Trivia: Shia LaBeouf decided, during his preteen years, to launch himself as an actor, and stories abound concerning how far he carried his own drive to establish himself. According to People Weekly magazine, LaBeouf auditioned for Even Stevens (2000), the Disney Channel series that delivered him into the spotlight, and subsequently told each of the youngsters who were waiting to audition that he had the part -- thus eliminating the competition. Such determination, coupled with raw ability and charisma, doubtless helped propel LaBeouf straight to the head of Hollywood's young stars.Born on June 11, 1986, in Los Angeles, LaBeouf grew up in the neighborhood of Echo Park, and was raised in a decidedly colorful family of mixed ethnicity. His Cajun father, Jeffrey LaBeouf, was a Vietnam vet who held a series of odd jobs as a circus clown, a sno-cone salesman, and a stand-up comic. Shia's Jewish mother, Shayna, worked as a clothier and jewelry craftswoman. Upset about his mother's financial struggles after his parents split, Shia observed another boy of about the same age (a cast member of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) whose financial returns from Quinn gave him a posh lifestyle. LaBeouf suddenly understood the financial benefits of before-the-camera work, and -- though he had no formal dramatic training -- foresaw himself breaking into acting via comedy. He used a phone book to find an agent, then honed a stand-up comedy act over the course of two years, that found him (at age 12) delivering "blue" routines to adult audiences at a Pasadena comedy club, The Ice House. By his own admission, LaBeouf was booted out of every school he attended (for his notoriously profane mouth and for other reasons), but he more than compensated for this with his professional drive. By 2000, he auditioned for the Even Stevens series on Disney, and landed the part.That sitcom concerned the relationship between Louis Stevens (LaBeouf), a silly and goofy teen, and his older sister, Ren (Christy Carlson Romano). The program quickly found an audience on Disney and lasted for several seasons; its popularity spawned a small-screen feature, The Even Stevens Movie, in 2003. The time span of 2002 to 2003 was a busy one for LaBeouf -- arguably his breakthrough period. In addition to The Even Stevens Movie, the actor signed on to participate in season two of the controversial Project Greenlight, the Damon and Affleck-created national contest for aspiring indie filmmakers, with its attached HBO reality series of the same name. Thus, at-home viewers had the opportunity to watch LaBeouf, Elden Hensen, Kathleen Quinlan, Amy Smart, and other actors endure the tumultuous production of Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin's quirky comedy drama The Battle of Shaker Heights, months prior to that film's release. When the finished film debuted in August of 2003, it did so to generally terrible reviews, but a number of journalists (Roger Ebert among them) singled out LaBeouf's lead performance as something special amid a decidedly flawed film.That same year, LaBeouf starred in the Andrew Davis-directed Disney fantasy Holes, as a youngster sent to an oddball Texas detention center and forced to dig a series of 5-foot-deep pits in the desert sun for mysterious reasons; it scored with the public and press and became one of the sleeper hits of 2003. And indeed, its success doubtless spurred LaBeouf on to even greater heights, his dramatic ability honed even more sharply by his interaction with co-star Jon Voight (Coming Home), whom LaBeouf would later list as a key professional influence. In late 2004, LaBeouf signed on for the lead in another Disney film, The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005) -- a biopic of golfer Francis Ouimet directed by Bill Paxton; the film itself divided critics rather sharply but provided an outstanding showcase for LaBeouf's talents. The next several years found LaBeouf signing on for several of the most sought-after A-list roles in Hollywood -- from director Francis Lawrence's apocalyptic fantasy Constantine (2005), as a demon-slayer fighting alongside Keanu Reeves; to Dito Montiel's A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, as a young man struggling to find a different road out of the ghetto than crime and prison. In 2007, the actor voiced a surfing penguin in the CG-animated comedy Surf's Up, and geared up for his role as Sam Witwicky in one of the most hotly anticipated releases of the year, the Michael Bay-directed Transformers -- based on the action figures that were rabidly popular in the mid-'80s. At the same time, audiences could catch LaBeouf in Salton Sea-director D.J. Caruso's thriller Disturbia -- the tale of a deeply depressed, homebound teen who teams up with a local girl to prove that their next door neighbor is a much sought-after serial killer.LaBeouf would continue to ride his popularity surge in the realm of latter-day sequels, playing Harrison Ford's sidekick in 2008's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and young financial exec Jake Moore in 2010's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Neither film was well received by audiences or critics, but LaBeouf still had the Transformer's franchise in his pocket, and he'd continue with it for 2009's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon. In 2012 he tried his hand at a period piece with the bootlegging drama Lawless.

