror pictures -- particularly those crafted by intelligent and intuitive directors (and Roth fits the bill on both counts) -- tend to rake in unholy profits at the box office, and Hostel was no exception. It grossed almost 20 million (from a 4.6-million-dollar budget) in its opening weekend alone, paving the way, of course, for a sequel, that picks up directly following the final shot of the original. 2007's Hostel: Part II reprised the formula of the first film, substituting an ensemble of girls for the boys of the original picture. This film follows several backpackers, visiting Rome, who discover that the torture palace from the original Hostel is actually a small part of an international "chain," and find themselves subjected to endless sadism and brutality. Alongside that sequel, Roth juggled an overwhelmingly busy schedule. He assumed production duties on the 2006 big-screen adaptation of television's Baywatch, and helmed the same year's throwback teen sex comedy Scavenger Hunt, a madcap farce that sends a bunch of crazy adolescents on a wild goose chase for a bevy of diverse objects. He contributed the trailer for Thanksgiving to Grindhouse, and teamed up with Tarantino in 2009 for his most prominent acting role as the Bear Jew in Inglorious Basterds. In 2011 he contributed to Corman's World, a documentary about the legendary exploitation producer/director Roger Corman, and he had a brief cameo in the jukebox musical Rock of Ages. Roth continued to work as a producer, director and screenwriter, doing all three for films like The Green Inferno (2014).

Trivia: German-born, Irish-raised actor Michael Fassbender first caught many viewers' attention with the role of Sergeant Burton Pat on the HBO-produced WWII series Band of Brothers in 2001. He would make waves again with roles on a number of popular British TV series, like Murphy's Law and Hex, but Fassbender would ingrain himself in the minds of American audiences when he was cast in the role of Spartan warrior Stelios in the 2006 blockbuster 300, even uttering the iconic line "Then we will fight in the shade." Fassbender would continue to find exciting roles in film, appearing in movies like the critically acclaimed Hunger, and Quentin Tarantino's World War II epic Inglourious Basterds. He quickly became one of the most sought-after and respected young actors in the business earning rave reviews in 2011 for his work as a sex-addict in Shame, and that same year played Magneto in the successful X-Men prequel. The next year he continued to work with revered directors, playing an assassin in Steven Soderbergh's Haywire, and landing a lead role in Ridley Scott's sci-fi summer film Prometheus.In 2013, he re-teamed with his Hunger and Shame director Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave, earning Fassbender his first Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actor. He reprised his role of Magneto in X-Men: Days of Future Past in 2014. The following year, he tackled "the Scottish play," playing Lord Macbeth opposite Marion Cotillard's Lady Macbeth, and earned rave reviews (and a second Oscar nomination) playing Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.

Trivia: Born Diane Heidkrüger in Hildesheim, Germany, Diane Kruger initially aspired to be a dancer and studied with the Royal Ballet in London. When an injury ended her hopes for a dancing career, she began modeling in Germany, where she became a finalist of the Look of the Year contest at the age of 15. She worked with renowned fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana, and her pictures graced the covers of magazines like Vogue and Elle. Moving to Paris on the advice of film director Luc Besson, Kruger decided to take up acting and enrolled in the Ecole Florent, where she became top of her class in 2002. The same year, the actress made her big-screen debut opposite Dennis Hopper and Christopher Lambert in the indie feature The Piano Player (aka The Target), but she was not truly revealed until her role in Mon Idole, co-starring and directed by her then-real-life companion Guillaume Canet. After a couple more acting assignments in France, Kruger began her Hollywood career by acting alongside Josh Hartnett and Rose Byrne in Wicker Park, a remake of the 1996 French film L'Appartement. While still filming Wicker Park in 2003, she was selected among many other candidates to play the legendary beauty Helen of Troy in Wolfgang Petersen's historical epic Troy (2004). The latter film ended up being released before Wicker Park, thus becoming her high-profile introduction to the American public. She also starred opposite Nicolas Cage in Jon Turteltaub's National Treasure. In 2009 she had a small but important part in Quentin Tarantino's award-winning Inglourious Basterds. She followed that up with roles in Inhale and Unknown and branched out to American TV with The Bridge. Kruger played a supporting role in The Infiltrator, opposite Bryan Cranston and John Leguizamo, in 2016.

