Trivia: Born January 28, 1981, Elijah Wood has grown up to be one of the most well-respected and steadily employed actors of his generation. Born in Cedar Rapids, IA, Wood modeled and did local commercials before moving with his family to Los Angeles in 1988. It was there that Wood got his first break, a small role in a Paula Abdul video. Film work almost instantly followed, with a bit part in the 1989 Back to the Future II. It was Wood's role as Aidan Quinn's son in Barry Levinson's 1990 Avalon (the third film in the Baltimore trilogy containing Diner [1982] and Tin Men [1987]) that first gave Wood attention, as the film received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for four Academy Awards. After a small part in the Richard Gere potboiler Internal Affairs (1990), Wood secured his first starring role in Paradise (1991), in which he played a young boy who brings estranged couple Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson back together. He received good reviews for his performance -- some said it was one of the best things about the film -- and from there went on to co-star with Mel Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis in Forever Young and in Radio Flyer (both 1992). In 1993, Wood co-starred with Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son, which was a failure both at the box office and with filmgoers who couldn't stomach the idea of the little blond boy from Home Alone as a pre-teen psychopath. In casting Wood as the good to Culkin's evil, the film helped further establish the kind of characters Wood was to become known for: thoughtful, well meaning, and perhaps a bit confused. Wood's next film, the same year's The Adventures of Huck Finn, provided a departure from this type of character, but The War (1994) with Kevin Costner marked something of a return. Also in 1994, Wood had the title role in North, a film remarkable for the volume of bad reviews and bad box office it received, but also for the fact that practically every bad review contained a positive assessment of Wood's performance. Wood's follow-up, the 1996 Flipper, was hardly an improvement, but the subsequent critical and financial success of Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (1997) provided a positive development in the young actor's career. As the soulfully dazed and confused Mikey Carver, Wood gave a portrayal remarkable for its rendering of the thoughtfulness and exquisite hopelessness inherent in the character. 1998's Deep Impact and The Faculty did not allow Wood the same degree of character development, but were great financial successes and further stepping stones in Wood's evolution from winsome child star to impressive young actor. Following a brief turn as the boyfriend of a wannabe hip-hop groupie in James Toback's problematic Black and White (1999), Wood further evolved as an actor in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the first installation of director Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. His most hotly anticipated project, the 2001 film gave Wood top billing as Frodo Baggins alongside a glittering cast that included Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, and Liv Tyler. That same year the young actor could be seen in less mystical surroundings courtesy of Ed Burns' Ash Wednesday, a crime drama that also featured Oliver Platt and Rosario Dawson. In 2002, Wood let his vocal chords for Disney's straight-to-video release of The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina. Of course, his most substantial role of 2002 is unarguably his return to the role of hobbit Frodo Baggins in the second installment of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy; specifically, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.2003 proved to be a similar year for Wood -- after two relatively small jobs (his role credited only as "The Guy" in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and his stint as First Assistant Director in Sean Astin's The Long and Short of It served purely as a break for Elijah), the young actor once again resumed his role for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Though Return of the King is the last in the Tolkien trilogy, 2004 nonetheless looks to be a significant year for Wood, as he is slated to star in soccer flick Hooligans, as well work alongside Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in director Michel Gondry's fantasy feature Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In the latter, Wood significantly stretched his image by playing the Machiavellian Patrick, who slimily attempts to wheedle Kate Winslet away from Jim Carrey by trading on insider knowledge of the couple's sweet nothings. Riding high on the quadruple successes of the three Rings films and Eternal Sunshine, Wood projected wisdom and demonstrated great care in selecting his projects over the course of 2005 - his three features from that year scored with reviewers and at the box. Those included: Robert Rodriguez's critical darling Sin City, a testosterone-infused, live action adaptation of a comic book; Green Street Hooligans, where Wood tackles the challenging role of an expulsionary Harvard student thrust into the brutality of English football; and Liev Schrieber's bittersweet comedy-drama Everything is Illuminated, as Jonathan, a young man who travels to the Ukraine on a quest to find the woman who saved his grandmother's life. Over the course of 2006, Wood's fans can catch him in the period piece Bobby (on the assassination of RFK), the animated feature Happy Feet, and the military drama Day Zero, on the reinstatement of the USAF draft. He voiced the lead role in Happy Feat, and had a major role for internationally respected director Alex de la Iglesia in The Oxford Murders. He lent his voice to the title character in the movie 9, and starred again in the sequel Happy Feet Two. In 2011 he took the leading part on the odd FX series Willard which concerns a man who sees his next door neighbor's canine as a man in a dog suit. In 2012 he returned to his iconic role playing Frodo Baggins for director Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Hobbit.

Trivia: Widely considered one of the leading British actors of his generation, Ian McKellen has had a rich and varied career encompassing the stage, screen, and television. A renowned stage actor in his native Britain for decades, McKellen was not familiar to most American audiences until the '90s, when he began popping up in a number of well-received films. One of these, Gods and Monsters, elevated the actor into the international spotlight when he earned an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Frankenstein director James Whale.Born May 25, 1939, in the northern English mill town of Burnley, McKellen was the son of a civil engineer. Encouraged by his parents, he developed an early fascination with the theatre. This interest continued when his family moved to the mining town of Wigan, where McKellen began acting in school plays. At the age of 13, he performed in his first Shakespeare play, as Malvolio in a production of Twelfth Night. He gained an additional appreciation for Shakespeare during his summer vacations, when he attended camp in Stratford-upon-Avon and spent the evenings watching the likes of Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, John Gielgud, and Paul Robeson give life to the playwright's work.Shakespeare played a continuing role in McKellen's life when he went to Cambridge University, where he was offered a place to study English at Saint Catherine's College. This offer was withdrawn two years later, when McKellen's involvement in theatre almost completely eclipsed his studies. His work in student theatre proved invaluable, however, allowing him to work with Derek Jacobi, David Frost, and Trevor Nunn, with whom he would go on to form a lasting professional relationship. McKellen's acting pursuits were also important for another reason: as he would later explain to numerous interviewers, the theatre introduced him to other gay men, something that eased his acceptance of his own homosexuality. McKellen's identity as a gay man would prove almost as defining a characteristic of his public persona as his identity as an actor: a vocal activist, he became one of a handful of openly gay knights when he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1991.After leaving Cambridge in 1961, McKellen began his professional career at Coventry's Belgrave Theatre, where he acted in a production of A Man for All Seasons. Three years later, he was living in London and working steadily on the stage. He acted in countless productions, a number of which he also directed, and co-founded the progressive Actors' Company in 1972. He earned a score of awards and honors for his work and in 1979 was made a Commander of the British Empire. Two years later, he won international theatrical acclaim with his Tony Award-winning portrayal of Salieri in the Broadway production of Amadeus.McKellen made his film debut in 1969 with a small role in The Promise, the same year that he caused a sensation on the stage with his portrayal of Edward II, which required him to kiss another man. It was not until 20 years later that McKellen became recognizable to international film audiences with his starring role as John Profumo in Michael Caton-Jones's Scandal (1989). Somewhat ironically, a year before gaining fame for playing one of the most infamously heterosexual public figures of the 20th century, McKellen came out to the public as a gay man during a BBC radio program. In 1993, he became recognizable to American television audiences playing gay men in And the Band Played On and Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City, two acclaimed TV miniseries; McKellen earned an Emmy nomination for his work in the former. In 1996, he earned another Emmy nomination for his supporting role in Rasputin.That same year, the actor gained more visibility on the big screen, appearing in Six Degrees of Separation and The Ballad of Little Jo. He continued to turn in strong performances in such films as Cold Comfort Form (1995) and Jack and Sarah (1995), and he earned particular acclaim for his titular performance in Richard Loncraine's 1996 Richard III, for which he also adapted the screenplay. Following subsequent turns in Bent (1997) and Apt Pupil (1998), McKellen starred in Bill Condon's Gods and Monsters, giving a stunning portrayal of James Whale during the director's last days. His performance won a score of international accolades, including Best Actor Oscar and Golden Globe nominations and Best Actor honors from the National Board of Review.After appearing alongside future Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe in a TV production of David Copperfield in 1999, McKellen stepped into the shoes of the diabolical Magneto in director Bryan Singer's popular comic-book action adventure, X-Men. McKellen stuck with fantasy for his next role as well, this time on a grand scale with his Oscar nominated role as Gandalf the Grey in director Peter Jackson's long-anticipated Lord of the Rings trilogy. Following the massively successful franchise, McKellen would appear in the subsuquent prequel, The Hobbit, as well as films like The Academy and The Da Vinci Code.