Trivia: A slender, olive-skinned actress whose elegant beauty is somewhat offset by a collection of vivid tattoos (including the King Lear quote "We all laugh at gilded butterflies" on her right shoulder blade), Megan Fox knew she wanted to be an actress from age three, and never once considered another line of work. A native of Memphis, TN, Fox began taking dance lessons when she was five years old and continued perfecting her graceful movements even after her family relocated to Florida five years later. At 13, the aspiring starlet enrolled in modeling and acting classes. It didn't take long for all of Fox's hard work to pay off, with a role in the 2001 Olsen twins comedy Holiday in the Sun marking the ambitious actress' official screen debut. Over the course of the next few years, Fox became a frequent fixture on television thanks to roles on What I Like About You, Two and a Half Men, and Hope & Faith. In 2004, Fox would torment a fledgling Lindsay Lohan in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, though it was Fox's performance as a human caught in the middle of an epic robot battle that would truly prove her calling card to Hollywood. Cast as the love interest of Shia LaBeouf in Michael Bay's 2007 blockbuster Transformers, Fox turned more than a few heads while fighting for the future of the human race. In 2008, Fox could be spotted opposite Kirsten Dunst, Simon Pegg, Jeff Bridges, and Gillian Anderson in the Robert B. Weide-directed comedy How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, before returning to the action franchise that launched her career in 2009 with the sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Next, Fox would take a stab at something quirkier, showing up in the Diablo Cody penned satirical horror flick Jennifer's Body and the fantasy-Western Jonah Hex in 2010, the same year she married Brian Austin Green. The next year she had a small but crucial part in the indie comedy Friends with Kids . She spoofed her own image as an international sex symbol with a cameo in 2012's The Dictator and had a supporting role in This is 40 the same year. In 2014, she took on the role of April O'Neil in the reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, reprising the role in 2016. Fox also returned to television, with a guest-arc on New Girl to compensate for Zooey Deschanel's absence after her pregnancy; she was so well-received she was invited back the following season to continue the role.

Trivia: Possessing the sort of ironclad genetics that virtually ensure a career on daytime television if all else fails, actor Josh Duhamel, not surprisingly, earned his breakthrough feature role playing the eponymous, lusted-after Hollywood hunk in the 2004 romantic comedy Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! Though subpar grades may have kept the aspiring cavity warrior from pursuing his childhood dreams of earning his keep as a dentist, a move to the West Coast eventually found Duhamel embarking on a career as a fashion model. It didn't take long for the photogenic cover boy to make the leap from still life to moving pictures, and in 1999, the fledgling actor made his small-screen debut in the long-running daytime drama All My Children. Having just come off his role as the titular character in 2002's The Picture of Dorian Gray, Duhamel found the ideal platform on which to hone his skills with the popular soap opera. Further schooling was no doubt provided when Duhamel appeared opposite Hollywood heavy James Caan in the 2003 television series Las Vegas -- in which he was cast as casino surveillance head "Big Ed" Deline's (Caan) eager young protégé. By the time the 2000's got rolling, Duhamel was a leading man, cashing in at the box office with roles in films like Turistas, the Transformers franchise, Life as We Know It, and New Year's Eve.

Trivia: An L.A. native whose self-titled debut album quickly propelled him to the top of the charts, smooth-voiced R&B crooner Tyrese (born Tyrese Gibson on December 30th, 1978) immediately stood out from the pack, thanks to the remarkable honesty of his songwriting, his alluring passion, and his self-assured style behind the microphone. It was at the age of 14 that a series of wins on the local talent circuit gave the up-and-coming singer his first enticing taste of success, with a Coca Cola commercial providing the breakthrough that would soon propel him to release his eponymous debut album in 1998. Of course, anyone who happened to catch Tyrese's Coca Cola commercial couldn't help but notice the singing sensation's undeniable screen presence. After making his acting debut with a small role in acclaimed filmmaker Julie Dash's made-for-television drama Love Song, the singer-turned-actor jumped headlong into features, as the protagonist of John Singleton's Boyz 'N the Hood follow-up, Baby Boy. Cast as an urban mama's boy whose staunch refusal to leave the nest eventually stifles his transition into adulthood, Tyrese offered just the right mixture of naïveté and street-tough bravado to draw audiences in, while showing notable promise for the future. With two films, a hit album, and a series of television appearances in such series as Martin and Moesha under his belt, Tyrese returned to the music scene for his sophomore effort, 2000 Watts, before jumping into the driver's seat for the 2003 film 2 Fast 2 Furious. The following year Tyrese kept the action moving at a clip with a supporting role in Flight of the Phoenix before opting for more dramatic roles in director Justin Lin's Annapolis and former collaborator John Singleton's family-themed revenge drama Four Brothers. A supporting role in Better Luck Tomorrow director Justin Lin's Navy boxing misfire Annapolis was quickly followed by another headline performance as an ex-convict struggling to get his son back after his vehicle is carjacked with the boy still inside in the 2006 action thriller Waist Deep.

Trivia: Her name synonymous with gloss and glamour, the traffic-stopping Aussie import Rachael Taylor carried within her a natural on-camera presence. It therefore failed to surprise anyone when Taylor landed a consistent series of roles in Hollywood features, beginning in 2004. She took her initial bow in Sydney for legendary director Peter Bogdanovich, with a bit part in that helmer's fine 2004 telepic The Mystery of Natalie Wood, but failed to live up to this promise given her subsequent involvement in Tinseltown slasher films, such as the 2005 Man-Thing and the 2006 See No Evil. Taylor took several steps up the Hollywood ladder when recruited to appear in Michael Bay's live-action, summer 2007 blockbuster Transformers, as Maggie Madsen. In the years to come, Taylor would remain active on screen, appearing on shows like Grey's Anatomy and the reboot of Charlie's Angels.