Trivia: Born in Spain to a Catalan mother and Brazilian-born German father, and was subsequently raised in Germany and spent summers in Spain. Got his start on the German soap opera Verbotene Liebe in 1995. Speaks several languages; in Joyeux Noël, he speaks German, French and English. Owns a Spanish tapas bar, Bar Raval, in Berlin.

Trivia: Handsome German actor Til Schweiger was voted one of the Most Erotic Male Actors in a 2000 poll in Germany's Cinema magazine. After his film debut in the comedy Manta, Manta, he won an award for Best Young Actor at the 1993 Max Ophüls Festival. He has since built up acting credits in dozens of German and international movies, in addition to work as a writer, director, and producer. On the small screen, he has appeared on some of Germany's most popular TV series and appeared as himself on Pop 2000. After his first starring role in Maybe...Maybe Not in 1994, he stuck with comedies until he found a place for himself in action-thrillers and dramas. He combined genres for the road movie Knockin' on Heaven's Door in 1997; he co-authored the screenplay and won an award from the Moscow Film Festival for his lead performance. The next year he stayed behind the scenes to direct Der Eisbär (The Polar Bear). Returning to acting, he quickly gained international appeal with Bandyta and eventually ended up in Hollywood for small roles in The Replacement Killers, Judas Kiss, and SLC Punk. He went on to star in the comedy Magicians, the action-thriller Driven, and What to Do in Case of Fire. In 2003, he stuck with Hollywood for U-Boat, Sea Devils, and Lara Croft and the Cradle of Life: Tomb Raider 2. Over the coming years, Schweiger would continue to remain active on screen, appearing in films like Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo and Inglorious Basterds.

Trivia: Raised by African parents, Ido grew up living between Burkina Faso and the Paris suburb of Stains. In his 20s, started his own theater company called Le Replik. Came to prominence in France as a slam musician under the guise of John Pucc'Chocolat, a name Ido came up with on the fly, which reflected his love of chocolate and cappuccinos. Wrote the songs for the 2010 musical Monsieur Luxure. Counts his idols as martial artist Jackie Chan, novelist Samuel Beckett and Burkina Faso's late revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara.

Trivia: B.J. Novak plays permanently apathetic temp Ryan so well on the hit comedy The Office, that you'd never guess he's actually a producer of the show. The actor and comedian grew up near Boston in the suburb of Newton, and graduated from high school with his Office co-star John Krasinski. He then attended Harvard University, where he earned a degree in English and Spanish Literature, graduating in 2001. Novak worked in standup comedy and joined the show Punk'd in 2002, where he helped pull pranks on celebrities like Hilary Duff and Mya. In 2005, he joined the team of The Office as not only a cast member but also a producer and occasional writer. He also began making appearances in movies like Reign Over Me, Knocked Up, and Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds.

Trivia: Worked as a driver for tennis superstar John McEnroe when he was 19.Began his film and television career doing short films and directing behind the scenes EPKs (Electronic Press Kits).Perhaps best known internationally for playing the French dairy farmer accused of harboring Jews in the opening scene of 2009's Inglourious Basterds.Is also a skilled and passionate skateboarder and displayed his talents in a London chase scene on the Netflix series Spotless.Is a supporter of La Parole Libérée, an association dedicated to fighting abuse of children.

Trivia: Emmy-winning comic actor Mike Myers seemed destined by fate to link up with Saturday Night Live; when he made his television debut as a commercial actor at age eight, his co-star (playing his mother) was pre-SNL Gilda Radner. Working steadily in his native Canada, Myers was a member of Toronto's Second City troupe, the star of his own TV series Mullarkey and Myers at age 20, and the vee-jay of an all-night Canadian music video show in 1987. In all of these career stepping stones, Myers continued testing out the comic characterizations which would win him fame in his SNL days. His most popular character (which he'd been doing at parties since high school) was spacey teenage couch potato Wayne Campbell, who, with equally airheaded best friend Garth Algar (Dana Carvey), hosted the Aurora, IL, cable-access series Wayne's World. This SNL skit begat a popular like-titled film in 1992, and a less popular 1993 sequel. Despite the tepid response to Wayne's World 2, Mike Myers as Wayne seemed to be more readily acceptable to film fans than Mike Myers as anyone else, as shown by the disappointing 1993 comedy So I Married an Axe Murderer.