Trivia: Critically acclaimed actor Viggo Mortensen made his feature-film debut playing Alexander Godunov's Amish brother in Witness (1985). The suave, handsome actor has subsequently portrayed a wide variety of characters, often unapologetic bad boys, opposite some of Hollywood's most popular actors, including Sylvester Stallone, Demi Moore, and Nicole Kidman.Born in New York City, on October 20, 1958, to an American mother and a Danish father, Mortensen spent his first years in Manhattan and the rest of his youth living in Argentina, Venezuela, and Denmark. Returning to Manhattan in the early '80s, he studied acting at Warren Robertson's Theatre Workshop and then embarked upon a stage career before moving to Los Angeles. There, he earned a Dramalogue Critics Award for his performance in a Coast Playhouse production of Bent and became a familiar figure on the L.A. punk scene (something that was aided by his brief marriage to Exene Cervenka, lead singer of the punk band X). Following his debut in Witness, Mortensen began working steadily in a number of diverse films, becoming a familiar but not instantly recognizable face to filmgoers. He did some of his more memorable work as a series of louts and villains, in such films as The Indian Runner (1991, written and directed by Sean Penn), which cast him as David Morse's morally questionable brother; Carlito's Way (1993), in which he played a paraplegic ex-con who tries to snitch on Al Pacino; and The Prophecy (aka God's Army) (1995), which required the actor, in the role of Lucifer, to rip out Christopher Walken's heart and then eat it. Mortensen finally attained a greater measure of recognition with his smoldering portrayal of one of Isabel Archer's (Nicole Kidman) suitors in Jane Campion's 1996 adaptation of The Portrait of a Lady. He then made another strong impression as Demi Moore's rough, tough, and buff training instructor in G.I. Jane (1997) and, the following year, he was one of the few redeeming features of A Perfect Murder, in which he supplied sexy menace (as well as his own art work) as Gwyneth Paltrow's murderous artist lover. He allowed his softer side to come through in Tony Goldwyn's acclaimed A Walk on the Moon (1999), which cast him as the hippie lover of a dissatisfied housewife (Diane Lane) in Woodstock-era upstate New York. His more romantic side was again in evidence in the romantic drama 28 Days (2000), in which he played recovering party girl Sandra Bullock's rehab honey. Replacing Irish actor Stuart Townsend in the role of Aragorn shortly after production had begun on director Peter Jackson's eagerly anticipated film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Mortensen secured a strong screen presence through 2003, with the release of the trilogy's final installment, The Return of the King. In 2004, he proved that he could carry a film on his own when he starred as Wild West adventurer Frank T. Hopkins in the horse-racing period film Hidalgo. In 2005, the actor won critical raves when he headlined the visceral David Cronenberg crime thriller A History of Violence, vis-a-vis Ed Harris and William Hurt; as Tom Stall, a seemingly open-faced small-town Hoosier whose dark and brutal past comes to light during a diner robbery, Mortensen lent the film a great deal of momentum and held audiences rapt. History received two Academy Award nominations, though Mortensen failed to net one for Best Actor.Mortensen returned to period adventures in 2006 when he played the titular solider-turned-mercenary in Agustín Díaz Yanes' Spanish-language film Alatriste, set during Spain's 16th century imperial wars. In 2007 Mortensen teamed up for a second time with David Cornenberg, playing a Russian mob enforcer in Eastern Promises. His impressive work in the film garnered him strong reviews as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Unfortunately for Mortensen, that year brought some stiff competition in the form of Daniel Day Lewis, who ultimately took home the award for his powerful performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood. A grim trek through a post-apocalyptic wasteland followed when Mortensen took the lead in John Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road (2009), and in 2011 the actor continued his collaboration with Canadian auteur Cronenberg by playing none other than legendary psychologist Sigmund Freud (opposite Michael Fassbender's Carl Jung) in A Dangerous Method.