Trivia: While Anthony Anderson got his start in stand-up, his wide range of genre-spanning credits as a producer and actor in light comedy, pointed satires, food-based reality shows and gritty episodic dramas display his versatility and cross-audience appeal. But even though it's not immediately apparent how the points on his resume connect in one straight line, all of his work harkens back to core values of family, togetherness, responsibility, fairness, justice, and doing right in a sometimes complicated world.Born August 15, 1970, Anderson was one of four kids raised by his mother and stepfather (the man he considered his "only father I knew or cared about") in Compton, Los Angeles, California. While their neighborhood could be rough, his no-nonsense stepfather, who owned three clothing stores, instilled a respect for paternal responsibility and entrepreneurship in Anderson. While Anderson remembers seeing a teenage Dr. Dre perform at Compton's most important hip-hop venue Skateland, U.S.A., his most formative memory of a performer was watching his mother rehearse for an amateur production of A Raisin in the Sun at Compton Community College. Even though both he and his mother agree that she was a terrible actress, the impression of her becoming someone else on stage solidified his ambitions.His ambitions stoked, young Anderson seized every opportunity to perform, whether it was singing at church, competing in spelling bees, or appearing in a commercial at the age of five. After successfully auditioning for Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, he won the top prize in the NAACP's Act-So awards and gained entrance to Howard University's drama program with an audition tape that included monologues from Shakespeare and "The Great White Hope". (Anderson's stepfather, always the pragmatist, took extraordinary measures to push Anderson out of the nest after college by not only insisting he pay rent if he wanted to live at home, but also by padlocking the TV cabinet and freezer, installing a pay phone in the house, and razzing Anderson with Lassie reruns: "That dog's an actor. Where are you acting?")Too-strange-to-be-fiction family lore like that formed the basis of Anderson's stand-up comedy routines that he performed briefly under the name "Tasty Tony" while picking up small roles in TV and movies until 1999, when he landed roles both in the Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy comedy Life, and Barry Levinson's cinematic memoir Liberty Heights. A slew of roles in a wide range of genres followed for the next few years, culminating in recurring roles on Treme as actor-waiter Derek Watson, on The Shield as Antwon Mitchell, the drug boss turned community leader who still keeps one foot in the thug life, and on Law & Order as conservative lawman Detective Kevin Bernard, a role for which he earned four consecutive NAACP Image Award nominations for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series. Anderson's other great passion, for food and cooking, has led to many hosting gigs on shows like Carnival Cravings with Anthony Anderson, Eating America with Anthony Anderson, the web series Anthony Eats America, and his recurring seat at the judge's table on Iron Chef America. While his everyday diet is "vegan-ish" as a way of regulating his type 2 diabetes, he's so devoted to the kitchen arts that he takes weekend classes at famed culinary academy Le Cordon Bleu's Los Angeles outpost. While his first forays into producing the sitcoms All About the Andersons and Matumbo Goldberg (both about domestic life from an African-American perspective) ended after one season, conversations with his screenwriter friend Kenya Barris about their experiences raising their children in affluent, majority-white communities that are so unlike the neighborhoods they grew up in inspired the duo to create and produce black-ish. Taking a page from unflinching sitcoms of the '70s like All In The Family and Good Times that mixed light humor with frank confrontation of social ills, Barris and Anderson folded incidents from their own lives into the show's scripts - such as the time Anderson's teenage son wanted a bar mitzvah party like all his Jewish friends, prompting Anderson to instead offer his son a hip-hop themed "bro mitzvah." Anderson received an Emmy nomination for his role as beleaguered patriarch Andre Johnson in 2015.

