Trivia: Was not interested in acting until he was recruited by a casting agent at school and offered an audition. At the age of 11, was chosen out of approximately 10,000 young actors for the role of Steve in the film The Tree of Life opposite Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. Has long enjoyed sports, having played baseball and run on the track team during high school. Was named in Indiewire's list of Top 25 Filmmakers and Actors to Watch in 2011.

Trivia: Began acting with the Oldham Theatre Workshop at age 10. Starred in a school production of West Side Story. Left school before completing her A-levels to play Meg Demoys in the BBC mini-series Blackout. Was offered an audition for The Secret of Crickley Hall by director Joe Ahearne on the recommendation of his friend Bill Gallagher, who directed her in her TV debut, Blackout.

Trivia: Lead actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Perhaps the busiest television actor on either side of the pond, British standup comedian-turned-actor Simon Pegg has become a ubiquitous presence to U.K. television viewers since making his debut in the popular 1995 comedy series Six Pairs of Pants. With his role as the writer and hapless title character in the British "zom-rom-com" (zombie romantic comedy) Shaun of the Dead, Pegg's popularity set sail for U.S. shores as well. A Glouchester native who completed his education at Bristol University before segueing into film and television, Pegg showed considerable promise as an actor in his early television appearances. It was during the production of Six Pairs of Pants that Pegg made the acquaintance of future collaborators Jessica Stevenson and Edgar Wright, and in the years that followed, the trio would find notable small-screen success in such efforts as Asylum and Spaced -- with the latter finding an especially strong following on U.K. television. Additional roles in Saturday Live, the outlandish Big Train, and as the lead in Hippies also served to boost Pegg's profile, and in 2001 he joined an impressive cast for a small role in Tom Hanks' acclaimed miniseries Band of Brothers. Though the majority of Pegg's exposure had been limited to the small screen at the dawn of the new millennium (save for brief appearances in such features as The Parole Officer and 24 Hour Party People), the prolific television comic made a successful leap to the big screen as the writer and eponymous character in 2004's Shaun of the Dead. Cast as a put-upon electronics-store employee who attempts to rescue his friend (played by Pegg real-life best friend and Spaced co-star Nick Frost), mother, and ex-girlfriend as the zombie apocalypse rages around them, Pegg drew big laughs with Shaun, and it wasn't long before the film was scheduled for stateside release. A film championed by the likes of even zombie-genre inventor George A. Romero for its witty writing and cleverly constructed chills, Shaun of the Dead found considerable success when released into stateside theaters in September 2004 (it would come as no surprise to fans of the film that it won the award for Best Screenplay at the 2004 British Independent Film Awards). Back on the BBC, Pegg joined I'm Alan Partridge star Steve Coogan in the bizarre genetically modified talking-animals comedy I Am Not an Animal before joining Shaun mate Peter Serafinowicz for a few episodes of Look Around You and making an appearance in the 2005 series of his favorite childhood television program, Doctor Who. A brief cameo in Romero's eagerly anticipated Land of the Dead quickly followed, and after lending his voice to the scatological computer-animated comedy Free Jimmy, Pegg would "go-Hollywood" in a very big way by joining the Tom Cruise team in Alias director J.J. Abrams' Mission: Impossible III.Though Pegg went on to play a substantial role in director Jean-Baptiste Andrea's Big Nothing shortly thereafter, the film was released straight to DVD in the U.S., and it wasn't until the release of Hot Fuzz that American audiences would once again get a good look at Pegg and pal Frost as they re-teamed with director Wright to parody the action-packed police thrillers that fueled their imaginations as impressionable young children. Pegg would go on to enjoy sustained success in the comedy world, appearing in movies like Run, Fatboy, Run, and Paul. He would also cement himself into a hugely popular franchise, taking on the role of Scotty in the J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek.

Trivia: Trained with the National Youth Theatre. Made her professional television debut in an episode of Whitechapel before graduating college. Made her stage debut in the West End of London production of Viva Forever! in 2012.

Trivia: Wanted to be a television writer from age 7. Named one of Variety's 10 Comedians to Watch in 2014. Launched a successful indiegogo campaign to fund the production of the film Dear White People. Often wears her own clothes for her role on Master of None; has since had fans asking to buy them on Instagram.