Trivia: Sean Astin had starred in ten movies, directed a short film, and formed his own production company all before his 21st birthday. The elder son of actress Patty Duke and actor/director John Astin, he knew the hazards of Hollywood life: As a popular child star, Astin refrained from drinking, drugs, and narcissism. He juggled acting with attending classes at Crossroads High School for the Arts and Los Angeles Valley College, eventually graduating cum laude from the University of California at Los Angeles with dual degrees in History and American Literature and Culture. When his younger brother, fellow kid actor Mackenzie Astin, temporarily fled Los Angeles to pursue journalism, Astin doggedly remained in town -- he once half-heartedly considered a law career, but could never part with being an entertainer. Astin was born in Santa Monica, CA, on February 25, 1971. His famous parents actively supported his childhood ambition to become an actor, and Astin was cast in TV specials, movies, and even series until 1983. Barely a year later, screenwriter Steven Spielberg handpicked the 13-year-old Astin to star as Michael "Mikey" Walsh in Richard Donner's children's adventure film The Goonies (1985). Astin earned his first Young Artist Award for his work on the film and went on to act in a host of teen pictures. He headlined the Disney Channel television movie The B.R.A.T. Patrol (1986), joined Kevin Bacon for the wilderness adventure White Water Summer (1987), and appeared with Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron in the comedy Like Father, Like Son (1987).In 1988, Astin directed his first short film, a Vietnam picture about the unexpected relationship between an American GI and a Viet Cong soldier titled On My Honor. Astin's own production company, Lava Entertainment, financed the film. While continuing to develop projects through Lava Entertainment, Astin starred with Dermot Mulroney in 1989's Staying Together. He won his second Young Artist Award for his performance in the picture. Also in 1989, Astin portrayed the teenage son of feuding couple Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas in Danny DeVito's The War of the Roses. He finished off the '80s by enlisting in the all-star cast of Michael Caton-Jones' World War II drama Memphis Belle (1990). The film -- which also features Matthew Modine, Harry Connick Jr., Billy Zane, and Eric Stoltz -- followed the crew of the Memphis Belle bomber on their harrowing final run over Germany. Astin's stocky build and comic timing lent well to his incarnation as the group's tail gunner, Sergeant Richard "Rascal" Moore. When Astin initially lost the lead role in his next picture, Toy Soldiers (1991), to Wil Wheaton, he treated the film's director, Dan Petrie Jr., to a screening of Memphis Belle. Petrie was so impressed by his work that he relegated Wheaton to a supporting part and cast Astin as Toy Soldiers' hero, a rebellious student who saves his prep school from South American terrorists.In the spring of 1992, Astin starred with Pauly Shore and Brendan Fraser in Encino Man, a comedy about two California high school students who discover a caveman. He then reunited with Dermot Mulroney in the drama Where the Day Takes You (1992), which also stars Will Smith, Christian Slater, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Ricki Lake. 1993 saw Astin play the title character in Rudy, the memorable film about a tenacious boy determined to play football for Notre Dame despite the fact that he is too small. Football coaches around the United States still show the film before games to inspire their players, and, to this day, strangers still chant "Rudy! Rudy!" when they spot Astin on the street.After filming Safe Passage (1994) with Susan Sarandon and Sam Shepard, Astin appeared in the independent film The Low Life (1995), for which he won the Best Actor Award at the 1995 Fort Lauderdale Film Festival. That same year, he wrote, directed, and produced his second short film, Kangaroo Court. The picture tells the story of a police officer who is put on trial by an inner-city gang and stars Gregory Hines and Michael O'Keefe. It earned Astin an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Film (coincidently, John Astin was nominated in the same category for his film Prelude in 1969).Astin continued to work steadily throughout the '90s. In 1995, he starred in Showtime's adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s futuristic short story Harrison Bergeron. In 1996, he made a cameo as a doomed soldier in the first feature film to depict Desert Storm, Edward Zwick's Courage Under Fire. In 1997, he directed and starred in an episode of HBO's Perversions of Science called "Snap Ending" and was one of several narrators in the Academy Award-winning Holocaust documentary The Long Way Home. In 1998, Astin took a small role in Warren Beatty's Bulworth and began work on a string of independent films -- including Boy Meets Girl (1998), Dish Dogs (1998), Kimberly (1999), Deterrence (1999), and Icebreaker (1999). The decade also brought changes to Astin's personal life. On July 11, 1992, he married Christine Astin (born Harrell) at Patty Duke's Idaho farm. The couple met when she worked at Astin's talent agency and they co-founded Lava Entertainment together. Then, in 1994, Astin underwent DNA testing that revealed rock promoter Michael Tell to be his biological father (Patty Duke and Tell had been briefly married before her engagement to John Astin). Though the actor is friendly with Tell, he still considers those who raised him to be his parents. Two years later, Astin and his wife had their first child, Alexandra Louise, in November of 1996. In the summer of 1999, Astin landed the coveted part of portly hobbit Samwise "Sam" Gamgee in Peter Jackson's highly anticipated three-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Auditions for the role were held over several months in every English-speaking country in the world. Astin's father had appeared in Jackson's horror film The Frighteners, and the veteran actor's fondness for the director made Astin determined to get the part. When he found that his only competition was an overweight English thespian, Astin gained 30 pounds to secure the role. All three installments of the trilogy -- The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003) -- were filmed simultaneously over an 18-month period in New Zealand. Astin's wife and daughter accompanied him to the shoot and Alexandra made her acting debut as a young hobbit in Sam Gamgee's family. The couple had a second child, Elizabeth Louise, between the release of the first and second films.After the success of the Lord of the Rings franchise, Astin kept busy with a slew of projects throughout the 2000s, like 50 First Dates, Click, and an arc on the TV series 24. Astin would also do extensive voice acting in the 2000s and 2010s, on kids shows like Special Agent Oso and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Trivia: Possessing an unusual beauty marked by perhaps the most distinctive set of lips in the business (an inheritance from father Steven Tyler), Liv Tyler unsurprisingly made her entrance into acting via the world of modeling. Since her breakthrough role in 1996's Stealing Beauty, she has emerged as a performer with bona fide talent, dropping her "model-actress" hyphenate in favor of just "actress."Born in New York, NY, on July 1, 1977, to model and former 1970s rock groupie Bebe Buell, Tyler spent most of her youth believing that rocker Todd Rundgren was her father. However, as she grew older, she began to notice more than a passing resemblance between herself and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler, who was a family friend, and she ultimately discovered that he was indeed her biological father. When she was 12, she took Tyler's last name as her own.After experiencing obligatory preteen awkwardness -- hers featured braces and a bit of a weight problem -- Tyler had blossomed enough by the time she was 14 to consider modeling. She moved to New York City in the company of her mother and began to pursue a career. After appearing on the covers of magazines like Seventeen and Mirabella, Tyler got her first taste of acting while filming a television commercial. She made her film debut in 1994, as the sister of an autistic boy in Bruce Beresford's Silent Fall, appearing in the mystery alongside Richard Dreyfuss and Linda Hamilton.Following this fairly auspicious debut, Tyler's next project, 1995's Empire Records, proved a disappointment on both commercial and critical levels. Tyler kept at it, next starring as the unrequited love interest of a reclusive pizza maker (Pruitt Taylor Vince) in James Mangold's Heavy that same year. Her work in the critically hailed film won her wide praise and her career began to take off. Tyler's breakthrough came the following year in Bernardo Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty. Starring as a 19-year-old who comes to Italy to find her father and lose her virginity, she suddenly became Hollywood's new "It" Girl, appearing on magazine covers and as one of People's "50 Most Beautiful" in 1997.After a lead as one of the titular Abbott sisters in Inventing the Abbotts (1997) and a brief cameo in U-Turn the same year, Tyler stepped into the realm of bloated budgets and even more bloated box-office returns with her role as Bruce Willis' daughter and Ben Affleck's girlfriend in Armageddon (1998). The following year, she returned to the art house circuit with Robert Altman's Cookie's Fortune. The film was widely praised, as was its ensemble cast, which included Tyler, Glenn Close, Julianne Moore, Charles S. Dutton, Chris O'Donnell, and Ned Beatty. The same year, Tyler lent her talents to the 18th century road movie genre, starring opposite Robert Carlyle and Jonny Lee Miller in Plunkett and Macleane. She also had a leading role as the object of Ralph Fiennes' jaded affections in Martha Fiennes' Onegin, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival.After taking the role of an irresistibly destructive seductress in the 2001 comedy One Night at McCool's, Tyler took another trip back in time, this time putting her pixyish beauty to ideal use as Arwen, an elf faced with the daunting dilemma of choosing between love and immortality in director Peter Jackson's grandiose, three-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolken's Lord of the Rings.She was the love interest for Ben Affleck in Kevin Smith's Jersey Girl. In 2007, she stretched her dramatic range in Mike Binder's Reign Over Me, and the next year played the love interest of Dr. Banner in The Incredible Hulk, and also took the lead in the home-invasion thriller The Strangers. She was the love interest for a frustrated wannabe superhero in James Gunn's Super in 2010, and the next year she had a major part in the thriller The Ledge. In 2014, she starred in the HBO series The Leftovers.