Trivia: The son of a Czech-American golf pro, Jon Voight was active in student theatricals in high school and at Catholic University. In 1960 he began studying privately with Neighborhood Playhouse mentor Sanford Meisner, and made his off-Broadway debut that same year in O Oysters, receiving a daunting review which opined that he could "neither walk nor talk." Fortunately, Voight persevered, and in 1961 took over the role of "singing Nazi" Rolf in the Broadway hit The Sound of Music (his Liesl was Laurie Peters, who became his first wife).Blessed with handsome, Nordic features, Voight kept busy as a supporting player on such TV series as Gunsmoke, Coronet Blue, and NYPD, and in 1966 spent a season with the California National Shakespeare Festival. The following year, he won a Theatre World Award for his stage performance in That Summer, That Fall. Thus, by the time he became an "overnight" star in the role of wide-eyed hustler Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy (1969), he had nearly a decade's worth of experience under his belt. The success of Midnight Cowboy, which earned Voight an Oscar nomination, prompted a fast-buck distributor to ship out a double feature of two never-released mid-'60s films: Fearless Frank, filmed in 1965, starred Voight as a reluctant superhero, while Madigan's Millions was a 1968 turkey featuring Voight's Cowboy co-star (and longtime friend) Dustin Hoffman.Entering the 1970s with dozens of producers clamoring for his services, Voight refused to accept roles that banked merely on his youth and good looks. Instead, he selected such challenging assignments as crack-brained Army officer Milo Minderbinder in Catch 22 (1970), a political activist known only as "A" in The Revolutionary (also 1970), reluctant rugged individualist Ed Gentry in Deliverance (1972), and real-life teacher/novelist Pat Conroy in Conrack (1974). In 1978, he won both the Oscar and the Cannes Film Festival award for his portrayal of paraplegic Vietnam veteran Luke Martin in Hal Ashby's Coming Home. The following year, he earned additional acclaim for his work in the remake of The Champ.Devoting increasing amounts of time to his various sociopolitical causes in the 1980s and 1990s, Voight found it more and more difficult to fit film roles into his busy schedule. A reunion project with Ashby, on the godawful gambling comedy Lookin' to Get Out (produced 1980, released 1982), failed dismally, with many reviewers complaining about Voight's terrible, overmodulated performance, and the paper-thin script, which the actor himself wrote. Voight weathered the storm, however, and enjoyed box-office success as star of the 1983 weeper Table for Five. He also picked up another Oscar nomination for Andrei Konchalovsky's existential thriller Runaway Train (1985), and acted in such socially-conscious TV movies as Chernobyl: The Final Warning (1991) and The Last of His Tribe (1992). He also produced Table for Five and scripted 1990's Eternity. Voight kept busy for the remainder of the decade, appearing in such films as Michael Mann's Heat (1995), Mission: Impossible (1996), and The General, a 1998 collaboration with Deliverance director John Boorman, for which Voight won acclaim in his role as an Irish police inspector. During the same period of time, a bearded Voight also essayed a wild one-episode cameo on Seinfeld - as himself - with a scene that required him to bite the hand of Cosmo Kramer from a parked vehicle. In 1999, Voight gained an introduction to a new generation of fans, thanks to his role as James Van Der Beek's megalomaniacal football coach in the hit Varsity Blues, later appearing in a handful of other films before teaming onscreen with daughter Angelina Jolie for Tomb Raider in 2001. After essaying President Roosevelt later that same year in Pearl Harbor, Voight went for laughs in Ben Stiller's male-model comedy Zoolander, though his most pronounced role of 2001 would come in his Oscar nominated performance as iconic newsman Howard Cosell in director Michael Mann's Mohammad Ali biopic, Ali.Taken collectively, all of Voight's aformentioned roles during the mid-late 1990s demonstrated a massive rebound, from the gifted lead of '70s American classics to a character actor adept at smaller and more idiosyncratic character roles in A-list Hollywood fare ( the very same transition, for instance, that Burt Reynolds was wrongly predicted to be making when he signed to do Breaking In back in 1989). To put it another way: though Voight rarely received first billing by this point, his volume of work per se soared high above that of his most active years during the '70s. The parts grew progressively more interesting as well; Voight was particularly memorable, for instance, in the Disney comedy-fantasy Holes, as Mr. Sir, the cruel, sadistic right-hand-man to camp counselor Sigourney Weaver, who forces packs of young boys to dig enormous desert pits beneath the blazing sun for a mysterious reason. Voight then signed for a series of parts under the aegis of longtime-fan Jerry Bruckheimer, including the first two National Treasure installments (as John Patrick Henry) and - on a higher-profiled note - the audience-rouser Glory Road (2005), about one of the first all-black basketball teams in the U.S.; in that picture, Voight plays Adolph Rupp, the infamous University of Kentucky coach (nicknamed 'Baron of the Bluegrass') with an all-white team vying against the competitors at the center of the story.In 2007, Voight tackled roles in two very different high-profile films: he played one of the key characters in Michael Bay's live-action extravaganza Transformers, and portrayed a Mormon bishop who perishes in a Brigham Young-instigated massacre, in the period drama September Dawn, directed by Christopher Cain (Young Guns. He appeared in 24: Redemption, and became a part of that show's regular cast for its seventh season. Voight is the father of Angelina Jolie, and has often been the subject of tabloid coverage because of their occasionally fraught public bickering.

Trivia: Thespian Michael O'Neill grew up in Montgomery, AL, and attended nearby Auburn University as an economics major, then took his first steps toward professional acting work with a move to New York and on-stage roles at Playwrights Horizons. During the '80s, '90s, and 2000s, O'Neill divided his time, more or less equally, between stage, screen, and television; in all of these venues, the actor specialized in portrayals of gently authoritative yet warm and genial everyman types, such as kind fathers, school psychologists, and small-town physicians. Features in which O'Neill appeared included Ghost Story (1981), The Sunchaser (1996), Traffic (2000), and Transformers (2007); memorable television roles include contributions to The West Wing (as the head of presidential detail), 24, and Boston Public.

Trivia: The genial, slightly stocky Hollywood character actor Kevin Dunn graced the casts of some of the highest grossing and most enjoyable A-listers of the '80s, '90s, and 2000s. With a pleasant (if unremarkable) countenance, this brother of Second City veteran (and onetime Saturday Night Live mainstay) Nora Dunn cut his chops playing everymen in American movies and one-shot television episodes. Kevin Dunn lacked the sketch comedy background of his arguably more famous sibling but quickly chalked up an equally extensive resumé at about the same time.Dunn debuted on camera in the mid-'80s, with a recurring role on the series comedy drama Jack & Mike (1986), co-starring Shelley Hack and Tom Mason, but Alan Parker's harrowing civil-rights drama Mississippi Burning (in which he played Agent Bird) marked his first real breakthrough. From that point on, he became ever-present in such blockbusters as Ghostbusters 2 (1989), Blue Steel (1990), Only the Lonely (1991), Hot Shots! (1991), Chaplin (1992), and Dave (1993). Directors often cast Dunn as an emotional (or political) support to a heavy, such as his brief evocation of Nixon aide (and eventual Christian spokesperson) Chuck Colson in Oliver Stone's biopic Nixon (1995), that of Lou Logan (opposite Nicolas Cage) in Brian De Palma's muddled, flawed paranoid thriller Snake Eyes (1998), and that of Alex (alongside Sean Penn) in the political drama All The King's Men (2006). In 2007, Dunn appeared in the blockbuster action hit Transformers as Ron Witwicky, the father of lead actor Shia LaBeouf's character, Sam. Dunn also had a role in the underperforming Tom Cruise/Robert Redford/Meryl Streep drama Lions for Lambs. In the fall of that year, Dunn found success on the sitcom Samantha Who? as the father of the amnesia-afflicted main character (Christina Applegate).He was part of the cast of Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and played a bad guy in the runaway train thriller Unstoppable. In 2011 he appeared in the well-reviewed MMA drama Warrior, and the blockbuster Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The next year he was cast in the one and only season of HBO's racetrack set drama series Luck.