Trivia: Though Japanese audiences are undoubtedly familiar with French actress Julie Dreyfus thanks to her status as a gaijin tarento (foreign talent) in Nippon, it wasn't until her breakthrough role Quentin Tarantino's 2003 revenge epic Kill Bill that the talented, multilingual actress would become a familiar face to stateside audiences. A native of Paris, the future actress was initially drawn to work in interior design and architecture while still a student, though her striking beauty, ability to speak French, Japanese, and English and formidable talent in front of the camera soon found her following a notably different and unexpected career path. With early work as a photographer and television reporter in Japan providing her with exposure on the small screen, it wasn't long before Dreyfus was edging ever closer to drama. After roles in such television series as Strange Discoveries, Ryu's Bar, and Sense and Nonsense provided audiences with a taste of her dramatic capabilities, numerous television dramas such as Don't Steal My Heart and Interactive Suspense were quick to follow. Two years after making her feature debut in the 1992 Japanese film Faraway Sunset, Dreyfus received her first taste of international exposure with a supporting role in Rintaro Mayuzumi's acclaimed biographical drama Rampo. Her English-language debut came with the same year's family comedy A Feast at Midnight, and it wasn't long after that she set her sights on stateside productions in hopes of expanding her talents beyond Japan. A role in the short-lived television series The Crow: Stairway to Heaven did indeed provide her with more international recognition in 1998, and following a role in the 2000 feature Bathory, Dreyfus essayed a supporting role in the French movie Jean Moulin (2002). It was the following year, however, that proved to be Dreyfus' international breakthrough, and her impressive performance as feared assassin O-Ren Ishii's (Lucy Liu) dedicated right-hand woman, Sofie Fatale, in Kill Bill forever insured that she would no longer be confused with a certain Seinfeld starlet with whom she shares a nearly identical namesake. In addition to her career in front of the camera, Julie Dreyfus is also a published author.

Trivia: Is also a mime, musician, dancer and acrobat. Worked as a street performer for a time. Studied music and theater in Hildesheim, Germany; and acting and directing in Aix-en-Provence, France. Made his professional (stage) acting debut in 1981 in Hildesheim, Germany. Is fluent in five languages: German, English, French, Italian and Spanish. Can play a handful of musical instruments, including violin, piano, guitar and mandolin. Studied method acting with Susan Strasberg in Italy during 1989. She helped him secure his first starring movie role, the Italian film Il Piacere delle Carni. Has two main residences: Berlin and Paris. Hobbies include reading, yoga, meditation and hiking.

Trivia: Worked with the German Berlin Theatre, the Berlin Ensemble and the bat-Studio Theatre Berlin. Won the O.E.-Hasse Award for his work in a 2005 theatre production of Snow White. Appeared in Madame Bovary at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in 2011.

Trivia: A trained painter, Australian-born Rod Taylor switched to acting in his early twenties, toting up Australian stage credits before making his first Aussie film, The Stuart Exposition, in 1951. A villainous stint as Israel Hand in the 1954 Australian/U.S. production Long John Silver gave evidence that Taylor might be able to handle leading roles. However, he was still among the supporting ranks in his first American film, The Virgin Queen (1955). Signed to a nonexclusive contract by MGM in 1957, Taylor was cast in predominantly American roles, and accordingly managed to submerge his Australian accent in favor of a neutral "mid-Atlantic" cadence; even when playing an Englishman in 1960's The Time Machine, he spoke with barely a trace of a discernable accent. His film career peaked in the early to mid 1960s; during the same period he starred in the TV series Hong Kong (1961), the first of several weekly television stints (other series included Bearcats, The Oregon Trail, Masquerade and Outlaws). He was so long associated with Hollywood that, upon returning to Australia to appear in the 1977 film The Picture Show Man, Taylor was cast as an American. In his later career, Taylor thrived in character roles as ageing, but still virile, outdoorsmen, appearing in television shows like The Oregon Trail and Outlaws. He had recurring roles on Falcon Crest, Murder, She Wrote and Walker, Texas Ranger before mostly retiring from acting. In 2009, director Quentin Tarantino lured him out of retirement with the chance to play Winston Churchill in Inglourious Basterds. Taylor died in 2015, at age 84.