Trivia: With her regal and elegant visage, Aussie actress Cate Blanchett broke through the mob of aspiring actors and instantly ascended the ranks to Hollywood stardom with her Academy Award-nominated turn as Elizabeth I in Shekhar Kapur's Elizabeth (1998). Her concomitantly poignant and fierce portrayal won admiration from critics and filmgoers, but she had maintained a low enough profile in years prior (and her celebrity materialized so quickly) that the Elizabeth triumph appeared to pull the heretofore unseen actress from out of thin air and caught just about everyone off guard. Born in Melbourne on May 14, 1969, Catherine Elise Blanchett entered the world as the daughter of an Australian mother and a Texas-born American father, with two siblings. Her dad died of a heart attack when she was ten; her mother subsequently raised her. Blanchett studied economics and fine art at the University of Melbourne, but -- reeling from ennui and dissatisfaction -- she set off in search of an alternate vocation and traveled for a period of time, perhaps in search of herself. Blanchett ultimately landed in Egypt, where a chance bit part in an Arabic boxing film introduced her to a newfound love of acting. Taking this as a firm cue, Blanchett harkened back to Sydney, where she enrolled in (and ultimately graduated from) the highly esteemed National Academy of Dramatic Art. Blanchett later joined the Sydney Theatre Company, where she earned positive notices in a production of Caryl Churchill's Top Girls. A subsequent role in Timothy Daley's musical Kafka Dances won Blanchett a 1993 New Comer Award from the Sydney Theatre Critics Circle, an honor doubled that same year when she gleaned a Rosemont Best Actress Award for her performance opposite future Elizabeth co-star Geoffrey Rush in David Mamet's Oleanna. The considerable prestige that accompanied these theatrical triumphs led Blanchett to the small screen, where she appeared in various programs for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, including the drama Heartland and the cop series Police Rescue. Her television performances caught the attention of director Bruce Beresford, who cast her in his 1997 POW drama Paradise Road as a shy Australian nurse, opposite Glenn Close and Frances McDormand. 1997 proved to be a busy year as it also found her staring in the comedy Thank God He Met Lizzie, for which she netted an Australian Film Institute Best Actress Award. By the end of the year she had an even bigger event than any successful acting gigs as she was married in December to British film technician Andrew Upton. With the considerable amount of praise and recognition Blanchett was receiving in her native country and a partner in her personal life to share it with, it was only a matter of time and opportunity before she became known to a wider audience. Her opportunity arrived that very same year, with her role in Gillian Armstrong's adaptation of Peter Carey's novel Oscar and Lucinda. Opposite Ralph Fiennes, Blanchett won almost uniform praise for her performance in a tepidly received film. Blanchett came first-billed in the following year's Elizabeth. The film drew swift and unequivocal praise, and Blanchett's portrayal of the queen turned her into Los Angeles' newest cause célèbre. A plethora of awards greeted Kapur's feature and Blanchett's performance, including a Best Actress Academy Award nomination and eight additional Oscar nods. The actress won a Golden Globe and British Academy Award, in addition to a host of critics' circle awards. With that experience under her belt, Blanchett starred opposite Angelina Jolie, John Cusack, and Billy Bob Thornton in the Mike Newell comedy Pushing Tin (1999). Although the film dive-bombed at the box office, critics singled out Blanchett's fine performance as a Long Island housewife. The same year, she played another domestic, albeit one of an entirely different stripe, in Oliver Parker's adaptation of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband. Despite a uniformly strong cast including Jeremy Northam, Rupert Everett, and Julianne Moore, the film divided critics, although Blanchett herself again earned favorable notices.Blanchett maintained a busy schedule after the Newell project, appearing in a plethora films throughout the early 2000s. She joined Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci with her role as a kindhearted albeit materialistic showgirl in The Man Who Cried, then starred as a fortune-teller who holds the key to a mysterious murder in director Sam Raimi's The Gift, an unwitting accomplice in the crime comedy Bandits, a British schoolteacher in Tom Tykwer's Kieslowski update Heaven, and Galadriel, Queen of Lothlórien, in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Blanchett also appeared in 2001's The Shipping News (as Petal) and director Gillian Armstrong's Charlotte Gray as the title character. That same year, she gave birth to her first son, Dashiell John.Blanchett's appeared as ill-fated Irish journalist Veronica Guerin in director Joel Schumacher and producer Jerry Bruckheimer's eponymously titled 2003 biopic. The film drew very mixed reviews and died a quick death in cinemas during its late-autumn run, but those reviewers who did respond favorably again singled out the actress' stunning interpretation of the role. The following year, Blanchett appeared in Wes Anderson's quirky film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou alongside Bill Murray and Owen Wilson. Blanchett wore a prosthetic belly in the film for her role as a seven months pregnant journalist and, interestingly enough, she later found that she was actually pregnant during filming. She gave birth to her second son, Roman Robert, later that same year. First, however, she effortlessly lit up the screen with a performance as film legend Katharine Hepburn in director Martin Scorsese's lavish Howard Hughes epic The Aviator. If The Aviator's Best Picture loss to Million Dollar Baby proved somewhat disappointing to Scorsese fans when the Oscars were handed out, Blanchett landed her greatest triumph that evening: she won the Best Supporting Actress award for her turn as Hepburn. Perhaps despairing the paucity of solid scripts in Hollywood, Blanchett went global after the Scorsese affair. She returned to her native Australia for a low-key follow-up, Rowan Woods' harrowing and skillful Little Fish (2005). 2006's multi-national production Babel, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, won the Best Director Award at Cannes; one of the narrative strands in its array of subplots featured Blanchett and Brad Pitt as husband and wife, grieving over the death of a child, and thrust into a desperate situation. Babel turned out to be a major critical success, as did another film Blanchett appeared in that same year, Notes on a Scandal. In the film, Blanchett played a mother and schoolteacher who becomes deeply embroiled in a maze of power and deception when she betrays her job and family by carrying on an affair with a student. The tautly suspenseful and intimate film also starred Judi Dench as Blanchett's friend and confidant, who soon becomes a source of emotional blackmail. The actresses were each praised for their performances, and each received both Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for their work in the film. Blanchett went on to play Lena Brandt in The Good German, Steven Soderbergh and Paul Attanasio's tale of a man (George Clooney) searching for his former mistress (Blanchett) in post-WWII Berlin. She also signed on for Poison helmer Todd Haynes' I'm Not There: Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan, slated for release in 2007. The eccentric bio of the pop singer co-starred Richard Gere, Julianne Moore, Adrien Brody, and Charlotte Gainsbourg with numerous varied performers playing the musician in different sequences. Also set for release in 2007 was Blanchett's return to one of her greatest triumphs as Elizabeth I in The Golden Age, Shekhar Kapur's sequel to his 1998 arthouse hit Elizabeth, which would take place later in the Virgin Queen's reign. Geoffrey Rush agreed to reprise his role as Sir Francis Walsingham, and the film would also feature Clive Owen as Sir Walter Raleigh, establisher of the first New World colony and controversial figure of the Elizabethan court. Blanchett also agreed to join the cast of the David Fincher-directed fantasy The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -- a critically acclaimed hit of 2008 -- before moving on to play a nefarious baddie in the unique thriller Hanna in 2012. Soon, the actress was reprising the role of elvin queen Galadriel for the Lord of the Rings prequel, The Hobbit. In 2013, she won her second Academy Award, this time for Lead Actress, for her portrayal of an unhinged socialite in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine. In 2015, Blanchett played the evil stepmother in the live-action version of Cinderella, took on a supporting role in Terrence Malick's Knight of Cups and earned her seventh Oscar nomination for Todd Haynes' Carol.

Trivia: Billy Boyd is recognizable to international audiences as The Lord of the Rings trilogy's comic and courageous hobbit Peregrin "Pippin" Took. He is also one of Scotland's most prolific theater actors, a skilled musician, and a talented singer. Since graduating from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama with a diploma in Dramatic Arts, Boyd starred in countless stage productions throughout the United Kingdom. He plays drums, bass, and guitar, and sings baritone and tenor. Boyd was discussing his latest play at Scotland's celebrated Traverse Theater, when he heard that he landed a coveted and career-changing role in The Lord of the Rings trilogy: one more great accomplishment in an already brilliant career. Boyd was born in 1968 in Glasgow, Scotland, where he still lives today. He adored escaping to the movies as a child. After multiple viewings of George Lucas' Star Wars, Boyd reasoned that if he could not truly be a Jedi Knight, he might as well be an actor. At ten years old, he played the Artful Dodger in his school's version of Oliver Twist and was hooked. Through high school, he performed in amateur productions at the local art center and in annual Christmas shows. Yet, a cynical school guidance counselor coerced Boyd to temporarily abandon his ambition. After graduation, he became an apprentice bookbinder at a publishing house. Boyd bound books for six years, making good friends with his colleagues and spending his nights singing with a band on the Glasgow pub circuit. When he realized that he desired a change, he applied to acting school. Boyd's audition tape marked the first time he acted in six years; nevertheless he was accepted into a selective three-year, acting-intensive diploma program at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama for the upcoming semester. In his first term, he learned to perfect his voice and movement. In his second, he performed in Shakespeare, Chekov, comedies, musicals, and even pantomimes. He earned walk-on roles on several television shows, and even a speaking part on Scotland's Taggart. Shortly before graduation, St. Andrews Repertory hired Boyd for their production of The Slab Boys, and to play the title role in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole. He has acted steadily ever since, performing in several Shakespearean and various modern plays, including the U.K. tour of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. He added four BBC Radio programs to his credit, and appeared in his first mainstream film, Jason Connery's Urban Ghost Story (1998). He also displayed his singing and drumming talents in the cult musical Julie and the Cadillacs (1999), in which he played the Scottish drummer of an English band during the '60s. In the fall of 1998, Boyd auditioned for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, New Line Cinema's massive three-film screen adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's books. After meeting with director Peter Jackson, Boyd defeated over a hundred actors for the major role of Pippin Took and flew to New Zealand for the trilogy's 18-month shoot. Pippin is as brave as he is foolish, and as stout-hearted as he is afraid. The character appears in all three films -- The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), The Return of the King (2003) -- making Boyd an instant celebrity. After completing The Lord of the Rings, Boyd quickly rejoined the theater. Only one month before the press junkets began for the trilogy's first installment, he performed in the Traverse Theater's rock & roll production The Ballad of Crazy Paola. Besides being named as one of Scotland's most eligible males, Boyd completed a comedy screenplay with fellow hobbit Dominic Monaghan, and launched his official website.Boyd co-starred alongside Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), then played a significantly campier role the following year in Seed of Chucky. Though his work in the Lord of the Rings trilogy continues to be his most recognizable film role, Boyd appeared in a number of lesser known, yet meaty roles for the films On a Clear Day (2005), The Flying Scotsman (2007), and Stone of Destiny (2008). In 2009 he starred in the crime thriller Pimp, and co-starred in 2011's The Witches of Oz. Boyd continues to be active in film and television.

