Trivia: An actor whose hulking presence belies his ability to slip quietly into an astonishing variety of roles, Vincent D'Onofrio is one of Hollywood's most unpredictable and compelling performers. Throughout his career, D'Onofrio has played a diverse range of characters, from Full Metal Jacket's fatally unhinged army recruit to a wholly convincing Orson Welles in Ed Wood to a bisexual porn star in The Velocity of Gary.Born in Brooklyn, NY, on June 30, 1959, D'Onofrio was raised in the diverse locales of Hawaii, Colorado, and Miami's Hialeah section. His career as an actor began on the stage, with study under Sonia Moore of New York's American Stanislavsky Theatre and Sharon Chatten at the Actors Studio. D'Onofrio's early years in the theater were filled with an obligatory helping of obscurity and miniscule paychecks (so miniscule that he worked for a time as a bouncer to help pay the bills). His fortunes began to shift in 1984, when he joined the American Stanislavsky Theatre as a performer. There, he appeared in such well-regarded productions as Of Mice and Men and David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and also made his Broadway debut in Open Admissions.D'Onofrio debuted onscreen in the straight-to-oblivion 1983 comedy The First Turn-On!, but it was not until his haunting portrayal of Pvt. Pyle (a role for which the actor gained 70 pounds) four years later in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket that he earned much-deserved notice for his work. Defying easy categorization, D'Onofrio next appeared in the romantic comedy Mystic Pizza (1988), slimming down to his normal weight and giving a convincing portrayal as Lili Taylor's lovestruck boyfriend.Having thus given audiences a glimpse of his remarkable versatility, D'Onofrio spent the next few years making his presence felt in such films as JFK (1991), in which he played assassination witness Bill Newman; The Player (1992), which cast him in the pivotal role of ill-fated screenwriter David Kahane; and Nancy Savoca's Household Saints (1993), which, through a particularly odd feat of casting, had him playing the father of Lili Taylor. Although D'Onofrio worked at a prolific pace, it was not until he portrayed Conan the Barbarian author Robert E. Howard in the 1996 The Whole Wide World that he really had his screen breakthrough. A low-key romantic drama about the relationship between Howard and a schoolteacher (Renée Zellweger), the film allowed D'Onofrio to take center stage, rather than lend support to better-known co-stars. Critics roundly applauded his performance, but although the actor kept working steadily, he was by no means a Hollywood fixture. Eschewing the limelight, he turned in particularly memorable performances in Feeling Minnesota (1996) as Cameron Diaz's cuckolded fiancé and in the 1997 blockbuster Men in Black, which cast him as the film's resident bad guy.D'Onofrio had long since become an established actor by the 2000's, and he would remain a solid force on screen in such films as The Cell, Happy Accidents, Steal This Movie, andThumbsucker. D'Onofrio would also find just as much notoriety on the small screen, most notably as Detective Robert Goren on the phenomenally successful Law & Order spin-off Criminal Intent, and even step behind the camera, penning, helming and starring in the drama Mall.