Trivia: Although he may have a lot in common with his television counterpart from the short-lived Freaks and Geeks, in reality Samm Levine is much more outgoing than his prime time parallel, performing standup comedy at some of New York's finest comedy clubs by the age of 15 and soon after becoming the youngest member of the New York Friar's Club. Born March 12, 1982, in Chicago, IL, and raised in Fort Lee, New Jersey, young Levine got his first taste of the spotlight when, at age 12, he emceed his sixth grade talent show. Performing standup at his bar mitzvah the following year, the aspiring jokester was soon being dropped off by his mother for performances at such Big Apple comedy staples as Carolines, Stand-Up N.Y., and the Gotham Comedy Club. Subsequently landing numerous commercial roles, Levine kicked off his television career with appearances in One Life to Live and Discovery Kids. A severe asthmatic who made frequent trips to the emergency room during his youth, his respiratory disease often made the demands of school and comedy appearances even more difficult to endure. Praised for his performance as the young member of the "geek" half of television's Freaks and Geeks, Levine originally auditioned for the role of Sam Weir (eventually essayed by John Francis Daley), though he was almost perfectly suited to the role of the smart, bully dodging, aspiring comic character of Neil Schweiber. Though the show was canceled after a short run, episodes gained a devoted following thanks to repeat airings on the FOX Family Channel, and Levine later re-joined Freaks and Geeks creator Judd Apatow (as well as a few of his former freaky cast members) for Apatow's next small-screen endeavor, the widely praised Undeclared (2001). That same year, Levine would make his feature debut in the teen spoof Not Another Teen Movie. Roles in Broken Lizard's Club Dread, Pulse, I Love You, Beth Cooper, and Inglorious Basterds followed, yet all the while Levine continued to rack up an impressive list of television credits thanks to appearances in Entourage, Veronica Mars, Modern Family, and NCIS.

Trivia: Was involved in performances at No Shame Theater while studying at University of Iowa. In 2004, moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in comedy after graduating from college. Was named in Variety's list of 10 Comics to Watch in 2008. Regularly writes, directs and acts in sketch, improv and stand-up performances at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. Co-host of Not Too Shabby, a weekly sketch comedy show at UCB. Is a member of the improv comedy team Last Day of School and the sketch comedy group A Kiss From Daddy. Is frequently a guest on Comedy Bang Bang's podcast. Has been a member of two musical groups, The Glass Beef and Don't Stop or We'll Die.

Trivia: Her grandfather, Jérôme Seydoux, became president of Pathé film corporation in 1990. Studied to be an opera singer before switching to acting. Modeled for Prada, Levi's and American Apparel. Studied with Les Enfants Terribles in France. In 2013, the Cannes Film Festival jury decided to award not just director Abdellatif Kechiche the Palme d'Or for Blue Is the Warmest Color, but to have him share the award with the film's two stars, Seydoux and Adéle Exarchopoulos.

Trivia: Stuntman, stunt coordinator, second unit director, and actor.

Trivia: Born in Sweden, Bo Svenson moved to the U.S. at the age of 17. Before settling upon an acting career, the husky Svenson attended UCLA, served in the Marines for six years, then worked as a hockey player, race-car driver and 3rd Degree Black Belt judo champ. His first regular TV work was on the 1968 western series Here Come the Brides, in which he was cast to type as Big Swede (though by this time, he had lost all vestiges of his Scandinavian accent). After an impressive movie debut in the little-seen Maury (1974), Svenson was second-billed as Alex Olsson, competitor-cum-partner of barnstorming aviator Robert Redford, in The Great Waldo Pepper (1973). When Joe Don Baker, star of the 1973 sleeper Walking Tall, passed on the opportunity to play Sheriff Buford Pusser in the 1975 sequel, Svenson inherited the role; he would portray Pusser in both Part 2: Walking Tall (1975) and The Final Chapter: Walking Tall (1977), then repeated the assignment in the 1981 Walking Tall TV series. Perhaps someday, Bo Svenson will escape the sleazoid actioners in which he is usually starred, and receive a screen role worthy of his talents.