Trivia: Actor Dominic Monaghan played cheeky rabble-rousers in British theater and television long before he was cast as a comical hobbit in New Line Cinema's epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Born in Berlin, Germany, on December 8, 1976, Monaghan is the younger of two boys. His schoolteacher father and nurse mother spoke English at home and, when Monaghan was 12 years old, moved the family back to their native Manchester. Growing up, Monaghan worked several odd jobs -- as a mail sorter, a stock boy, a sauté chef -- but he always wanted to be an actor. He enrolled at Aquinas College, a Catholic sixth form school in England, where he studied English literature, drama, and geography. By his second year, Monaghan was a regular fixture in school plays. He performed in Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, played the Artful Dodger in Dickens' Oliver Twist, and even portrayed American gangster Bugsy Malone. Monaghan soon started acting outside of school and joined the Manchester Youth Theatre. His work with the troupe caught the attention of a talent agent, who sent him to an open casting call for the television show Hetty Wainthrop Investigates, starring veteran actress Patricia Routledge. Monaghan, then only 18, made his television debut as amateur detective Routledge's underage sidekick, Geoffrey Shawcross. The actor appeared on Hetty Wainthrop Investigates for four seasons, building a fan base and honing his craft. In the next few years, Monaghan made his feature-film debut as a Russian sailor in Hostile Waters with Rutger Hauer and taped the docudrama This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper, in which he portrays the boyfriend of a girl attacked by the Ripper. He also recorded his first BBC radio show, "Stockport...So Good They Named It Once," a family sitcom that features Monaghan as a witty, lovelorn 15 year old. Monaghan was performing in a play in London when casting directors scouted him for The Lord of the Rings. As a child, he had read all three volumes of J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy; the books were his father's favorite. After a formal audition for The Lord of the Rings, Monaghan left England to film the WWII miniseries Monsignor Renard (1999) in France, in which he plays a droll layabout whose life dramatically changes during the German occupation. Six months into shooting, Monaghan's agent warned him to be prepared to immediately leave for Los Angeles or New Zealand to meet with Peter Jackson, The Lord of the Rings' director. The actor packed, but the meeting never occurred: Within days, he was called with an offer to play hobbit Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck, a major character in all three films.The Lord of the Rings' three installments -- The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003) -- were taped simultaneously in New Zealand and kept Monaghan occupied for almost two years. Their yearly releases ensured Monaghan's continuing popularity, and their popularity brought him hoards of jobs offers. After returning to England, besides sifting through piles of potential scripts, Monaghan also completed his own comedy screenplay with fellow hobbit Billy Boyd. He would soon move on to find success on the small screen with a pivotal role on the popular series Lost, followed by a number of other TV projects, like FlashForward, Goodnight Burbank, and The Unknown.

Trivia: Orlando Bloom began reading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy as a teenager before abandoning the books in favor of sports and girls. He did not complete the three volumes until his early twenties: first in print, and then on camera as one of a handful of actors carefully selected for New Line Cinema's highly anticipated, $270 million, three-film screen adaptation of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. The international success of the trilogy's first installment, The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), made Bloom a sought-after young actor. The talented Brit works the talk show circuit, mugs in magazines, and appears at every important award show -- always with a playful demeanor and an uncorrupted smile that suggest he could still be just as easily fulfilled by rugby and romance. Bloom was raised in Canterbury, Kent, with his sister, Samantha. Their mother taught them to enjoy the arts and encouraged them to participate in the local Kent Festival. Bloom began by reciting poetry and prose, displaying an advanced sensitivity to tone and modulation. Yet, it wasn't this precociousness or his frequent trips to the theater that influenced Bloom to become a professional actor. He was in awe of larger-than-life characters -- from Superman to the members of the A-Team -- and knew the only way to become one was to play one on the screen. At 16, Bloom relocated to London and performed with the National Youth Theatre for two seasons before winning a scholarship to train with the British American Drama Academy. At the conclusion of his term with the group, he played the lead in A Walk in the Vienna Woods, and secured an agent. This led to small roles on British television and an appearance in Brian Gilbert's Wilde (1997). Wishing to further his education, Bloom then enrolled at London's prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama (the alma mater of Ewan McGregor, Joseph Fiennes, and Ben Chaplin, among others). There, he acted in several plays, including Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Chekov's Three Sisters, and Sophocles' Antigone. While still in school, Bloom was trying to make it onto a friend's rooftop terrace when he fell three stories and broke his back. The accident almost paralyzed the actor, but surgery let him walk out of the hospital on crutches. Soon afterward, all his peers auditioned for coveted roles in the upcoming The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The extensive and selective casting process took place in every English-speaking country. Bloom good-naturedly tried out for the role of Faramir, a character introduced in the second film, The Two Towers (2002). After meeting with the project's director, Peter Jackson, Bloom was not cast as Faramir. Instead, Jackson asked that he read for the part of Legolas Greenleaf, a much more prominent figure who is featured in all three films. The director offered Bloom the role a few weeks later, only two days before the burgeoning star graduated from drama school. Legolas, Tolkien's warrior elf, has super-human strength, swift reflexes, and heightened sensory awareness. To play him, Bloom trained in archery, swordplay, and horseback riding for two months prior to shooting. He developed a graceful style of combat based on the characters in Akira Kurosawa's The Seven Samurai and worked to manage his posture, poise, and composure. As Legolas, Bloom is immortal, and at 2,931 years old, is a tall, athletic, and skilled fighter of evil -- he truly is larger than life. After finishing The Lord of the Rings -- all three films, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, were shot simultaneously over 18 months in New Zealand -- Bloom headed to Morocco for a role in Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down. The film chronicles the horrific Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, in which a "simple" mission left 18 U.S. soldiers dead and 73 wounded. Debuting his American accent, Bloom plays a neophyte ranger who breaks his back after falling 70 feet from a helicopter. This combat film opened only a few weeks after The Fellowship of the Ring and received equal acclaim. Following these blockbusters, Bloom performed in several quirky films with limited releases such as Lullaby of Clubland (2001). But it wouldn't be long before Bloom was blowing up the box-office once again with the 2003 crowd-pleaser The Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Bloom showed up opposite Brad Pitt and Black Hawk Dawn costar Eric Bana in the 2004 historical epic Troy, his intense star-power was unquestionable.Bloom faced a down year in 2005, failing to match the box office success of Troy with Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven. That same year he stepped into the role once occupied by Ashton Kutcher in Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown, but the film never recovered from the bad press it received after its initial film festival screening, failed to find an audience in theaters, and was unpopular with critics. Bloom rebounded one year later by returning with the other principles in back-to-back filmed sequels for Pirates of the Caribbean, the first of which, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, shattered box office records for opening day and opening weekend, and became the first film to take in one hundred million dollars in just two days. It will hardly strike one as prescient, then, that industry insiders and the trades were advance prepping Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End as one of the most lucrative releases of 2007, possibly of any year. The actor would appear in more down tempo projects in the coming years, like 2010's Main Street, and 2011's The Good Doctor, before hopping on board another swashbuckler, playing the Duke of Buckhingham in The Three Musketeers. Though the film wasn't a huge success in the States, Bloom would have another franchise ticket to cash in the following year, reprising the role of elf Legolas in the Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit.

