Trivia: Following closely on Jackie Chan's well-calloused heels as one of the most dazzling physical performers of the silver screen, Jet Li's lightning-fast moves, friendly sense of humor, and genuine concern for his fans have endeared him to a generation of international action-film lovers as one of the most respected figures in martial arts cinema. The youngest of five siblings (consisting of two brother and two sisters) whose father died when he was only two years old, one might say that the painfully honest momma's boy has, since reaching adulthood, slightly overcompensated for his admittedly over-protected childhood (the future daredevil didn't even learn how to ride a bicycle until in his early teens). Sent during summer recess to what is now referred to as the Beijing Sports and Exercise school, Li was fatefully assigned to the wushu class and was one of a mere handful of students asked to return when the season ended and students filed back into classrooms in the fall. An exceptionally adept wushu student despite being only eight years of age, the experience boosted the confidence of the shy youth despite urges to join his classmates in after-school play. Leaving home for the first time the following year to attend competition, Li took first place at the event and was concurrently given the honor of performing at the opening ceremony of the eagerly anticipated Pan-Asian-African-Latin American Table Tennis Championships, an honor which also included the youth receiving personal praise from none other than Premier Zhou Enlai. No longer required to attend conventional schooling, the young wonder was admitted to a rigorous sports school. Eventually remaining with a group that consisted of 20 of China's finest young wushu practitioners, the students were then put through another kind of training entirely -- this time of the Western etiquette persuasion -- for an extremely important goodwill tour of the United States. Despite a potentially embarrassing international incident in which the overly excited youngster expressed his excitement when he spotted what he thought was a Chinese airplane in Hawaii (the plane was actually Tawianese, an extremely sensitive and important distinction at the time) and travels with a heavily guarded entourage, the journey went fairly well and gave Li a newfound sense of independence. Winning the coveted All-China Youth Championships upon his return to China provided Li with his first national championship title, though it was only a prelude to a slew of awards to come including a bloodied performance at the qualifying round of China's National Games, during which Li accidentally cut his head with his saber (the determined youngster didn't even realize what had happened, assuming he was simply perspiring, until his form was nearly finished). Despite his serious injury, the 12-year-old Li went on to win first place in the National Games to the amazement of the enraptured crowd. Competing frequently in the following years and surviving a close brush with death in a faulty cargo plane (the passengers were literally given pads of paper to write out their wills), Li was later appointed to an official welcoming committee for American presidents due to his previous contributions to positive Sino-American relations. Later attempting to live up to his title of "All-Around Wushu Champion of China," the 16-year-old who many referred to as all capable decided to do all he could to live up to the title by internalizing his understanding of the wushu practice through philosophy. Operating on the basic principle of Taiji (similar to yin/yang in the balance/counterbalance theory), Li began an internal voyage that would be just as rewarding as the physical labors he had so diligently pursued. Breaking into the world of film with an exciting performance in 1979's Shaolin Temple, Li's screen presence was undeniable and ignited a boom in the kung-fu film industry during the 1980s. Though he took an unsuccessful attempt at directing a few short years later with Born to Defend (1986), his acting career continued to accelerate at high speed with such hits as the Once Upon a Time in China and the Fong Sai-Yuk series in the early '90s. Rising to remarkable celebrity status due to his charm and unmatchable moves, Li gained fans in both the young and old and continued to thrill Eastern moviegoers in increasingly awe-inspiring ways. A crossover to American films began with his role as the villain in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998) (a role originally offered to Chan but turned down due to his inclination never to play the bad guy), and continued with more likable roles in Romeo Must Die and Kiss of the Dragon (2000 and 2001 respectively). Li caused something of a sensation with the release of Kiss of the Dragon when he made a special plea to parents not to bring their children to the film due to the unusually (for Li) adult-oriented violence of the film. A request virtually unheard of in the Hollywood system, Li promised parents that they would soon be able to share