Trivia: A founding member of the Chicago's influential Steppenwolf Theatre Company (along with Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry) when he was barely 19, Gary Sinise made his professional acting debut at the age of 17 in a 1973 production of The Physicist. Sinise himself would sum up his career best by noting that the secret to a successful career is not to focus on taking off like a rocket, but to "always keep the engine running." With a prolific and well-defined career on each side of the camera in addition to his stage work, keeping the engine running is precisely what Sinise has done, and that engine has been well maintained.Born March 17th, 1955 in Blue Island, IL, Sinise's attraction to the stage was supported early on through the encouragement of Barbara Patterson, his high school drama teacher. After a role in West Side Story, Sinise's love for the stage was set in stone, leading him to found the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where he would meet his future wife, actress Moira Harris. Initially based in a church basement, the Steppenwolf quickly grew in stature and respectability, serving as the breeding ground for such talents as John Malkovich and Laurie Metcalf, and earning critical praise with productions like Sam Shepard's True West, which would eventually become the company's Broadway debut. Sinise's film and television career began as a director on such television series' as Crime Story and thirtysomething, eventually leading to his feature directorial debut with the rural drama Miles From Home (starring fellow Steppenwolfers Metcalf and Malkovich) and his feature acting debut in the haunting war drama A Midnight Clear (1991). Sinise's love for the stage resurfaced with his ambitious 1992 remake of Of Mice and Men (in which he also starred, again with fellow Steppenwolf alum Malkovich, in the roles they had both portrayed on stage).But it was his performance as the physically crippled and emotionally shattered Lt. Dan in Robert Zemeckis' blockbuster Forrest Gump (1994) that brought Sinise to light as an actor of considerable talent. His sensitive portrait of a once invincible soldier reduced to a pathetic self-pitying ghost of his own former glory was the perfect vessel for the actor's quiet intensity and florid emotional capabilities, and brought him the Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. That same year Sinise had a starring role in the long-anticipated television adaptation of Stephen King's apocalyptic thriller The Stand.Sinise continued to display his dramatic abilities through the '90s, rejoining Gump co-star Tom Hanks in Ron Howard's Apollo 13 and starring as both Harry S. Truman and George Wallace in the biopics Truman (1995) (for which he won a Cable Ace Award and a Golden Globe) and George Wallace (1997) (for which he won an Emmy). With minor appearances in The Green Mile and Being John Malkovich (both 1999), Sinise brought in the year 2000 in a sci-fi mode, with Brian De Palma's existential thriller Mission to Mars and as a weapons engineer with questionable motives in Imposter. Throughout the next decade Sinise worked in a variety of films including The Big Bounce, The Human Stain, and The Forgotten. However he had is most visible role on the small screen when he was cast as the male lead in the third of the popular CSI series, CSI: NY. In 2006 he brought his theater trained voice to the animated Open Season.

Trivia: With her genuine smile, earthy beauty, and striking green eyes, Melina Kanakaredes staked her claim on daytime television in The Guiding Light before expanding her talents to numerous other popular series and, eventually, the silver screen.Born and raised in Akron, OH, the second-generation Greek-American was the third daughter of an insurance salesman and homemaker who began her career as an actress in a community theater production of Tom Sawyer at the age of eight. Later enrolling in Ohio State University to study music, dance, and theater but disheartened at poor inter-departmental relations, Kanakaredes opted for a conservatory education at Point Park College in Pittsburgh. Soon performing with the Pittsburgh Playhouse and appearing in commercials and industrial videos, Kanakaredes moved to New York after graduating magna cum laude and began working in dinner boat theater and off-Broadway productions. Taking her role as Greek immigrant Eleni Andros Cooper in The Guiding Light after being spotted by the William Morris Agency in 1991, Kanakaredes was nominated for two Emmys and soon began to expand to roles on NYPD Blue and OZ. Soon turning up in such features as The Long Kiss Goodnight and Rounders, the natural beauty began to gain even more footing in her feature aspirations with her turn in the Robert DeNiro heist-thriller The Score in 2001. Kanakaredes would spend the ensuing 2000's appearing frequently on TV, joining the cast of the police proceedural CSI: NY.