Trivia: John Rhys-Davies is one of modern cinema's most recognizable character actors. While best known for his work as Indiana Jones' (Harrison Ford) comic sidekick, Sallah, in two of Paramount's Indiana Jones adventure films, the actor has appeared in over 100 television shows and films since the early '70s. He has built an impressive onscreen career, especially for a stage actor who once swore that he would never perform in front of a camera. Born in Wales on May 5, 1944, Rhys-Davies grew up in England, Wales, and East Africa. He studied English and History at the University of East Anglia at Norwich, where he became interested in theater while reading classical literature. Upon graduating, Rhys-Davies earned a scholarship to study acting at London's prestigious Academy of Dramatic Art. He then worked briefly as a schoolteacher before joining the Madder-Market Theatre in Norwich. The actor, who eventually advanced to the Royal Shakespeare Company, performed in over 100 plays. His theatrical credits include starring roles in Shakespeare's Othello, The Tempest, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Henry the Fourth, Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, and Moliere's The Misanthrope. Rhys-Davies was 28 when he made his television debut in 1972 as Laughing Spam Fritter in the BBC's Budgie, a comedy starring former British pop star Adam Faith as an amusing ne'er-do-well. In 1975, he joined John Hurt in the cast of the television show The Naked Civil Servant, which chronicled the rich life of Quentin Crisp. One year later, Rhys-Davies re-teamed with Hurt, as well as Derek Jacobi and Patrick Stewart, for the BBC's unforgettable three-part adaptation of Robert Graves' I, Claudius and Claudius the God. Titled I, Claudius, the television miniseries appeared on PBS's Masterpiece Theater and gave American audiences their first glimpse of the actor. He subsequently starred as Vasco Rodrigues in NBC's adaptation of James Clavell's Shogun, which told the adventures of an English sailor stranded in Japan during the early 17th century. Rhys-Davies' performance earned him both an Emmy nomination and the attention of director Steven Spielberg. In 1981, Spielberg cast Rhys-Davies as the comic, fez-wearing Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first installment of the Indiana Jones movies. The film was an instant success and Rhys-Davies' comedic skill made Sallah an audience favorite. He went on to film Victor/Victoria (1982) with Julie Andrews, James Garner, Robert Preston, Leslie Ann Warren, and former pro-football player Alex Karras. For the next two decades, the actor worked on numerous films and television shows and made memorable guest appearances on ChiPs, The Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Murder, She Wrote, Perry Mason, Tales From the Crypt, Star Trek: Voyager, and The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne. In 1987, he portrayed Front de Boeuf in the television adaptation of Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe that starred James Mason and Sam Neill. That same year, he played the evil Russian General Koskov in the Timothy Dalton-helmed James Bond film The Living Daylights. 1989 saw Rhys-Davies playing Joe Gargery in the Disney Channel's adaptation of Dickens' Great Expectations, starring in the miniseries version of War and Remembrance with Robert Mitchum, David Dukes, and Jane Seymour, and returning as Sallah in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In 1990, he wrote and starred in the safari adventure film Tusks. In 1991, he hosted the documentary Archaeology. In 1993, he signed onto the series The Untouchables, based on Brian De Palma's hit film. The show was short-lived and Rhys-Davies did not work on a successful television series until 1995's Sliders with Jerry O'Connell. The sci-fi venture accrued a rather large fan base: Audience members were openly upset when Rhys-Davies' character, the bombastic Professor Maximillian P. Arturo, left the series after only three seasons. After appearing with Damon Wayans in The Great White Hype (1996), Rhys-Davies recorded voice work for the animated films Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996) and Cats Don't Dance (1997). The actor has done additional voice work for Animaniacs, Batman: the Animated Series, Gargoyles, Pinky and the Brain, The Fantastic Four, and The Incredible Hulk. He has also branched out to other medias, starring in video games such as Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger, Dune 2000, and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, and the CD-ROM game Quest for Glory IV. In 1999, Rhys-Davies read for the minor character of Denethor in the second installment of Peter Jackson's highly anticipated three-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Jackson offered him the role of the warrior dwarf Gimli, a major figure in all three pictures. As Gimli, Rhys-Davies is utterly unrecognizable: The part required that he wear heavy facial prosthetics and perform on his knees in order to portray the 4'2" dwarf (the actor, himself, is over six feet tall). The three films -- The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003) -- were shot simultaneously over an 18-month period in New Zealand, after which Rhys-Davies was asked to return to the set and record the voice of Treebeard, a computer-generated character in the second picture. In 2001, in the midst of attending press junkets for the release of The Fellowship of the Ring, Rhys-Davies began work on the Jackie Chan film Highbinders (2002) and the Eric Roberts B-picture Endangered Species (2002). Besides being an actor, Rhys-Davies is also a serious vintage car collector and a thriving investor. In the '80s, he invested heavily with his earnings and purchased a company that conducts genetic engineering feasibility studies. The actor resides in both Los Angeles and the Isle of Man.

Trivia: After several years in secondary film roles, the skeletal, menacing Christopher Lee achieved horror-flick stardom as the Monster in 1958's The Curse of Frankenstein, the second of his 21 Hammer Studios films. Contrary to popular belief, Lee and Peter Cushing did not first appear together in The Curse of Frankenstein. In Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), in which Cushing plays the minor role of Osric, Lee appears as the cadaverous candle-bearer in the "frighted with false fires" scene, one of his first film roles. In 1958, Lee made his inaugural appearance as "the Count" in The Horror of Dracula, with Cushing as Van Helsing. It would remain the favorite of Lee's Dracula films; the actor later noted that he was grateful to be allowed to convey "the sadness of the character. The terrible sentence, the doom of immortality...."Three years after Curse, Lee added another legendary figure to his gallery of characters: Sherlock Holmes, the protagonist of Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes. With the release eight years later of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Lee became the first actor ever to portray both Holmes and Holmes' brother, Mycroft, onscreen. Other Lee roles of note include the title characters in 1959's The Mummy and the Fu Manchu series of the '60s, and the villainous Scaramanga in the 1974 James Bond effort The Man With the Golden Gun. In one brilliant casting coup, the actor was co-starred with fellow movie bogeymen Cushing, Vincent Price, and John Carradine in the otherwise unmemorable House of Long Shadows (1982). Established as a legend in his own right, Lee continued working steadily throughout the '80s and '90s, appearing in films ranging from Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) to Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow (1999).In 2001, after appearing in nearly 300 film and television productions and being listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the international star with the most screen credits to his name, the 79-year-old actor undertook the role of Saruman, chief of all wizards, in director Peter Jackson's eagerly anticipated screen adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Thought by many to be the millennial predecessor to George Lucas' Star Wars franchise, audiences thrilled to the wondrous battle between Saruman and Gandalf (Ian McKellen) atop the wizard's ominous tower, though Lee didn't play favorites between the franchises when Lucas shot back with the continuing saga of Anakin Skywalker's journey to the dark side in mid-2002. Wielding a lightsaber against one of the most powerful adversaries in the Star Wars canon, Lee proved that even at 80 he still had what it takes to be a compelling and demanding screen presence. He lent his vocal talents to Tim Burton's Corpse Bride in 2005, and appeared as the father of Willy Wonka in the same director's adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic. He appeared as Count Dooku in Revenge of the Sith, and voiced the part for the animated Clone Wars. He appeared in the quirky British film Burke & Hare in 2010, and the next year he could be seen Martin Scorsese's Hugo. In 2012 he teamed with Tim Burton yet again when he appeared in the big-screen adaptation of Dark Shadows.Now nearly into 90s, Lee returned to Middle Earth in 2012 with Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, appearing in the first (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey) and third (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies) films. He also reprised the role in a number of video games based on the two series. Lee was still actively working when he died in 2015, at age 93.

Trivia: Daughter of Australian actor Barry Otto and graduate of the prestigious NIDA theatrical school (which spawned such down-under luminaries as Mel Gibson and Judy Davis), Miranda Otto's role as Eowyn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy had the four-time AFA nominated actress excited and overwhelmed. Likening the experience to being in The Wizard of Oz, Otto speculated that the trilogy will withstand the test of time, endearing itself to generations to come as a timeless fantasy for all ages.Gaining critical recognition for roles in such films as The Girl Who Came Late (1991) and Gillian Anderson's Last Days of Chez Nous, Otto made her feature debut in Emma's War (1986). Otto's portrayal of a daughter who is blind to the crippling tolls that World War II has taken on her fragile mother led the actress to roles in many critically acclaimed but little-seen films. After a decade of powerful roles in Australian films, Otto gained Hollywood recognition in the late '90s with roles in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998) and as the mysterious neighbor in Robert Zemeckis' supernatural thriller What Lies Beneath (2000). In addition to her appearance in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Otto's other 2001 films include the offbeat comedy Human Nature, scripted by Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich). Her role as an affectionate French lab assistant proving without question that her comic skills were indeed as intact as her dramatic skills, it wasn't long before the offers were rolling in and Otto was deemed the new "it" girl. Next turning up in the barely-released thriller Hypnotic (aka Doctor Sleep), Otto gained positive notice for her supporting role despite the fact that the film went largely unseen. Both that film and the subsequent indie-drama Julie Walking Home (2002) proved a perfect low-key balance to the grandiose second chapter in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. A bleak tale of a mother's desperate and unyielding last ditch attempts to save her cancer-stircken son when mainstream medicine fails him, Julie Walking Home ultimately proved too melodramatic for many though Otto was frequently singled out for praise by critics for her powerful and moving performance. In 2003 Otto re-teamed with Human Nature star Rhys Ifans for the quirky comedy Danny Deckchair. The tale of a man who, desperate to escape his mundane day-to-day reality, takes to the sky by means of some large helium balloons and a sturdy deck chair, Donny Deckchair once again found the genre hopping Otto utilizing her comic abilities to charming effect as a parking cop who becomes the eponymous character's love interest.In the years to follow, Otto would find no shortage of varied and interesting roles, enjoying TV success with shows like Cashmere Mafia and the mini-series The Starter Wife, as well as in movies like In Her Skin and Blessed.