Trivia: Born and raised in the Boston area, Erbe left her hometown to study drama at New York University. After making her TV debut as Lynn Redgrave's daughter on the short-lived TV sitcom Chicken Soup (1989), she returned to New York and was cast in the acclaimed 1990 Broadway production of The Grapes of Wrath. Erbe soon scored her first major film credit as Richard Dreyfuss' daughter in the Bill Murray comedy What About Bob? (1991) and alternated stage work as a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Atlantic Theatre Company with TV and films throughout the 1990s, most notably in Rich in Love (1992), George Wallace (1997), Kiss of Death (1995), The Addiction, (1995), and Stir of Echoes. Erbe also earned major acclaim on the HBO series Oz. As the 2000's unfolded for the actress, she found continued success in TV, playing the role of Detective Alexandra Eames on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Trivia: Character actor Jamey Sheridan has had a prolific acting career in theater, television, and film productions. Born in California to a family of actors, he made it to Broadway and earned a Tony nomination in 1987 for his performance in the revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons. After several TV movie appearances, he landed a reoccurring role as lawyer Jack Shannon on Shannon's Deal, which ran for one season in 1990. His later television roles include Dr. John Sutton on Chicago Hope (from 1995-1996) and Captain Deakins on Law & Order: Criminal Intent (since 2001). Sheridan started his film career in the late '80s with small roles, and by the '90s he was playing the token family man, a role he would continue in both film and television. He was also capable of playing villains, as he did in the 1994 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand. Other interesting roles include Marty Stouffer in Wild America and the psychotic neighbor in Video Voyeur: The Susan Wilson Story. After a long history of performing Shakespeare on the stage, Sheridan appeared in Campbell Scott's production of Hamlet in 2000 as well as the Hamlet-inspired modern noir film Let the Devil Wear Black in 1999. He's also given fine supporting performances in The Ice Storm, Cradle Will Rock, Life as a House, and numerous TV movies. In teh early 2000s Sheriden frequently alternated between film and television, though it was his role on the popular detective series Law and Order: Criminal Intent that offered him the most exposure. It was during his five year run on that show that he was diagnosed with Bell's palsy, a nerve disorder that temporarily causes partial facial paralysis, and the writers ultimately incorporated that condition into the show. In 2011 Sheridan joined the cast of the Showtime drama Homeland, which centered on a Marine sergeant and war hero who returns home to the U.S. after eight years missing in Iraq, only to be pursued by a CIA officer who's convinced he's been turned into a terrosit by Al-Qaeda.Sheridan and his wife, actress Colette Kilroy, have two children.

Trivia: Although he had been appearing in both film and television productions since the mid-'80s, it took nearly two decades for actor Courtney B. Vance to finally receive recognition. The Detroit native was bitten by the acting bug while a student at Harvard, and though he had originally intended to study history, he felt the lure of the stage and was soon appearing in productions at Harvard before eventually joining the Boston Shakespeare Company. After graduation, Vance continued his acting career at the Yale School of Drama, and it was there that he first gained notice for his role opposite James Earl Jones in the August Wilson drama Fences. In 1987, Vance made his film debut in the war drama Hamburger Hill, and though he remained true to his stage roots in the ensuing years, screen roles kept rolling in. The actor climbed the credits throughout the 1990s with a series of supporting roles in The Hunt for Red October (1990), Beyond the Law (1992), and The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993). 1995 proved something of a breakthrough year for the rising star, with roles in Panther, Dangerous Minds, and The Last Supper offering him more screen time than ever. In 1996, Vance held his own as a minister opposite Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston in The Preacher's Wife. Drawing from his own faith -- which had recently been reawakened by the suicide of his father -- for the role, Vance also had memorable performances in Cookie's Fortune in 1999 and Space Cowboys the following year. He portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in the dramatic miniseries Parting the Waters (2000) and made another solid impression on television viewers the next year with a role in the popular series Law & Order: Criminal Intent.Vance would stick with the series for five years, concurrently appearing on the long-running medical drama ER. By the time he had finished his run on both programs, he was on to the science fictions series Flash Forward from 2009-2010, before signing on to appear alongside Michael Biehn in the post-apocalyptic horror flick The Divide in 2011.

Trivia: At the age of ten, Lou Taylor Pucci had no serious interest in acting, but his aunt saw that he had quite a talent for the art. She bribed him to appear in a community theater production of Oliver, kicking off a career that would soon land him on Broadway in a production of The Sound of Music. By the age of 15, he had a small part in the independent film Personal Velocity: Three Portraits. The minor role caught the eye of agent Billy Lazarus, who subsequently took Pucci on as a client. Pucci took his first leading role in 2005's Thumbsucker, the first feature film by music video director Mike Mills. His sensitive and humorous portrayal of a 17-year-old boy's struggle to grow up was extremely well received, garnering praise from critics and audiences alike. Leading up to this auspicious debut, the young actor had a supporting part in another indie film called The Chumscrubber, a darkly comic tale about the dysfunction of suburbia. The same year, he could be seen performing alongside such greats as Paul Newman, Ed Harris, and Philip Seymour Hoffman in the Golden Globe Award-winning HBO mini series Empire Falls. 2006 found Pucci reluctant to slow down, joining the cast of director Martin Hynes' second feature film The Go-Getter, as well as Richard Linklater's film adaptation of Eric Schlosser's best-selling book Fast Food Nation. He also signed on to appear in Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly's futuristic ensemble film Southland Tales.