Trivia: A true case of fate intervening in the most unexpected of ways, the career of aspiring baseball star Carmine Giovinazzo, born August 24th, 1973,seemed decidedly grim when a major back injury dashed any hopes of achieving his childhood dreams of running the bases as millions of fans screamed in excitement. If those dreams weren't meant to come true, however, the fallen athlete would turn the negative into a positive by using his injury as a means of pushing himself to find his talent as an actor and realizing his true calling before the camera. A native of Staten Island, NY, Giovinazzo spent much of his childhood making short films as a hobby. The athlete-turned-actor was pounding the pavement soon after recovering from his career-altering injury. With the support of his family and an impressive resume that included many short films from NYU and SUNY Purchase, Giovinazzo was soon setting his sights on Los Angeles. The up-and-comer achieved an impressive feat by landing his very first audition for a small role in the pilot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a feature debut in the 1996 drama No Way Home, proving without a doubt that he could captivate on the big screen as well. If many of his subsequent screen roles weren't exactly memorable, he did prove promising as the lead in the 1998 thriller Fallen Arches before returning to the diamond for Spider-Man director Sam Raimi's 1999 baseball drama For Love of the Game. A stab at television with the short-lived and regrettably titled Shasta McNasty didn't further his career nearly as much as bit roles in such high-profile features as Black Hawk Down, though he did carry the 2001 crime drama The Learning Curve with suitable charm. In 2004 Giovinazzo's career was finally on the verge of breaking through with his role as forensic scientist Danny Messer on the CBS CSI spin-off CSI: NY.

Trivia: One of the more compelling actors of his generation, Hill Harper, born May 17th, 1973, has earned a reputation for turning in complex performances defined by equal parts intensity and charisma. Acting since the age of 7, Harper, a native of Iowa City, continued to nurture his interest while an undergraduate student at Brown and then as a graduate student at Harvard, where he earned degrees in law and government. During his years at Harvard, the actor was a full-time member of Boston's Black Folks Theater Company, one of the oldest and most acclaimed African-American theater troupes in the country.Harper broke into both film and television in 1993, doing recurring work on the Fox series Married...with Children and making his film debut in the short Confessions of a Dog. He had his first substantial role in a feature in Spike Lee's Get on the Bus (1996), which cast him as a UCLA film student riding a bus to the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. He went on to further demonstrate his versatility in such films as Lee's He Got Game (1998) and Christopher Scott Cherot's Hav Plenty (1997), the latter of which featured him as an egotistical pop-soul singer. The actor's profile subsequently rose on both the mainstream and independent film circuits, thanks to roles in films ranging from Beloved (1998) to the independent romantic comedy Loving Jezebel (1999) to The Skulls (2000), an entry into the teen thriller/horror genre. Harper also did some of his most acclaimed work in Jordan Walker Pearlman's The Visit (2000), an independent drama in which he starred as a prisoner dying of AIDS who tries to put his life back together.

Trivia: A spunky actress with a winning on-camera presence, Anna Belknap got her start as a guest star on a wealth of popular TV series -- everything from Homicide: Life on the Street to Law & Order: SVU to Third Watch -- before her establishment as a regular on the short-lived (one-season) shows The Handler and Medical Investigation. She found more enduring success on the popular spin-off series CSI: NY. Her portrayal of Detective Lindsay Monroe, a Midwestern transplant with deep-seated emotional scars from a decade-old mass murder that she just barely survived, imparted Belknap's scenes with a tense undercurrent even as it spoke to the character's deeply moving vulnerability. 2005 marked a fortuitous year for Belknap; in addition to joining the CSI program, she signed on as Marissa in Evan Oppenheimer's gentle, techno-hip romantic comedy Alchemy. Unfortunately, that picture encountered extremely limited theatrical distribution (despite a favorable Variety review) and went almost straight to video.