Trivia: When producers of the Lord of the Rings trilogy needed an actor of eminence and power to play King Théoden in the second and third films, they went fishing and reeled in a prize catch: Bernard Hill. It was Hill who portrayed Captain E.J. Smith in the 1997 box-office blockbuster Titanic. By sinking to the bottom as the stiff-upper-lipped commanding officer of the doomed ship, Hill rose to new heights in his profession, receiving international recognition for his acting skill. Although Titanic was mediocre artistically, audiences loved it for its soapy melodrama, special effects, and strong performances from veteran actors like Hill. But who was Hill? When fans checked into his background, they discovered that he was among Britain's most accomplished actors. In the 1980s, he earned critical acclaim for roles in stage and television productions of Shakespeare's plays and won Britain's Press Guild award for Achievement of the Decade for his performance in the TV miniseries Boys From the Blackstuff. In 1994, he received a British Academy award for his starring role in Skallagrigg. Further research revealed that Hill had portrayed Gratus in what was unquestionably one of the top three or four TV miniseries of all time -- I, Claudius (1976) -- and Sergeant Putnam in the 1982 Academy Award-winning biodrama Gandhi. Hill was born on December 17, 1944, in Manchester, England, and eventually resided with his own family in Suffolk. Since the early '70s, he has acted in television and film, as well as theater. Hill has appeared in TV adaptations of such classics as The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot; The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame; and Antigone by Sophocles. Hill accepted roles in a string of films with offbeat names: Besides Skallagrigg, he appeared in Madagascar Skin (1995), Drug-Taking and the Arts (1994), Dirtysomething (1993), Drowning by Numbers (1988), Bellman and True (1987), Milwr Bychan (1986), Squaring the Circle (1984), The Spongers (1978), and Pit Strike (1977). In the Lord of the Rings films, Hill plays white-haired Théoden Ednew, the 17th king of Rohan and a defender of Middle-earth. Made old and decrepit beyond his chronological age by the machinations of Grima Wormtongue and Saruman, Théoden regains his vigor through the intervention of Gandalf and rides his horse, Snowmane, to battlefield glory.

Trivia: Andy Serkis always wanted a future in entertainment. Growing up in Ruslip Manor, England, he visualized himself working behind the scenes in production. Today, he is an impressive British character actor with over 50 stage, television, and film credits, distinguished performances on both Masterpiece Theatre and Mystery!, and a highly coveted role in Peter Jackson's three-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Serkis began his acting career in theater. He has appeared on almost every renowned British stage -- the Royal Court, the Royal Exchange Manchester, the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Hull Truck, Dukes Lancaster, the Nuffield Studio, and Donmar Warehouse -- and in a host of popular plays. His resumé includes performances in King Lear, Othello, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth, Faust, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, and a star-studded production of Hurly Burly with Kelly MacDonald, Elizabeth McGovern, Rupert Graves, and Stephen Dillane. The actor has fashioned a television career as prolific as his stage work. In 1987, Serkis made his small-screen debut in two episodes of the Rik Mayall vehicle The New Statesman. He then signed on as Sparky Plugs in the BBC series Morris Minor's Marvelous Motors (1989), a comedy about eccentric mechanics that specialize in fixing a type of car that no one in town owns. The next decade saw Serkis acting in several of Britain's heralded miniseries. In 1994, he appeared in the murder-mystery Finney. In 1996, he played Sergeant Corrigan in a television adaptation of Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse. In 1999, he starred in the Mystery! production Touching Evil as a grief counselor who tends to the husbands of women murdered by a brutal serial killer. In 2000, Masterpiece Theatre opened its 30th season with an adaptation of Oliver Twist that featured Serkis as Charles Dickens' terrifying loose cannon, Bill Sykes. That same year, the actor joined the international cast of Hallmark Hall of Fame's Arabian Nights, which included Dougray Scott, Mili Avital, and Rufus Sewell. In between juggling theater and television work, Serkis made his feature-film debut in the thriller Grushko (1993). His big-screen performances include a part in Mike Leigh's Career Girls (1997), a memorable turn as a wacky choreographer in the director's Topsy Turvy (1999), and the portrayal of 18th century English poet John Thelwall in Julian Temple's raucous Pandaemonium (2000). Serkis' most demanding role, however, did not require him to appear onscreen. Serkis supplied the voice and movement for the computer-animated creature Gollum in all three installments of Peter Jackson's trilogy The Lord of the Rings -- The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003). The slithery Gollum, once a naïve hobbit, is driven mad by the force of the ring and displays emotions that range from childlike to menacing. Though Gollum only lurks in the background in the first film, he is of major importance to the rest of the trilogy. Serkis worked closely with technicians from Weta Workshop and Digital to produce an empathetic and palpable representation of Tolkien's character. He performed in a suit covered in reflectors that were tracked by a computer-driven camera. Animation was then superimposed over his movement, producing one of the most realistic computer-generated images in modern cinema. After completing The Lord of the Rings, Serkis quickly returned to the London stage. In the summer of 2001, he starred with Sinead Cusack and Catherine McCormack in the U.K. production of Sam Shepard's A Lie of the Mind at the Donmar Warehouse. The play was one of the last productions overseen by the Donmar's former artistic director, Oscar winner Sam Mendes. The actor also began filming a WWI film with Billy Elliot's Jamie Bell, and wrote and directed his first short film, Snake. Besides starring his Hurly Burly co-star, Rupert Graves, Snake features Serkis' longtime partner, actress Lorraine Ashbourne. The couple has two children, Sonny and Ruby.In 2005 he served as the human model for Peter Jackson's King Kong. The next year he appeared in The Prestige, and the year after that he played a convicted murderer in Longford. He had a major starring role in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll playing legendary British rock star Ian Dury. In 2011 he was the model for Captain Haddock in Steven Spielberg's motion capture version of The Adventures of Tintin, and that same year he earned rave reviews for being the model for Caesar, the creature at the center of Rise of the Planet of the Apes. He returned to the roll of Gollum for Peter Jackson's two Hobbit films in 2012 and 2013.

Trivia: A graduate of Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art, blond, idiosyncratic leading man Hugo Weaving made his feature film debut in the socially conscious low-budget drama The City's Edge (1983), purportedly one of the first Australian films to sympathetically portray the adverse conditions suffered by aborigines. In 1991, Weaving received Best Actor kudos from the Australian Film Institute for his portrayal of a blind photographer in Jocelyn Moorhouse's Proof. In 1994, the actor earned international acclaim playing Tick, a drag queen with a secret, in the cult favorite The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). The following year, Weaving was involved in another audience pleaser when he lent his voice to play the sheep dog Rex in Babe. Weaving occasionally appears in U.S. television productions, notably the CBS miniseries Dadah Is Death, in which he played opposite Julie Christie and Sarah Jessica Parker. He also continues to work steadily in Australia, in addition to appearing in big-budget Hollywood affairs such as The Matrix, in which he starred as an evil agent opposite Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne. Following his turn in The Matrix with a few low-key romantic comedies (Strange Planet [also 1999] and Russian Doll [2001]), Weaving made a return to big-budgeted special effects extravaganzas with his involvement in director Peter Jackson's enormous adaptation of author J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. For the sequels to The Matrix, Weaving would return with a vengeance; with hundreds of Agent Smith clones sent to stop Neo (Keanu Reeves) from leading the revolution against the machines. An affiliation with another hit sci-fi series emerged when Weaving provided the voice of Megatron in Michael Bay's Transformers (as well as its two sequels), though it was the actor's affecting performance in 2009's Last Ride that earned him a nomination for Best Lead Actor at that year's Australian Film Institute awards. Cast as a dangerous Australian fugitive who flees from the law with his young son in tow, Weaving gave viewers a glimpse of the talent that was often overshadowed in his many larger-than-life roles, though it was his scenery-chewing performance as Johann Schmidt/Red Skull in Captain America: The First Avenger that got him back on the big screen in the U.S. following the disappointment of The Wolfman. Meanwhile, the busy screen veteran prepared for roles in Cloud Atlas (a sprawling sci-fi epic from Tom Tykwer and Andy and Lana Wachowski), and Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy.