Trivia: Wanted to become an actor after watching auditions of her high-school production of Guys and Dolls during after-school detention; auditioned for the role of Miss Adelaide and got the part. In 1988, made her off-Broadway debut in the musical Lucky Stiff. Graduated from Fordham University with a degree in history more than 20 years after she first enrolled. Active supporter of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, a non-profit fundraising organization that brings awareness in the fight against AIDS.

Trivia: Despite his immortalization as schoolyard bully Scott Farkus in A Christmas Story (1983), Zack Ward has a resumé spanning much further than the long-standing holiday favorite. The Canadian actor is well known for his role as Dave Scovil on the darkly humorous, Emmy-nominated sitcom Titus, and has participated in a number of prime-time dramas including Crossing Jordan, NCIS, and Lost. Ward can be seen in two video-game inspired films: BloodRayne 2, and Resident Evil: Apocalypse; he also appears briefly as an ill-fated soldier in director Michael Bay's blockbuster Transformers (2007).

Trivia: Puerto Rican born Amaury Nolasco had no intention of becoming an actor when he was studying biology at the University of Puerto Rico on the road to becoming a doctor, but a casting director who recruited him into an appearance in a commercial changed his plans, and within a few gigs he was hooked. He packed his bags and moved to New York, where he enrolled at the American-British-Dramatic-Arts School and began appearing on shows like CSI and ER. Within a few years, Nolasco had built up a resumé that made him more viable for substantial movie roles. In 2003, he landed a small part in 2 Fast 2 Furious, and in 2004 he scored a role in the Bernie Mac comedy Mr. 3000. These big breaks were nothing, however, compared to the job he got in 2005 when he was cast as series regular Fernando Sucre on the hit series Prison Break. On the heels of this success, Nolasco nabbed a supporting role in the David Spade comedy The Benchwarmers, but much more impressive was the role he signed up for later that year, joining the cast of the hotly anticipated big-screen version of Transformers, slated for release in 2007.

Trivia: One of the top character actors of his era, John Turturro is a fixture of the contemporary American independent filmmaking landscape. Born February 28, 1957, in Brooklyn, NY, Turturro became fascinated by movies during childhood, and after graduating from college he won a scholarship to study at the prestigious Yale School of Drama. He first gained notice in regional theater and off-Broadway, earning an Obie Award for his starring role in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea. He made his film debut in Martin Scorsese's 1980 masterpiece Raging Bull but did not reappear onscreen prior to 1984's The Exterminator 2. That same year, he debuted on Broadway in Death of a Salesman.Small roles in diverse fare including Susan Seidelman's 1985 comedy Desperately Seeking Susan, Scorsese's 1986 drama The Color of Money, and Woody Allen's masterful Hannah and Her Sisters kept Turturro busy throughout much of the decade, but his breakthrough performance did not arrive until Spike Lee cast him as a bigoted pizzeria worker in 1989's Do the Right Thing. A scene-stealing turn in the Coen brothers' 1990 gangland drama Miller's Crossing followed, and in 1991 the Coens cast him as the titular Barton Fink, a performance which garnered Best Actor honors at the Cannes Film Festival. Subsequent lead roles were infrequent, although in 1992 he wrote, directed, and starred in Mac, a little-seen indie feature that won him a Golden Camera award for Best First Feature at the 1992 Cannes Festival. Supporting turns in acclaimed offerings including Quiz Show, Clockers, and Grace of My Heart (in which he expertly portrayed a Phil Spector-like music producer) followed before Turturro's next starring role, in Tom DiCillo's whimsical 1996 comedy Box of Moonlight. In 1998, the actor again collaborated with both Lee and the Coen brothers, working with the former on He Got Game and the latter on The Big Lebowski. Also in 1998, Turturro wrote, directed, produced, and starred in Illuminata, a comedy set against the backdrop of a struggling, turn-of-the-century New York theater company. The following year, he again took on the New York theater, appearing in Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock, an exploration of the relationship between art and politics set in 1930s New York.He remained an in-demand character actor, as well as an occasional director into the next century, starting the 2000s with a leading role in the chess drama The Luzhin Defence, reteaming with the Coen brothers for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and working with Adam Sandler on Mr. Deeds. In 2004 he worked for Spike Lee yet again in She Hate Me. In 2005 he wrote, directed, and acted in the blue-collar musical Romance & Cigarettes. He appeared in The Good Shepherd in 2006, and the next year he appeared in the sci-fi blockbuster Transformers. In 2008 he joined up with Lee yet again to play a soldier in his World War II film Miracle At. St. Anna, and teamed with Sandler again for You Don't Mess With the Zohan. The next year he appeared in the remake of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, and the Transformers sequel. He would return to that franchise for the third film in 2011, and that same year he would join the Pixar family voicing Lightnin' McQueen's rival in Cars 2.