his high-kicking escapades with their children with the decidedly more family friendly The One a few short months later. In 2003 Li would return to stateside screens alongside DMX in Cradle to the Grave (2003), a remake of the classic Fritz Lang film M (1931) which fared only moderatly well at the box office.Just as it began to seem as if Li had forsaken the period martial arts genre on which he was weaned in favor of mainstream Hollywood success, his memorable return to the format with director Zhang Yimou's richly textured 2002 effort Hero proved to fans that he still possessed all the talent and charm he had so skillfully displayed in the previous Hong Kong hits produced before his crossover success. Despite the fact that the film drew some of the best reviews of Li's later career, however, the inexplicable decision made by U.S. distributor Miramax to sit on Hero for nearly two years before unceremoniously dumping it into stateside theaters in August of 2004 eventually caused many fans to seek out foreign releases of the critically-praised effort well before it's official U.S. release; a mournful mistake that likely resulted in diminshed sales at stateside multiplexes. A second collaboration with Kiss of the Dragon collaborator Luc Besson resulted in Unleashed, an effort many fans considered to be a notable improvement over his previous U.S. efforts, and in 2006 Li would return to the genre that launched his career one last time with the throwback martial arts biopic Fearless. A traditional-minded kung-fu epic that eschewed wirework and digital effects to focus on character and the art of fighting, Fearless proved an enormous success when it out-grossed such recent hits as House of Flying Daggars, Hero, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon upon being released into East Asian theaters in January of 2006. He made The Warlords and The Forbidden Kingdom, and had one of this most high-profile successes in the United States being part of the superstar ensemble in The Expendables, signing on for that movie's sequel two years later as well. In between those two films he could be seen in Flying Swords of the Dragon Gate and Emperor and the White Snake.

Trivia: Irish actor Liam Cunningham has spent much of his career on stage, but also occasionally appears on television and in feature films. He made his movie debut with a small role in Mike Newell's charming Irish fantasy Into the West (1993). He has since played supporting roles in productions such as War of the Buttons (1994) and Michael Winterbottom's Jude (1996). Before entering drama school in the 1980s, Cunningham had been an electrician. He started out on the Irish stage and then embarked upon a U.S. tour with a travelling Irish troupe. Cunningham's other stage credits include stints with the Passion Machine theater company and London's Royal Court Theatre. His television credits include guest-starring roles on such British series as Cracker.

Trivia: Best known in the West for her role as Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) before her international breakout role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Michelle Yeoh is not your ordinary Bond girl. Her elegant good looks coupled with a killer high kick have made Yeoh one of the most popular martial arts stars in Asia and one of Hong Kong's most famous icons abroad.Born on August 6, 1962, in the mining town of Ipoh, in Western Malaysia, Yeoh's ethnically Chinese parents taught her Malay and English well before she learned Cantonese. She began ballet dancing at the age of four, and, inspired by Fame (1980), she enrolled in England's Royal Academy of Dance, where she eventually earned a B.A. Though a back injury ended her career as a ballerina, she returned to her home country to be crowned Miss Malaysia of 1983. From there, she appeared in a television commercial with Jackie Chan which caught the attention of a fledgling film production company called D&B Films. Taking the stage name Michelle Khan, she acted in bit parts in a number of forgettable films until her breakout role in the girls-with-guns action-comedy Yes, Madam! (1985) alongside noted kung-fu femme fatal Cynthia Rothrock. Though she did not know any martial arts before signing on to the film, Yeoh reportedly spent nine hours a day in the gym, working out and learning to take a punch. She had come a long way from the Royal Academy of Dance. Within the first five minutes of Madam, Yeoh emasculates a flasher and wastes a quartet of thieves. Yeoh immediately became one of Hong Kong's biggest female action stars and was soon appearing in films at a dizzying rate. Always performing her own stunts, she teamed up again with Rothrock in the kung-fu fest Royal Warriors (1986), and she starred in a violent Thomas Crown Afffair remake, Easy Money (1987). While making the Indiana Jones-style action epic Magnificent Warriors (1987), she got engaged to department store tycoon and studio head Dickson Poon (the D in D&B Films). Taking the lead of earlier martial arts divas such as Angela Mao, Yeoh retired