Trivia: Brad Dourif is a quirky character actor whose gallery of killers, sociopaths, and other lost souls brought to life any number of contemporary horror and science fiction projects. Born March 18, 1950, in Huntington, WV, he began his professional acting career after graduating from college, honing his skills during a three-year apprenticeship with New York's Circle Repertory under the celebrated drama coach Sanford Meisner. While appearing off-Broadway in a production of When You Comin' Back, Red Rider?, Dourif was spotted by director Milos Forman, who immediately cast him in his 1975 film adaptation of the Ken Kesey novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Dourif's turn as a suicidal teen asylum inmate was one of the most acclaimed film debuts in memory, earning a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe as well as an Oscar nomination. However, the performance also typecast him as a talent best suited to idiosyncratic, off-center character roles, a straitjacket he remained unable to break from for the duration of his career. He then did not reappear onscreen for another two years before co-starring in the 1977 West German production Gruppenbild mit Dame. Dourif's next major performance came in the 1978 Irvin Kershner thriller The Eyes of Laura Mars, followed by a superb starring turn as a damaged war veteran in John Huston's Wise Blood. Upon completing a supporting role in the 1980 television film Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones, Dourif next surfaced in Michael Cimino's legendary flop Heaven's Gate, the first in a string of big-budget disasters to which the actor was attached including Forman's Ragtime and David Lynch's Dune. A series of low-budget projects followed before Dourif reunited with Lynch for a small role in the director's 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet. However, no other offers of a similar caliber were immediately forthcoming, and instead he found himself providing the voice of the evil doll Chuckie in the Child's Play series of slasher movies. In the years which followed, Dourif occasionally reappeared in more substantial projects (including the 1988 Alan Parker film Mississippi Burning, the 1990 Ken Loach picture Hidden Agenda, and Hanif Kureishi's 1991 directorial debut London Kills Me), but he remained primarily confined to low-budget genre work; additionally, he often guest starred on television, appearing in series including The X-Files, Millennium, and Star Trek: Voyager. In 2001, Dourif took a break from low-budget fright flicks to appear in a decidedly more enormous production, director Peter Jackson's eagerly anticipated Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Trivia: Considering his previous experience essaying the recurring role of Julius Caesar on the popular small screen fantasy adventure series Xena: Warrior Princess, it seems only natural that New Zealand born actor Karl Urban would advance to slay orcs in Peter Jackson's epic Lord of the Rings trilogy. Appearing as a somewhat more rugged version of screen heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio, it's obvious from his work in such films as The Price of Milk that the handsome young actor has the looks and the skills to make it on his own. A Wellington native and son of a leather goods manufacturer, Urban's first acting experience came with an appearance in a New Zealand television show at the age of eight. Though he would subsequently eschew an acting career until after graduating from high school, Urban was drawn back in front of the cameras when he was offered the opportunity to appear on an evening soap opera entitled Shortland Street while preparing to attend Victoria University. The acting bug was a bit harder to shake the second time around, and after a mere year at Victoria, Urban abandoned higher education for a career on the stages of Wellington. A relocation to Auckland found Urban gaining exposure on New Zealand television, and after a turn as a heroin addict in Shark in the Park, he made an impression in the 1998 Scott Reynolds thriller Heaven. An unaired pilot for a show called Amazon High was eventually incorporated into an episode of Xena, and Urban would next take to the screen for the gory horror outing The Irrefutable Truth About Demons. A turning point of sorts came when Urban was cast as the lead in the romantic fantasy The Price of Milk, and his performance as a milk farmer whose relationship is on the rocks found him gaining increasing recognition on the international art house circuit. Though mainstream American audiences would begin to get acquainted with Urban courtesy of his role in the seafaring horror outing Ghost Ship, his role in the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers later that same year ensured that audiences would be seeing plenty more of him in the future. Following his escapades in Middle Earth, Urban would take to the stars opposite Vin Diesel in The Chronicles of Riddick (2004). Action roles continued to come at a clip when, after dodging bullets in the fast-moving sequel The Bourne Supremacy, Urban jettisoned to Mars to do battle with a particularly nasty breed of evil in the video game-to-screen adaptation Doom. From the far future to the distant past, Urban next laid down his plasma rifle to take up sword against his own people when he assumed the role of a Viking boy raised by Native Americans in director Marcus Nispel's 2006 fantasy adventure Pathfinder. He had his widest success to that point when he was cast as Bones in J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek, returning for the first of that franchise's sequel as well. In between he could be seen in the action comedy RED, as well as the 3D comic-book adaptation Dredd.

Trivia: David Wenham is a versatile, red-haired actor whose chameleon-like ability to disappear into his characters has found him successful in everything from large-scale epics to intimate domestic dramas. His success on the stages of his native Australia eventually led him to international success thanks to roles in such acclaimed features as Moulin Rouge (2001) and the final two entries in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The youngest of seven siblings, Wenham was raised in Merrickville, Australia. The aspiring actor honed his craft at the University of Western Australia before making an impression on television audiences with a role in the popular small-screen drama Sons and Daughters in the mid-'80s. As the '90s rolled in, so did the film roles, and after a memorable turn as an embittered ex-convict in the stage play The Boys, Wenham landed parts in such features as Greenkeeping (1992) and the Hollywood sci-fi action film No Escape. In 1996, he found critical acclaim when he transferred his role as a pyromaniac in Cosi from stage to screen. After taking on a handful of small film and television parts, Wenham once again reprised a theater role with the release of The Boys in 1998. His big-screen portrayal of the explosive ex-convict who returns home after a short sting in prison found Wenham the darling of Australian critics. With a popular role in the 1998 Australian Broadcasting Company series SeaChange, Wenham earned a reputation as a reluctant sex symbol, as well as a nomination at the Australian Film Institute Awards. The following year, he took on the role of a philanthropic priest attempting to console lepers in Molokai: The Story of Father Damien, once again earning an AFI nomination for Best Actor. Though subsequent performances in Better Than Sex (2000) and Russian Doll (2001) earned Wenham even more critical acclaim overseas, it was his role as a transvestite playwright in director Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge that gave the rising star his first true taste of international success. By this time, it was clear that Wenham could carry a film, and with his turn as a mathematics wizard with an innovative plan for predicting the stock market in The Bank, he proved this once and for all. In 2002, he followed a supporting performance in The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course with a role as a heroin dealer in Pure. Later that same year, Wenham truly found an international audience when he joined the hugely successful The Lord of the Rings franchise as Faramir in its second installment, The Two Towers. 2003 proved an exhaustive year for the increasingly busy actor, as he starred in the Australian slice-of-life miniseries After the Deluge and the crime comedy Gettin' Square, for which he won the AFI award for Best Actor. Wenham then returned to the role of Faramir in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, making an even greater impression with more emotional scenes and screen time. By then, Wenham was a recognizable international talent, and following a pair of Australian television appearances, he turned up alongside Hugh Jackman in the 2004 action fantasy Van Helsing.

Trivia: Although born in Fiji, he grew up in New Zealand. Got his big break when he was cast in the '80s New Zealand TV series Gloss. Has worked on many fantasy productions, including: Xena: Warrior Princess, Legend of the Seeker, in which he played the villain Darken Rahl, and the movie Underworld: Rise of the Lycans. Came to international attention with the role of elf Haldir in the first two Lord of the Rings movies; also voiced the part of Gothmog in the final Lord of the Rings movie.