Trivia: Raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. In 2003, was approached about a job working at a call center while backpacking in India because of his American accent. Seven years later, was cast in the NBC series Outsourced, a comedy about a call center in Mumbai. Had recurring roles on three different network series in 2009 (Privileged, Three Rivers and Better Off Ted).

Trivia: An edgy comic who skyrocketed to comedy fame with his memorably side-splitting appearance in Spike Lee's The Original Kings of Comedy, Bernie Mac may have seemed an unlikely candidate for a television sitcom, but with the debut of The Bernie Mac Show, the inventive comedian began on a high note, leaving many pondering the apparent overnight success of the comedian who had ostensibly come from nowhere to become a ubiquitous presence. Born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough in Chicago, IL, Mac was a member of a large extended family living under one roof, which provided the energetic youngster with plenty of fuel for refining his ability to perform dead-on impressions and humorously recall memorable family occurrences. Time spent as a gopher for performers at the Regal Theater also served as a primer for his showbiz aspirations (as well as a cautionary warning of the destructive temptations that go along with fame). Mac's first experiences with standup came at the age of eight, when he performed a routine about his grandparents at the dinner table in front of the congregation at church. Though it resulted in some strict reprimanding from his grandmother, he had the audience feeding out of his palm and the young impressionist quickly had the epiphany that humor meant more to him than the sting of discipline. From that point on, Mac refined and developed his comic abilities on the tracks of Chicago's El trains and in local parks. Though he earned a modest keep from his public performances, Mac craved the legitimacy of the club circuit and he began to perform professionally in 1977. After early film work -- including memorable appearances in Above the Rim (1994) and The Walking Dead (1995), which followed on the heels of his big-screen debut in 1992's Mo' Money -- Mac was offered and appeared in the television series Midnight Mac in 1995. Hesitation as to the neutering of his material made the comedian leery of television, and the show didn't last. The comic actor earned more attention when he turned up frequently the following year in television's Moesha, though mainstream acceptance was still four years and numerous bit film parts away. Following The Original Kings of Comedy, Mac began to develop an idea for a sitcom that revolved around similar family experiences and retained the edge that had initially shocked his audiences into laughter. In 2001, he debuted the family sitcom The Bernie Mac Show, and it was a success, running for five seasons. 2001 would indeed prove to be the year of the Mac as he also took on a substantial role in director Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's 11. He reprised that character in the two Ocean's sequels, as well as lead roles as a vice presidential candidate in the Chris Rock political satire Head of State and as a washed-up baseball player in 2004's Mr. 3000. 2007 saw Mac in a more serious role as a kindly janitor in the inspirational sports drama Pride. Upon his death in August 2008 of complications from pneumonia, Soul Men, in which he stars alongside Samuel L. Jackson as a soul singer embarking on a reunion tour, had yet to hit theaters.­

Trivia: Square-jawed, photogenic Travis Van Winkle divided his time between acting and modeling. Cinematically, Van Winkle made his mark in glossy, big-budget Hollywood genre films, often laden with heavy special effects. The Victorville, CA native landed his first prominent screen roles in the mid- to late 2000s, in outings such as the 2006 teen comedy Accepted, the 2007 action movie Transformers, and the Michael Bay-produced remake Friday the 13th (2009).

Trivia: With roles (and a look) that usually cast him as the perfect "everyman," character actor Peter Jacobson debuted on the small screen in the early '90s, as a guest player on a 1993 episode of NYPD Blue and then in a 1994 episode of Law & Order. A string of supporting roles in highly acclaimed feature films ensued through the end of the 1990s and the first decade of the new millennium. Jacobson's credits during this period include the John Travolta-headlined legal drama A Civil Action (1998); Billy Crystal's wonderful baseball picture 61* (2001), about Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle; and George Clooney's sophomore directorial effort, Good Night, and Good Luck. (2006). In 2007, Jacobson received his highest billing up through that time as studio mogul and deadbeat husband Kenny Kagan in the cable miniseries The Starter Wife, headlined by Debra Messing. In the fall of that year, Jacobson garnered a coveted role on the smash-hit Fox medical series House, joining the cast during the show's fourth season. He was in the box-office blockbuster Transformers in 2007, and followed that up in 2008 with The Midnight Meat Train. As he continued with his recurring role on House, he lent his vocal talents to Pixar in Cars 2.

Trivia: A character actor with a knack for playing blustery Southerners and military men (comic and dramatic), Chris Ellis was, appropriately enough, born and raised in Mississippi. While hardly a radical, 18-year-old Ellis discovered his interest in the arts, and his slightly longer than average hair made him a less than welcome presence in Mississippi. In 1968, he began studying acting with a theater troupe in Memphis, TN, where he made his stage debut. After completing his studies, Ellis moved to New York City, where he began working in off-Broadway and regional theater. However, keeping his foot in the door proved difficult for Ellis, and he found himself without steady work through most of the '80s, getting by thanks to the kindness of friends who would often invite him over for dinner. In 1990, Ellis' luck began to change when he was cast as the memorable Harlan Hoogerhyde in the Tom Cruise vehicle Days of Thunder. By the mid-'90s, Ellis was working steadily in film and television, making small but notable appearances in Apollo 13, That Thing You Do!, and Armageddon, and making guest appearances on such series as The X-Files, Millennium, and Chicago Hope.

Trivia: Best known for his role as Arwin in The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Has done extensive voice work as well as live action film and television. Voiced numerous roles in The Loud House.

