Trivia: Many actors know from childhood that acting is the only job they'll ever want, but Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a rare exception. He pursued basketball in high school with tremendous success, until a knee injury ended his sports career, and he then trained and worked as a graphic artist for some time. Eventually, however, his interest in acting became overpowering, and Morgan moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting as a career, rather than just an interest. He found steady work appearing on shows like ER and Angel, eventually scoring a huge break in 2005 when he was cast in recurring roles on three different series: Grey's Anatomy, Weeds, and Supernatural. The shows put him on the map, especially Grey's Anatomy, and oddly enough, his characters died on all three shows. Morgan's career was still alive and kicking, however, and he was soon appearing in the comedy Kabluey opposite Christine Taylor and The Accidental Husband with Uma Thurman and Colin Firth. As the 2000's continued, Morgan would remain a consistant form on screen, appearing memorably as the Comedian in The Watchmen, Texas Killing Fields, and Red Dawn.

Trivia: Rarely do beauty and talent combine in a form so complimentary to each other than in the case of actress Zoe Saldana. Whether gracefully gliding across the stage in dance, pounding the boards in a play, or lighting up the screen in such popular films as Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, the multi-faceted Saldana seems capable of achieving anything she puts her mind to. The New Jersey native was raised in Queens until the age of ten, when her family relocated to the Dominican Republic. The move proved a fateful blessing when young Saldana discovered her love of dance and enrolled in the ECOS Espacio de Danza Academy shortly thereafter, where she would study ballet, jazz, and modern Latin dance. Following her sophomore year in high school, Saldana and her family returned to the U.S. It was while completing her primary studies stateside that Saldana became involved with the Faces theater troupe, whose aim was to make a positive impact on teenage audiences by performing improvisational skits on such issues as substance abuse and sexuality. Involvement with another troupe, the New York Youth Theater, provided more traditional stage experience through such productions as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, and it was while performing with that troupe that a talent agent recognized great potential in the burgeoning actress. In 1999, Saldana received what seemed to be the ideal first film role when she was cast as a talented but snippy dancer vying for a spot at the fictional American Ballet Company in the dance drama Center Stage. Other film roles followed, including Get Over It, Snipes, and a featured part in the Britney Spears teen drama Crossroads, which offered Saldana's first major theatrical release. Widely panned by critics but performing moderately at the box office thanks to legions of Spears fans, Crossroads proved just the fuel needed to get Saldana's struggling feature career running. The following year, she was back on the big screen in Drumline, which found her once again utilizing her dance skills as a college dance major and love interest of the talented but conflicted protagonist. Though her subsequent role as the sole female pirate in Pirates of the Caribbean offered little screen time, her performance as the only woman able to cast a spell over Johnny Depp's charismatic Jack Sparrow offered one of the film's most memorable comic scenes. Back on the indie circuit, Saldana headlined the 2003 rock musical Temptation as a talented singer facing hard times. A brief turn as a by-the-books customs officer in Steven Spielberg's The Terminal found the charming Saldana slowly warming to an immigrant stuck in bureaucratic limbo (played by Tom Hanks).She was the female lead in Guess Who in 2005 and continued to work steadily. However, in 2009 she broke through in a big way when she was cast as Uhura in J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot, and later that year she was the female lead in James Cameron's mega-smash Avatar. She followed that up with the action film The Losers in 2010, and was front and center in another action spectacle, Columbiana, the year after that. She reprised her role in the sequel Star Trek Into Darkness in 2013, and played Gamora in the 2014 smash Guardians of the Galaxy, ensuring her place in yet another action franchise.

Trivia: A handsome young actor whose breakout role as a popular jock in Not Another Teen Movie found him in high demand, Chris Evans (born June 13th, 1981) followed with a role in the moderately successful comedy The Perfect Score before truly coming into his own before the cameras. Born in Sudbury, MA, Evans spent the majority of his childhood in Boston before his love of acting brought him to New York City the summer after his junior year of high school. It was during this time that the aspiring actor alternated between an internship at a casting office and summer acting classes. With a little help from a contact he made that summer, Evans began auditioning shortly after graduating from high school. A supporting role in the short-lived television series Opposite Sex gave the up-and-comer his first break on the small screen, and a supporting role in the feature The Newcomers preceded an appearance in the popular prime-time drama Boston Public.At this point it appeared as if everything was going smoothly for Evans, but his career would soon shift gears and kick into overdrive thanks to a featured role in the teen comedy parody Not Another Teen Movie. Cast as the popular jock who transforms an ugly duckling into a popular princess, Evans ran with the role and proved a more than capable comic talent. If audiences had wondered where Evans had disappeared to in the following few years, their curiosities were answered when the young actor took a leading role in the moderately successful comedy The Perfect Score. Though to many it may have seemed that Evans career had stalled somewhat, a role as an unsuspecting young man who receives a desperate phone call from a kidnapping victim in the 2004 thriller Cellular offered some relief from the seeming drought of choice roles. A subsequent role in the same year's The Orphan King served as a strong follow-up before hearty roles in such 2005 releases as Fierce People and The Fantastic Four found him leaning ever closer to becoming a true marquee draw.The role of Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four would be somewhat telling of what was in store for the actor -- though not for a few more years. He would appear in projects like the romcom The Nanny Diaries in 2007 and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in 2010, but none of these breaks compared to the big one he scored in 2011, playing the title role in 2011's Captain America: America's Soldier. He found similar success in 2012's wildly successful The Avengers, for which he reprised his role as Captain America.