Trivia: With lean hangdog looks that make him a natural for the criminals and fringe dwellers he usually plays, Tim Roth has the uncanny and incredibly effective ability to make sleaze look sexy, or at least raggedly photogenic. Since his debut in the made-for-TV Made in Britain at the age of 18, Roth has joined fellow Briton Gary Oldman as one of the leading interpreters of society's underbelly. His ability has been particularly appreciated by director Quentin Tarantino, who helped to propel Roth to international recognition with prominent roles in Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction in the early '90s. Since then, Roth has continued to portray a variety of gritty characters, occasionally making room for the odd sympathetic or lighthearted role.Born in London on May 14, 1961, to a journalist father and landscape painter mother, Roth initially wanted to become a sculptor. After an education at London's Camberwell School of Art, he decided to try his hand at acting, first appearing in a production of Jean Genet's The Screens. Roth's television debut in the 1981 film Made in Britain garnered critical raves for the actor, who portrayed a poverty-stricken juvenile delinquent with profanity-spewing gusto. The same year, he appeared with Gary Oldman in Mike Leigh's Meantime, a made-for-TV movie that was eventually released theatrically, but Roth's bona fide screen debut didn't come until 1984, when he played an apprentice hitman in Stephen Frears' The Hit. Co-starring Terence Stamp and John Hurt, the film did moderately well and earned Roth an Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Newcomer. Thanks to such positive notices, the young actor continued to find work throughout the rest of the decade, making appearances in a variety of films, including former Kinks frontman Ray Davies' 1985 musical Return to Waterloo. In 1990, Roth began to enjoy a limited amount of international attention, thanks to two starring roles, his acclaimed portrayal of Vincent Van Gogh in Robert Altman's Vincent and Theo and a title role in the critically lauded film adaptation of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Starring opposite Gary Oldman, Roth made an impression on many a filmgoer, including Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino cast Roth as undercover policeman Mr. Orange in his 1992 ensemble piece Resevoir Dogs, a film that allowed the actor to prove he could do an American accent and bleed to death convincingly. The success of Resevoir Dogs paved the way for more Hollywood work for Roth. In a drastic departure from his previous work, he next starred in the 1993 comedy Bodies, Rest & Motion alongside Bridget Fonda, Phoebe Cates, and Eric Stoltz. The following year, Roth returned to more familiar territory, as a hit man in Little Odessa and as one of the robbers who catalyzes the action of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. After the enormous success of the latter film, the actor appeared the same year in the psychologically terrifying TV adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness alongside John Malkovich, who played the unhinged Kurtz. After a disastrous third collaboration with Tarantino, the critically and commercially disemboweled Four Rooms (1995), Roth had significantly greater success portraying an ominously prissy English nobleman in Rob Roy, winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his work, along with a Golden Globe nomination and a British Academy Award. Staying true to his habit of jumping from genre to genre, Roth next appeared as a convict with a jones for Drew Barrymore in Woody Allen's musical comedy Everyone Says I Love You (1996) before playing a mobster in 1930s Harlem in Hoodlum (1997). Roth remained in a down and dirty milieu for his next film, Vondie Curtis-Hall's Gridlock'd, which featured the actor, as well as Thandie Newton and Tupac Shakur, as modern-day heroin addicts. Although the film received critical praise, it failed to make a significant impression at the box office. Roth's subsequent films unfortunately suffered from similarly lackluster performances: 1998's Liar went straight to video and the actor's film with Cinema Paradiso director Giuseppe Tornatore, La Leggenda del Pianista Sull'Oceano, remained mired in obscurity. However, Roth continued to keep busy with other projects, appearing in the 1998 Sundance entry Animals (And the Tollkeeper) and making his directing debut the same year with The War Zone. Though it gained positive critical notice for its' downbeat story of a disfunctional family skidding towards oblivion, the subject matter found the film getting little exposure even though it won multiple film festival awards. Roth's next turn as the menacing General Thade in Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes (2001) would be arguably his most mainstream, prolific and scenery-chewing role to date. As the sinister simian on an obsessive quest to kill Mark Wahlberg's Capt. Leo Davis at any cost, Roth provided more than enough gusto to adequately fill the film's evil villian quota. While the film was a box-office hit, Roth opted to follow it up by returning to more obscure films. However, his visibility was raised considerably in 2004 by a pair of projects. First, he acted alongside the likes of Oscar-winners Chris Cooper and Richard Dreyfuss in director John Sayles' highly-anticipated political film Silver City and then showed up opposite Jennifer Connelly and John C. Reilly in Dark Water.He starred in the 2007 Francis Coppola film Youth Without Youth as well as the English-language remake of Funny Games. He was one of the main players in 2008's The Incredible Hulk, then enjoyed a well-regarded run on the FOX procedural show Lie To Me. In 2010 he played the title character in Pete Smalls Is Dead, and two years later he acted opposite Richard Gere in the drama Arbitrage.