Trivia: Standup comic and improvisational comedy specialist T.J. Miller got his first taste of television success on the popular PBS education program The Standard Deviants before landing various commercial and voice-over jobs. A classically trained actor who studied at B.A.D.A. in Oxford, England, the Denver, CO, native studied circus arts at Friches Théâtre Urbain in Paris before returning stateside and settling in Chicago. In 2007, Miller could be seen opposite Faith Ford and Jerry O'Connell in the ABC sitcom Carpoolers. Executive produced and written by Kids in the Hall alum Bruce McCulloch and executive produced and directed by Joe and Anthony Russo (Arrested Development), Carpoolers followed four suburban guys as they attempted to make sense of their lives on their daily drives to and from work.Miller's big movie break came when he was cast in J.J. Abrams' top-secret Cloverfield (2008); however, as he played the "cameraman" in the "found footage," he was rarely seen on-screen, though his voice was frequently heard. His voice was also heard as Tuffnut in How to Train Your Dragon (2010), a role he reprised in the sequels. Miller appeared in supporting roles in Get Him to the Greek (2010), Our Idiot Brother (2011) and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012). In 2014, he appeared in the big-budget Transformers: Age of Extinction and booked a series regular role on HBO's Silicon Valley.

Trivia: Better known for his work on the English stage than for his onscreen roles, Mark Rylance made a name for himself on the American art house circuit in 2001 with his performance in Patrice Chéreau's controversial melodrama Intimacy. For his portrayal of Jay, a self-destructive bartender engaged in a torrid affair with a married woman, Rylance was required to strip off both his clothes and his emotional inhibitions. He earned raves for his efforts, as well as ribbing from the press in London, where he was the artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.Born in Ashford, Kent, on January 18, 1960, Rylance grew up in Milwaukee, where both of his parents were English teachers. Although he was raised in the U.S., the actor felt a strong sense of British identity and returned to his home country at 18 to study theater in London. Accepted into the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Rylance was soon making a name for himself in productions of Hamlet, Henry V, and Much Ado About Nothing. Rylance first made a notable impression on audiences on both sides of the Atlantic in 1995 -- the same year he became the Globe's director -- when he portrayed an explorer/scientist who marries into an insidiously dysfunctional family in Philip Haas' Angels and Insects. The film, adapted from a novel by A.S. Byatt, earned critical kudos but limited recognition, and Rylance didn't appear onscreen again until he starred in Intimacy. Picked for his starring role opposite Kerry Fox after Chéreau saw his performance as an alcoholic boxer in the 1991 BBC drama The Grass Arena, Rylance turned in a strong portrayal that tended to be overshadowed by the film's graphic content. Its frank sex scenes, which included full frontal nudity and unsimulated oral sex, caused a sensation among the British press who criticized Rylance, a public figure in the theater world, for his willingness to let it all hang out for the public to see. However, Intimacy went on to win critical raves at film festivals across the globe, and in the process allowed Rylance to be recognized as an actor who added up to more than the mere sum of his parts.Rylance continued to take on-screen roles in between theatre jobs, such as playing Thomas Boleyn, the father of Anne Boleyn, in The Other Boleyn Girl, and in the British drama The Government Inspector. In 2015, he was thrown into the American awards circuit for his work in two projects. First, he played Thomas Cromwell (opposite Damian Lewis' King Henry VIII) in the BBC/PBS miniseries Wolf Hall, earning Rylance an Emmy and Golden Globe nomination. Then, he played captive KGB spy Rudolf Abel in Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies, which nabbed Rylance his first Oscar nomination and win, for Best Supporting Actor (Rylance became only the second actor, after Daniel Day-Lewis, to win an acting Oscar for a Spielberg film). He continued his association with Spielberg for his next big-screen role, playing the title character in The BFG.

Trivia: Fans of British television will have little difficulty placing English actor Ralph Ineson. He scored massive popularity on the hit BBC series The Office as Chris Finch, a sociopathically obnoxious sales rep whose antics consisted of insulting and belittling nearly everyone in sight to puff himself up. The part was somewhat indicative of Ineson's typecast, not from the standpoint of obnoxious characters, but from the standpoint of aggression; time and again, he came to specialize in playing dominant, outspoken, Type A personalities. A native of Yorkshire, Ineson signed for roles in a myriad of BBC telemovies and series (notably the iconic programs The Bill and Coronation Street), displaying equal adroitness for riotous comedy and straight-faced drama. Many American viewers experienced Ineson for the first time courtesy of his fine supporting work in the features First Knight (1995) and From Hell (2001). In 2007, Ineson scored a highly visible turn as Harry Marber, a member of Scotland Yard's armed response unit, in the feature thriller Shoot on Sight.