from the movie biz in 1988 and retreated to a life of quiet domesticity. It didn't last long. The marriage was not a happy one (the Hong Kong press reported -- falsely it turns out -- that Poon suffered two broken ribs after a well-placed kick) and it ended in divorce in 1992.Yeoh's career came roaring back after her show-stopping performance in Police Story 3: Super Cop (1992), where she matched the notoriously fearless Jackie Chan stunt for jaw-dropping stunt. At the beginning of the shoot, Chan was skeptical as to whether women could fight, preferring them to look pretty and to sit on the sidelines. By the end of the film, Chan was legitimately concerned that he might be upstaged. Yeoh's hair-raising high-speed motorcycle jump onto a moving train (she learned how to drive the motorbike the day before the stunt) was bested only by Chan's death-defying leap from a minaret to an airborne rope ladder hanging from a helicopter hundreds of feet above Kuala Lumpur. The film was a massive success, making Yeoh the highest paid actress in Asia. Now being billed as Michelle Yeoh, she starred in a string of popular action flicks, including Heroic Trio (1992) opposite Maggie Cheung and Anita Mui, Tai Chi Master (1993) along with kung-fu phenom Jet Li, and Wing Chun (1994), which is without a doubt the rockin'-est sockin'-est flick ever about tofu. Her career of high-flying stunts resulted in many a dislocated shoulder and broken rib, but in 1995, while shooting Ann Hui's Ah Kam, Yeoh managed to seriously injure herself. She misjudged a jump off an 18-foot wall (an easy stunt according to her) and landed on her head, cracking a vertebra. Yeoh was put in traction, and it was feared that she would never walk again. Yet within a month, she was back on the set as if nothing happened.The American release of Supercop caught the eyes of Western producers, and soon she was cast opposite Pierce Brosnan in the James Bond-epic Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Once again, Yeoh's natural charisma, along with her effortless ability to dispatch bands of baddies, threatened to outclass the male lead. That same year, Yeoh was named one of People magazine's 50 sexiest people of the year. Back in Hong Kong, Yeoh received accolades not for her kung-fu abilities but for her acting skills in her role as Soong Ai-ling in the widely praised historical melodrama The Soong Sisters (1997).In 2000 Yeoh fused the popular historical aspects of her previous work with an unmistakably modern aesthetic, again displaying her unyielding skills and speed in the wildly popular Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Teaming with international superstar Chow Yun Fat in an epic and gravity-defying quest to recover a stolen Excaliber-like sword named the Green Destiny, Yeoh cemented her status as an incredibly graceful fighter with the unusual ability to display a remarkable dramatic range as well.

Trivia: A muscular, darkly handsome actor who defies easy categorization, Brendan Fraser has an enviable versatility that has allowed him to be equally convincing in comedies, dramas, and adventure films alike. The son of a Canadian tourism executive, Fraser was born in Indianapolis on December 3, 1968. Thanks to his father's job, Fraser and his family led a fairly peripatetic existence, living in locales as varied as Ottawa, London, Rome, and Seattle. During his time in London, Fraser became interested in theater and eventually enrolled in Seattle's Cornish Institute for training.After an early appearance in Dogfight (1991), Fraser got his break in 1992's Encino Man as a Stone-Age man unfrozen in modern-day California. He went on to gain audience prominence in diverse roles such as a Jewish football player in an all-WASP environment in School Ties (1992), a grunged-out musician in Airheads (1994), a Harvard student who loses his thesis in With Honors (1994), and a quirky baseball phenom in The Scout (1994). Fraser has been quoted in one magazine article as saying that he seeks out roles combining "silliness and sexiness"; his work during the second half of the '90s certainly reflected this. Particular highlights were George of the Jungle (1997), a satire of jungle adventure films; Gods and Monsters (1998), the acclaimed rendering of the last days of director James Whale, for which Fraser earned particular praise in his role as Whale's strapping gardener; the romantic comedy Blast From the Past (1999); and a big-budget remake of The Mummy (1999) that effectively showcased Fraser as a hero well-suited to old-school adventure. So successful were the extravagantly computer generated exploits of the revived Mummy soon became a franchise, birthing sequels like The Mummy Returns (2001) and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008). Fraser would spend subsuquent years appearing in a number of varied projects, including comedies like Bedazzled and Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, dramas like The Quiet American and Crash, and adventure movies, like Journey to the Center of the Earth and Inkheart.