Trivia: For two decades, it seemed as if cherubic actor Andy Milder would forever be relegated to the sort of thankless television walk-on roles that, while serving well to pay the bills, don't necessarily provide any kind of creative challenge for the talent in question. Sure he had a face that every television viewer could single out thanks to a diverse filmography that included roles in Married with Children, The Wonder Years, NYPD Blue, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The West Wing, and Ugly Betty, but thanks to recurring roles on the animated Legion of Super Heroes and the hit Showtime series Weeds he reached a new level of success. Cast as Lightning Lad in the former and stoned husband Dean Hodes in the later, Milder was finally attaining the kind of recognition he deserved. Additional feature roles in Domino, Transformers, and Frost/Nixon found his film career holding up respectably around this time as well. In 2011 he had a small part in that year's Oscar winning Bet Picture, The Artist.

Trivia: Worked as an investment banker before turning to acting and stand-up comedy in 2004. Founded the poker magazine All In. Trained with improv groups the Groundlings and Upright Citizens Brigade.

Trivia: Many know actor Rick Gomez as "Endless Mike" Hellstrom on the cult hit series The Adventures of Pete & Pete. The New Jersey native moved to New York City after graduating from high school, where he started auditioning for parts, and gaining small appearances in films like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He soon found regular work in TV and movies, and eventually branched into voice acting as well. In 2006, Gomez found himself cast in two different TV series, scoring the role of Slips on the series My Gym Partner's a Monkey, and in the part of Dave on the series What About Brian.

Trivia: Actor Andrew Caldwell entered films and television as a young man and specialized in portrayals of geeky, overweight, socially awkward types. Caldwell made a series of guest appearances on small screen programs including The Bernie Mac Show, My Name Is Earl, and Hannah Montana before moving into films and specializing in glossy formulaic Hollywood outings. These included the big-budget action yarn Transformers (2007), the teen-oriented comedies College (2008) and My Best Friend's Girl (2008), and the Owen Wilson vehicle Drillbit Taylor (2008).

Trivia: Moved from New York to Chicago in 1986 to pursue a career in improv comedy Founded the improv group Jazz Freddy in Chicago in 1992 and performed alongside future Saturday Night Live alum Rachel Dratch and future Conan O'Brien writer Brian Stack. Joined Chicago's legendary improv troupe Second City in 1996. Performs the long-running two-man improv show Pete and Paul Explain It All with Paul Vaillancourt at Improv Olympic West in Los Angeles.

Trivia: Is of Cuban and Colombian descent. Was raised in a bilingual home. Began career at age 5 in the film Kindergarten Cop (1990). In 2007, joined the cast of the ABC series October Road. Breakthrough film role came in the 2008 action flick Cloverfield. Provided the voice for the character Amata Almodovar in the 2008 video game Fallout 3. Appeared in the music video for Weezer's "(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To."

Trivia: Landed bit parts in the David Fincher-directed movies Seven (1997), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999) and Zodiac (2007). Appeared in commercials for Subway and Fiber One cereal. Starred in PSAs for California's controversial Proposition 8 that spoofed the Mac vs. PC series of TV commercials. Played the pilot in Con Air (1997), a film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, before being cast in Bruckheimer's TV series, ABC's The Forgotten.