Trivia: Irish actress Susan Lynch first caught the attention of international audiences as a mythical half-seal, half-human Selkie in John Sayles' widely acclaimed The Secret of Roan Inish. The daughter of an Irish father and Italian mother, Lynch (her brother John is also an actor) got her start performing plays in Gaelic and received her theatrical training at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, where she won Kenneth Branagh's Renaissance Award for Most Promising Student. Lynch broke into television in 1993, when she appeared in an episode of the popular BBC series Cracker and went on to act in a number of miniseries and made-for-TV movies, including Kings in Grass Castles (1998) and the well-received BBC dramatization of Ivanhoe (1997), which cast her as Rebecca. While acting on screens big and small, she continued to appear on the stage, doing particularly notable work in a number of London West End productions, including August Strindberg's Miss Julie, in which she starred in the title role opposite John Hannah. Although Lynch made her film debut in the 1978 drama Northern Lights, it was not until 1994, when she appeared in The Secret of Roan Inish that she began to have a relatively steady cinematic career. That same year, she had a small part as a vampire in Interview With the Vampire, and subsequently starred as a troubled single mother in the romantic thriller Down Time. In 1998, Lynch starred in her most successful film to date, the Irish comedy Waking Ned Devine. The film, which cast the actress as a small-town woman in love with a pig farmer (James Nesbitt), was an international sleeper hit, and helped to give Lynch exposure outside of the UK. The following year, she won the role of Nora Barnacle opposite Ewan McGregor's James Joyce in Nora, the story of the author's real-life relationship with the woman who would both inspire and challenge him throughout his life.

Trivia: Is a middle child.Signed up, along with her brother, with her sister's agent when she was 12.Appeared in a TV commercial for McVities Biscuits alongside actress Jane Asher.Played a young Millie, the younger version of her sister's character in Rag Nymph.Her sister Honeysuckle, her brother Rollo and herself, all appeared in the TV miniseries Goggle Eyes.Has twin sons.

Trivia: Moved to London, England, at the age of seven.The film Akeelah and the Bee (2006) inspired her to become an actor.Studied at the Identity School of Acting.Found out she got the role of Shuri in Black Panther (2018) while she was at a bus stop in London.Featured in Drake's music video "Nice for What."Skilled at rapping and freestyling.

Trivia: Joined the British army at age 16 and served for 7 years.Kept his day job while studying acting in the evenings at local arts centers.It took him four years of auditioning to get into drama school.Started acting at 25 and got his first professional acting job at 31.Highly skilled in Flamenco, scuba diving and stage combat.Best known for The Brothers Grimsby (2016), The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016) and Game of Thrones (2011).

Trivia: Began her career at the age of three, working in commercials and voice-overs.Made her film debut in horror movie Deliver Us From Evil.First major TV role was Mikayla in CBS sitcom The Millers.Writes short stories and screenplays in her free time.

Trivia: Made his feature film debut playing Elementary Kid in the 2018 Steven Spielberg film Ready Player One.First lead role in a television series is Stuart in Nickelodeon's Cousins for Life.

Trivia: Moved to California when she was 7.The 8-month audition process for the role of Mary Adler in Gifted (2017) included more than 600 girls.Learned how to ice-skate to prepare for her role as young Tonya Harding in the film I, Tonya (2017).Played young versions of many older characters, including Sabrina Spellman in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina; Tonya Harding in I, Tonya (2017); Carol in Captain Marvel (2019); Theo in The Haunting of Hill House; and Emma in Once Upon a Time.Supports PETA and Farm Sanctuary.

Trivia: Got discovered in 2013 by a student at Chapman University while he was performing card tricks in front of a coffee shop. Before getting offered his first audition, he didn't consider acting as part of his future.Is an avid sports fan, especially basketball. As a young kid, he dreamed to play in the NBA. First guitar lesson was with his friend C.C. Deville, from the band Poison.Is the son of Grammy-nominated songwriter Jeremy Dalton.

Trivia: At the age of 5, had his first audition, an Oscar Meyer commercial, and got the part.Lent his voice for many projects including Rise of the Guardians and Paranorman.Famous amongst Disney and Nickelodeon fans.Plays guitar.Known for playing the titular character in the Disney XD series Kirby Buckets.

Trivia: Julia Nickson has appeared in television and feature films as a supporting actress. She is frequently cast as an Asian or "exotic" woman. Nickson made her feature-film debut in Rambo: First Blood, Part 2 (1985). Married to actor David Soul, she also bills herself as Julia Nickson-Soul.

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: 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.