Trivia: Challenging traditional stereotypes for Asian-American actors, Russell Wong has earned a reputation as a sexy, charismatic leading man whose good looks are matched by his skills as a performer. The sixth of seven children, Russell Wong was born on March 1, 1963, in Troy, NY; his family moved to Albany when he was a baby, where his father ran a restaurant. When Wong was seven years of age, his parents divorced, and he moved with his mother to California, settling near Yosemite. In 1981, Wong graduated from Mariposa County High School, and that fall enrolled at Santa Monica City College. Wong supported himself as a photographer and as a dancer (appearing in rock videos with David Bowie, Donna Summer, and Janet Jackson, among others) before scoring his first screen roles in 1985, appearing in a Hong Kong musical called Ge wu sheng ping (aka Musical Dancer) and in a screen adaptation of James Clavell's best-seller Tai-Pan. A number of undistinguished television and film roles followed, but Wong began breaking into better roles in 1989, when he made a memorable guest appearance on the drama series 21 Jump Street and won a leading role in Wayne Wang's acclaimed independent romantic comedy Eat a Bowl of Tea. Supporting roles in China Cry and New Jack City were to follow, and Wong found himself working with Wayne Wang again when he was cast in a meaty role in the film adaptation of Amy Tan's best-selling novel The Joy Luck Club. Wong finally scored a high-profile breakthrough role in 1994, when he was cast in the leading role in the made-for-TV movie Vanishing Son, in which he played a Chinese political activist exiled in America. The show was popular enough to spawn three sequels, and was later spun off into a syndicated TV series. After Vanishing Son ran its course, Wong moved on to more big-screen work, including major roles in Prophesy II, The Tracker, and Romeo Must Die, as well as the made-for-TV epic The Lost Empire. Russell Wong is also the brother of Michael Wong, a fellow thespian active in both Hong Kong and the United States.

Trivia: Born in Pennsylvania c. 1967, Maria Bello attended Villanova University as a political science major, but acting ability - evident from an early drama class - altered her career plans. Following graduation, Bello honed her acting skills in a number of New York theater productions before she broke through to the public as one of the leads in the short-lived TV spy comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1996). Bello gained broader primetime exposure as Dr. Anna Del Amico on NBC's blockbuster ER during the 1997 season and segued into films with her performance as recovering junkie Ben Stiller's confidante in the film-a-clef Permanent Midnight (1998), adapted from Jerry Stahl's harrowing book.Bello scored her first pop hit as Mel Gibson's beautiful cohort in the harsh crime drama Payback (1999). Poised to potentially become one of the select group of actors who transition smoothly from television to film, Bello co-starred as one of the bottle-tossing, bar-stomping babes in charge of the titular drinking establishment in the Bruckheimer-produced hellraiser Coyote Ugly (2000). When Coyote Ugly failed to live up to box office hopes, Bello starred as Suzi Loomis in Bruce Paltrow's Duets, and as Ruth Harkness in the IMAX feature China: The Panda Adventure (2001), based on her real-life experiences with the eponymous creatures. Bello scored a bona fide critical, if not financial, hit with Paul Schrader's biopic about slain Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane, Auto Focus (2002). As Crane's co-star and second wife Patricia, Bello holds her own opposite Greg Kinnear's bravura performance as the nymphomaniacal Crane, evoking the complex emotions of a spouse who accepts yet ultimately cannot contend with her husband's desires.A year after Auto Focus, Bello would score even bigger with the critics with a starring role alongside William H. Macy in the gritty Vegas romance The Cooler. As the cocktail waitress who falls for Macy's sadsack ne'er-do-well, Bello brought a sense of extreme realism to her character. The film netted her a Best Supporting Actress nomination from the Screen Actors Guild and a runner-up prize from The National Society of Film Critics.In early 2004, Bello appeared as Johnny Depp's estranged wife in the Stephen King adaptation The Secret Window, and in John Sayles' well-received political thriller Silver City. Though subsequent appearances in the fairly forgettable