Trivia: Genial and handsome character actor Eddie Cahill garnered significant attention for two onscreen series portrayals during the early 2000s: that of Tag, the twentysomething assistant hired by Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) in the 2000-2001 season of the blockbuster sitcom Friends, and that of NYPD homicide detective Don Flack on the successful crime series spin-off CSI: NY (2004). In addition, he had starred in the shortlived WB comedy drama Glory Days (2002) as author Mike Dolan, but it took the CSI role to secure him lasting small-screen success. In 2004, Cahill made his first feature-film appearance, as famous goalie Jim Craig in the Olympic hockey drama Miracle, followed soon after by his role as Larry Gordon in Catherine Hardwicke's bittersweet skateboarding movie Lords of Dogtown (2005). In 2008 he appeared in both This Is Not a Test, and the drama The Narrows.

Trivia: Canadian actor Robert Joy has been appearing in films on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border since the 1970s. He has always been a welcome presence, even when the scripts took pains not to make him feel welcome. As Susan Sarandon's husband in Atlantic City (1981), Joy stuck around just long enough to be bumped off by drug dealers. And as demented socialite Harry K. Thaw in Ragtime (1981), Joy existed principally to shoot Stanford White (Norman Mailer) full of holes and then get thrown in the looney bin. One of Robert Joy's largest, and most unorthodox, film assignments was as the would-be political demagogue (and one-time flamenco dancer) in the Newfoundland-based The Adventures of Faustus Bidgood (1986). Over the next several years, Joy would continue to remain an ongoing force on screen, appearing in films like Joe Somebody, Pretty Persuasion, Land of the Dead, and Superhero Movie. He would find success with a starring role on the long running crime proceedural CSI: NY.

Trivia: Immigrated to Canada with his family when he was 6 years old. Made his first television appearance in the 1994 made-for-TV drama The Disappearance of Vonnie. Made his feature-film acting debut in the 1998 teen horror movie Disturbing Behavior, starring Katie Holmes and James Marsden. Has appeared in several sci-fi/horror TV series, including Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Fox's The X-Files and Millennium, and the CW's Supernatural. Has a movie and television production company called Fourfront Productions, and is part-owner and frequent contributor to Louisiana's Scene magazine.

Trivia: A young actor noted for his intense, older-than-his-years demeanor, Edward Furlong was 12 years old when he was picked for the role of John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991). Discovered in a Boys Club in his native Pasadena, California, Furlong shot to stardom with his film debut, managing to impress both critics and audiences with his ability to hold his own against Arnold Schwarzenegger. Despite this auspicious breakthrough, Furlong's subsequent films, though generally well-received by the critics, went virtually unseen by audiences. Such was the case with American Heart, in which Furlong gave an affecting performance as the son of a hardened ex-con (Jeff Bridges) (1993); Little Odessa (1994), in which he played the younger brother of a hitman for the Russian Mafia (Tim Roth); and The Grass Harp, a touching adaptation of Truman Capote's novel about a young orphan (Furlong) who comes of age in the company of some eccentric relatives.Furlong gave another strong performance in Barbet Schroeder's Before and After (1996), playing a young man accused of murdering his girlfriend. Unfortunately, as with many of his previous films, the favorable critical response it received failed to translate to commercial success. It was not until John Waters cast Furlong as the titular hero of Pecker two years later that his career began to rebound; one of Waters' most popular films to date, it allowed Furlong to demonstrate his ability to play quirky satire as well as serious drama. He earned additional acclaim later that year for his portrayal of the impressionable younger brother of a neo-Nazi (Edward Norton) in American History X; combined with the success of his role in Pecker, the film seemed to point the way toward steady work for Furlong in the future. Furlong would spend the next several years playing roles in movies like The Crow: Wicked Prayer and The Green Hornet. He made a couple of television appearances in series like Perception and The Glades in 2012, before returning to direct-to-DVD fare like Assault on Wall Street and The Zombie King (co-starring Corey Feldman).Although Furlong's acting career has been varied, anyone familiar with Japanese pop culture will know that thanks to his love of music, Furlong has enjoyed huge success in Japan. Following the Japanese release of his first album, Hold on Tight, he garnered a reputation as one of the country's most popular singers.