Trivia: Born in London on September 6, 1972, and raised in the Hackney borough, Elba pursued acting as a high school student at the behest of a drama teacher. Elba paid his dues with many supporting roles on British television, including such series as Bramwell, The Bill, Degrees of Error, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, and The Governor. The actor grew deeply frustrated, however, over the seemingly irrepressible tendency of British casting directors to peg him in supporting roles. "Back in London," he later recalled, "I was always just going to be the best friend, or the crook or the detective on the side." When Elba could take no more of this, he immigrated to the United States. Within a few years, Elba landed a starring role on what would come to be known as one of the best TV series of all time, The Wire.Elba's performance as pusher "Stringer" Bell attained widespread popularity with viewers and helped put Elba on the map. Elba then transitioned into big-screen roles in movies like The Gospel, The Reaping, Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls, 28 Weeks Later, and the Alien prequel Prometheus. Elba also enjoyed more stateside TV success on shows like The Office and Luther.

Trivia: A screen performer from his early twenties, Columbus Short began his career as a movie actor with somewhat conventional roles in youth-oriented films, such as the 2006 releases Save the Last Dance 2 and Accepted. He worked his way into more serious and substantial material in the years to follow, however -- beginning with the role of Darius on Aaron Sorkin's critically praised but short-lived showbiz drama Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-2007). Short received critical kudos and added attention for his contribution to the family-oriented ensemble comedy This Christmas, playing an African-American man who arrives at his family's home to celebrate the Yuletide holiday -- without telling them that he has married a Caucasian woman. Additional assignments included the lead role in Quarantine (2008), directors John E. Dowdle and Drew Dowdle's remake of the Spanish horror film [REC]; and -- on a nostalgic note -- an evocation of blues maestro "Little Walter" Jacobs in director Darnell Martin's ambitious homage to the blues in 1950s Chicago, Cadillac Records (2008). His career continued with Armored, the remake of Death at a Funeral, The Losers and The Girl Is In Trouble. In 2012 he was cast in the TV series Scandal.

Trivia: The son of actor/playwright Jason Miller and the grandson of comedian Jackie Gleason, the handsomely chiseled actor Jason Patric moved from New York City to California at the age of 16. Ever since his debut role as a drug-addicted teen for the ABC movie Tough Love, the hunky actor has preferred to play intense characters. He would nearly perfect the sexy, brooding man in many serious dramas and thrillers throughout his career, while trying to maintain privacy by refusing to talk about himself in interviews. After the unsuccessful Solarbabies, his gave his breakthrough performance in the teen classic The Lost Boys as the reluctant vampire Michael. He then gained starring roles as a soldier in the war movie The Beast and as an ex-boxer in the crime drama After Dark, My Sweet. Moving on to horror, he was chosen to portray Lord Byron in Roger Corman's Frankenstein Unbound. In 1991, he gained some critical recognition -- and a beard -- for his role as a drug-addicted narcotics officer in Rush, opposite his moody counterpart Jennifer Jason Leigh. The same year he was dragged into the tabloids for his affair with Hollywood sweetheart Julia Roberts. She had broken off her engagement with Kiefer Sutherland and ran off to Europe with Patric, causing a disruption to his enigmatic public persona. Taking some time off, he returned for Geronimo: An American Legend with Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall. He starred in the period piece The Journey of August King, the romantic thriller Incognito, and had a small part in Sleepers before making a wild career turn for Speed 2: Cruise Control. However, it appears that starring in the action blockbuster was just a way to get some cash to fund his next project as actor and producer for Neil LaBute's independent film Your Friends & Neighbors. After this brave venture, he sought out more experimental work, interpreting Anton Chekhov's plays in 3 Days of Rain and appearing in the documentary Scene Smoking: Cigarettes, Cinema, and the Myth of Cool. In 2002, Patric returned to the gritty world of undercover narcotics officers for Narc with Ray Liotta and Busta Rhymes.

Trivia: At 14, ran away from home and took a Greyhound bus to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an actor, but his parents tracked him down and sent him to a boarding school in Ireland. After graduating from high school in Omaha, he studied French, art history and theatre in Paris. Was cast as an understudy in the Broadway production of Biloxi Blues. As a 46-year-old training for the lead role in the FX series Lights Out, McCallany fulfilled a lifelong dream to fight in an amateur boxing competition, winning a three-round decision against a German heavyweight.

Trivia: Perhaps inevitably, Beirut-born Lebanese actor Peter Macdissi initially found himself cast as Middle Eastern stereotypes in Hollywood productions, such as David O. Russell's Three Kings (1999) and Joel Schumacher's Bad Company (2002). In time, however, Macdissi cultivated a more serious reputation as a thespian via an ongoing series of impressive collaborations with acclaimed writer/director Alan Ball (American Beauty) -- collaborations that offered Macdissi the advantages of intelligent scripts with sharp dialogue and multi-layered characterizations. The director and star worked together on the series Six Feet Under (in which Macdissi played bisexual art teacher Olivier Castro-Staal) and in Ball's feature directorial debut, Towelhead (2007, aka Nothing Is Private), in which Macdissi gave a chilling portrayal of a dictatorial and authoritarian Lebanese father. Macdissi's resumé also includes guest appearances on such television series as JAG and The X-Files.