Trivia: The most commercially successful filmmaker in Hollywood history, Steven Spielberg was born December 18, 1946, in Cincinnati, OH. A lifelong cinema buff, he began directing his first short movies while still a child, later studying film at California State University and winning notice for his 1969 short feature Amblin'. He first made his mark in television, directing Joan Crawford in the pilot for Rod Serling's Night Gallery and working on episodes of Columbo and Marcus Welby, M.D. Spielberg's first feature-length effort, 1971's Duel, a taut thriller starring Dennis Weaver, was widely acclaimed as one of the best movies ever made for television. Spielberg permanently graduated to feature films with 1974's The Sugarland Express, but it was his next effort, Jaws, which truly cemented his reputation as a rising star. The most successful film of 1975, this tale of a man-eating Great White shark was widely recognized as the picture which established the summer months as the film industry's most lucrative period of the year, heralding a move toward big-budget blockbusters which culminated two years later with his friend George Lucas' Star Wars. Spielberg's follow-up, 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, was another staggering success, employing state-of-the-art special effects to document its story of contact with alien life. With the 1979 slapstick-war comedy 1941, Spielberg made his first major misstep, as the star-studded picture performed miserably at the box office. However, he swiftly regained his footing with 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark. Produced by Lucas, the film was one of the biggest hits of the decade, later launching a pair of sequels as well as a short-lived television series. However, it was Spielberg's next effort which truly asserted his position as the era's most popular filmmaker: 1982's E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, the touching tale of a boy who befriends an alien, was hailed upon release as an instant classic, and became one of the most commercially successful movies of all time. After 1984's Raiders of the Lost Ark sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg went against type to direct The Color Purple, an adaptation of Alice Walker's much-honored novel exploring the lives and struggles of a group of African-American women during the Depression years. The film went on to gross over $100 million at the box office, later securing 11 Academy Award nominations. A 1987 dramatization of J.G. Ballard's novel Empire of the Sun was his next picture, and was one of his few box-office disappointments. A similar fate met the sentimental Always (1989), a remake of the wartime weeper A Guy Named Joe, but Spielberg returned to form with the same year's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.With 1991's 60-million-dollar production of Hook, Spielberg again fell victim to negative reviews and lackluster box-office returns, but in 1993 he returned with a vengeance with Jurassic Park. That same year, he released Schindler's List, an epic docudrama set during the Holocaust. The picture won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director honors. As befitting his role as a major Hollywood player, Spielberg and his company, Amblin Entertainment, also produced a number of highly successful features, including 1982's Poltergeist, 1985's Back to the Future, and 1988's groundbreaking Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He also diversified into television, beginning in 1985 with the anthology series Amazing Stories and later supervising the animated series Tiny Toon Adventures and the underwater adventure Seaquest DSV. However, in the wake of Schindler's List, Spielberg's status as a power broker grew exponentially with the formation of Dreamworks SKG, a production company he headed along with former Disney chief Jeffrey Katzenberg and music mogul David Geffen; consequently, Spielberg spent much of the mid-'90s behind the scenes, serving as executive producer on films such as Twister (1996), Men in Black (1997), and two 1998 films, Deep Impact and The Mask of Zorro. Spielberg returned to the director's chair with the 1997 smash The Lost World, the sequel to Jurassic Park. The same year, he was rewarded with several Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Amistad, a slavery epic for which he served as both director and producer. Whatever disappointment Spielberg may have felt over not actually winning any of the above awards was most likely mollified the following year with Saving Private Ryan. The World War II epic, which Spielberg directed and produced, won a staggering 11 Academy Award nominations. Eventually winning five, the film lost out to Shakespeare in Love for Best Picture. Ryan did win a Golden Globe for Best Picture (in the Drama category), as well a Best Director nod for Spielberg. After taking the helm for a short documentary chronicling American history for the millennial New Years Eve celebration broadcast, Spielberg took another shot at summer blockbuster success with the sci-fi drama A.I.. Featuring Oscar nominated child actor Haley Joel Osment in the role of a robot boy who longs to be human, and adapted from an original idea from Stanley Kubrick, the high-concept film received a decidedly mixed reception at the box office. The following year, however, would find Spielberg once again coming out on top with two remarkably upbeat chase films. Adapted from a short story by revered science fiction author Phillip K. Dick and starring Tom Cruise as a the head of an elite "pre-crime division" of police officers who use a trio of psychics to predicts criminals' crimes so that they can be arrested before they have a chance to commit them, Minority Report proved an exhilarating sci-fi action epic. A mere six-months later, Spielberg's fast-paced crime adventure Catch Me If You Can adapted the real life exploits of legendary con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr. to the big screen to the delight of audiences hungering for an entertaining and lightweight holiday release. 2004 saw Spielberg team with Hanks yet again, this time for the lighthearted comedy The Terminal. Also starring Catherine Zeta Jones, the film centered on a man without a country who takes up residence in an American airport. The following year found the director diving back into the big-budget sci-fi genre with War of the Worlds. Starring Tom Cruise, the ambitious film was adapted from H.G. Wells classic alien-invasion novel of the same name. After this Hollywood juggernaut, Spielberg cinematically visited his Jewish heritage for the first time since Schindler's List with 2005's critically acclaimed Munich. Beginning with the 1972 Munich Olympics at which 11 Israeli athletes were kidnapped and later murdered by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, the film follows the small group of Mossad agents recruited to track down and assassinate those responsible. Praised for its sensitive and painful portrayal of ordinary men grappling with their new lives as killers, Munich earned Spielberg a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination, reminding audiences and critics alike of the filmmaker's ability to go far beyond the realm of simple adventure and fantasy. In 2006, Spielberg produced Clint Eastwood's two films about WWII, Flags of Our Fathers, about the American soldiers at Iwo Jima, and Red Sun, Black Sand, which takes a look at what life was like for men in the Japanese military; both films received broad critical acclaim. In 2008, Spielberg re-ignited the Indiana Jones franchise with the fourth installment in the saga, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. While critical response to this outing was mixed, it scored at the box office and satisfied many moviegoers. During the years that followed, the number of efforts that bore Spielberg's producing imprimatur grew exponentially. These included The Lovely Bones (2009), the Coen Brothers' remake True Grit (2010), the J.J. Abrams-directed sci-fi fantasy Super 8 (20011) and the eagerly-awaited sequel Men in Black III (2012). Meanwhile, Spielberg reassumed the director's chair for a varied series of pictures, including The Adventures of Tintin (2011). His long gestating Abraham Lincoln biopic Lincoln hit screens in 2012 starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the iconic president and Sally Field as his first lady, and the movie went on to be nominated for a number of Oscars including Best Director and Best Picture. In 2015, he executive produced Jurassic World, the fourth film in the series, and reteamed with Tom Hanks for Bridge of Spies.

Trivia: Irish actor Morgan Sheppard has played character roles on television and in international feature films since the '80s, but he has spent most of his career on-stage.

Trivia: Was a high-school senior when he landed his first movie role, the Texas-set teen comedy-drama Drive-In. The Dallas native's second TV role was in a 1978 episode of Dallas (his TV debut came earlier that year in an episode of Police Woman). Appeared with 24 castmate Xander Berkeley in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (as sheriffs) and the 1997 movie Air Force One. Has played five characters in three Star Trek series and one Trek movie. Is a motivational speaker whose "Extra Mile" seminar helps participants develop techniques for achieving their goals. Has appeared in three Transformer movies, even though his character was killed in the first film (2007). Morshower returned as a different character in the 2009 and 2011 installments.