Trivia: An accomplished young actor who has graced the stage, screen, and television, Harold Perrineau Jr. has earned a well-deserved reputation as a performer willing to take on just about anything, with roles ranging from drag queens to hardened criminals. A native of Brooklyn, Perrineau studied music and theatre at the Shenandoah Conservatory, but began his career as a dancer with the Alvin Ailey Company, performing with the troupe for a year and a half. A gradual shift to acting led Perrineau to the theatre, where he acted in a number of shows including Dreamgirls, the critically acclaimed Avenue X, and the off-Broadway revival of Godspell.While he was working on the stage, Perrineau also began appearing on TV in such shows as The Cosby Show, The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, I'll Fly Away, and Law & Order. He segued onto the big screen in the late '80s, but had his first memorable role as Rashid Cole, a young man searching for his long-absent father (Forest Whitaker) in Smoke, an acclaimed 1995 drama directed by Wayne Wang and based upon the writings of Paul Auster. The following year he gained further exposure for his flamboyant, explosive portrayal of Mercutio in Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet. At one point outfitted in a glitter miniskirt and platform heels, Perrineau proved a worthy, if idiosyncratic, foil for Leonardo Di Caprio's Romeo and gave a performance that marked him as one of the more distinctive Mercutios in the play's history.Perrineau subsequently appeared in a number of supporting roles in films ranging from Auster's Lulu on the Bridge (1998) to The Best Man (1999), a celebrated romantic comedy directed by Malcolm D. Lee (cousin of Spike Lee) that saw Perrineau share the screen with other members of a group widely billed as a new generation of African-American actors, including Taye Diggs, Morris Chestnut, and Nia Long. In addition to appearances in various independent films, Perrineau starred in Woman on Top (2000), a comedy that cast him as the drag queen best friend of a young woman (Penelope Cruz) experiencing romantic woes.In 1997, Perrineau made the move to the small screen, assuming the role of paraplegic convict and narrator Augustus Hill on the acclaimed HBO series Oz. The brutally violent, hard-hitting series generated Perrineau thousands of fans, and he stayed with the show until 2003 - the same year he took up the role of Link in The Matrix Reloaded, the second film in the explosive Matrix franchise. He would reprise the role the next year for the third and final installment in the series, The Matrix Revolutions, before returning to television just months later for the role of Michael on the cryptic ABC sci-fi/mystery/drama Lost. Playing a conflicted and sometimes morally ambiguous character, Perrineau soon proved to be a vital member of the cast, taking a hiatus from the series in 2007 only to return in 2008.Despite becoming a pivotal component of primetime TV, the actor remained as active in movies as ever. He took on the role of Flynn in the 2007 horror sequel 28 Weeks Later, and starred alongside Michael Madsen in the 2008 thriller The Killing Jar. After Lost ended in 2010, Perrineau continued to alternate between TV and film, playing the villain in season 5 of Sons of Anarchy and a decidedly lighter role as the bass player in a wedding band in the short-lived TBS comedy Wedding Band. He also played a supporting role in the controversial Oscar-nominated film Zero Dark Thirty (2012).

Trivia: Brooklyn, NY, native Vanessa Ferlito grew up amid somewhat challenging circumstances as an only child (the daughter of two Italian-American hair salon owners) whose father died before she reached the age of three. She developed acting aspirations early in life and broke into the entertainment business via television, with guest spots and recurring roles on crime-themed series programs including CSI: New York and The Sopranos -- where her unmistakably ethnic, weathered but voluptuous look lent her time and again to effective portrayals of molls, mistresses, and other gritty urban female types. She landed her most prominent early feature roles in Spider-Man 2 (as a co-star in Mary Jane's play) and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof segment of the 2007 two-episode omnibus Grindhouse (as one of the low-down women stalked and murdered by Kurt Russell's psychopath Stuntman Mike). After the Tarantino project, Ferlito joined co-stars Debra Messing and Alfred Molina for the gentle comedy Nothing Like the Holidays and worked with Tyler Perry on the farce Madea Goes to Jail (2009).

Trivia: Made his TV debut playing Mack the Magician in a 2003 episode of General Hospital.Made his film debut in the 2005 drama A Year and a Day, playing Cary.Some of his theatre credits include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Hurlyburly, Loose Ends, Detective Story, and Geography of a Horse Dreamer, among others.Skills listed on his resume include horseback riding, tennis, raquet-ball, baseball, football, snow skiing, skating and scuba diving.Released his new age albums Saints in 2015 and Hidden Nature in 2017.