Assault on Precinct 13, The Dark, and The Sisters followed in 2005, Bello's Golden Globe-nommed performance as an unassuming housewife who married into mystery in A History of Violence, coupled with her prominent performance as a determined alcohol lobbyist in the critically-acclaimed Thank You for Smoking, helped to get her back in the good graces of critics and end the year on a decidedly high note. When 2006 arrived, Bello joined Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, and Maggie Gyllenhall in World Trade Center, Oliver Stone's docudrama/survival picture that recounted the experiences of two Port Authority firefighters trapped beneath the rubble of the destroyed buildings. Bello joins the cast of the same year's Flicka, adapted from the seminal children's novel by Mary O'Hara (and incarnated decades prior as the movie and TV series My Friend Flicka) , alongside Alison Lohman and country singer Tim McGraw.Bello had a lead part in Alan Ball's feature film directorial debut Towelhead in 2007, and tackled the indie horror film Downloading Nancy the next year. In 2010 she scored a small part in the Adam Sandler comedy Grown Ups as well as major parts in a couple of dramas - The Company Men and Beautiful Boy.She next returned to television, taking the lead role in the NBC remake of the British series Prime Suspect in 2011. The show was cancelled after only 13 episodes, but Bello quickly booked another television role, in the second season of Fox's Touch, opposite Kiefer Sutherland. That show was also canceled after that season, and Bello returned to film, reprising her role in Grown Up 2 in 2013.Active in social causes as well, Maria Bello co-founded the Harlem not-for-profit arts and education program, Dream Yard Drama Project for Kids.

Trivia: With his gaunt handsomeness and infectious Scottish burr, John Hannah made a memorable impression on audiences on both sides of the Atlantic in his role as Simon Callow's lover in Four Weddings and a Funeral. The popularity of his portrayal was a significant feat for the actor, who, prior to the picture, had only appeared in one small film and numerous television shows in the United Kingdom.Born in 1962 in East Kilbride, a small town near Glasgow, Hannah worked as an electrician for four years before getting into acting. After training at a Glasgow drama school, the actor headed to London to find work. After his 1990 debut in a generally unheard of film called Harbour Beat, Hannah found work on television. After his breakthrough role in 1994's Four Weddings, he was able to do more film work, appearing the following year in three films, Madagascar Skin, The Final Cut, and The Innocent Sleep. After work in a few forgettable pictures and the title role on the British TV series McCallum, Hannah got his next significant role in Peter Howitt's 1998 romantic comedy Sliding Doors. The film was a relative success and Hannah netted praise for his work as Gwyneth Paltrow's love interest. The film paved the way for him to appear in his first Hollywood blockbuster, The Mummy (1999), in which he was cast against type as a ne'er do well English fop. Despite rotten reviews, the film scored massively at the box office, helping to ensure further work for the talented, versatile actor. Over the next several years, Hannah would remain active as an actor, appearing on shows like MDs, New Street Law, Spartacus, Vengeance, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, and Damages.

Trivia: Like Cliff Robertson (Charly) and Leonardo DiCaprio (What's Eating Gilbert Grape) before him, Australian actor Luke Ford first achieved substantial recognition and critical acclaim playing a mentally impaired character: that of Charlie, a young man saddled with autism and ADHD, in Elissa Down's sensitively handled drama The Black Balloon (2008). Ford clearly weighed the role with considerable seriousness and professionalis; in preparing for it, he made several trips through public places, such as shopping malls, and engaged in deeply autistic behavior to evaluate the reactions of unsuspecting passersby. Balloon scarcely constituted Ford's first role (several had preceded it, including a turn as Iphicles in the 2005 American miniseries Hercules), but it did mark one of his first leads. He followed it up by doing an about-face and embarking on a much different cinematic excursion: a role in the mega-budgeted Hollywood adventure The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), opposite Brendan Fraser and Jet Li.