Trivia: Raised outside of Chicago as the sixth of nine children, including older brother James, a founding member of the band Chicago. Left college in his junior year after seeing David Mamet's play, The American Buffalo, which inspired Pankow to enroll in the two-year training program at Chicago's St. Nicholas Theatre. Performed on Broadway (in his first stint) in Serious Money, The Iceman Cometh and as Mozart in Amadeus. Appeared in a numerous films of the late 1980s-early '90s, including To Live and Die in L.A., Talk Radio and Mortal Thoughts. Most recognized for his role as Ira Buchman, cousin of Paul Reiser's character, on the '90s NBC sitcom Mad About You. Returned to Broadway in the 2000s, performing in Twelve Angry Men, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Cymbeline. Took over the role of Merc Lapidus (from Thomas Haden Church) in 2011 on the Showtime/BBC show Episodes.

Trivia: Frequently mislabeled as a performance artist, Eric Bogosian is a writer and an actor known for his comedic monologues and social commentary. Born on the East Coast and educated in the Midwest, he wrote and performed numerous one-man shows around New York during the late '70s and early '80s. After doing shows in art spaces like The Kitchen, he eventually had his solo work Fun House committed to video. The 1987 production was taped in front of a live audience. During this time he had also started acting in other people's projects, including Robert Altman's made-for-TV movie The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. The next year, he teamed with Oliver Stone for the film version of his off-Broadway show Talk Radio, starring himself as D.J. Barry Champlain. As a cinematic expansion of his original monologue, the film earned Bogosian a Silver Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival and a nomination at the Independent Spirit awards. His next big one-man show, Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll, was also made into a film, published in book form, and released on CD by Capitol. During the early '90s, he appeared as a television guest star on Law & Order and The Larry Sanders Show, and continued to publish his writing. In 1994, he finished work on the play Suburbia, which was later adapted to film by director Richard Linklater. As an actor, he had supporting roles in Dolores Claiborne, Under Siege 2, and Deconstructing Harry, followed by numerous cameos and vocal appearances. After finishing the play Griller, he went back to solo shows with Wake Up and Smell the Coffee, which was committed to film by InDigEnt. After Simon & Schuster published his novel Mall, he appeared in several TV movies and feature films, including the CBS miniseries Blonde, Atom Egoyan's Ararat, and the summer blockbuster Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.

Trivia: A veteran of film and television, Chris Noth is probably best known for his work on Law and Order and HBO's Sex and the City, the latter of which featured him as the charming but terminally untrustworthy Mr. Big, erstwhile boyfriend/bad habit of the series' heroine, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker). Hailing from Madison, WI, where he was born November 13, 1954, Noth moved around a lot throughout his childhood, living in England, Yugoslavia, and Spain. Returning to the States, he studied with the storied acting coach Stanford Meisner before being accepted into the prestigious Yale School of Drama.Noth got his start on the stage and in television performing at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, CT, and appearing in productions with theater companies across the country, including the Manhattan Theater Club and Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum. Working in television beginning in 1982, he did a number of shows before breaking into film with small parts in Off Beat (1986) and the Diane Keaton comedy Baby Boom (1987). Noth's big break came in 1989, when he was chosen to play Det. Mike Logan on Law and Order. Noth portrayed the young policeman for five seasons, winning both critical nods and fans, many of whom were saddened when his Law and Order contract was not renewed in 1995. Noth continued to work on television and did minor work in films such as Naked in New York (1994) before getting his next big break in the form of Sex and the City (1998). As Big, he was one of the few male characters who could hold his own in the presence of the series' strong female protagonists, played by Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall, and Kristin Davis. The show proved to be an enormous critical and commercial hit, in the process winning Noth more fans. He would reprise the role for subsuquent big screen adaptations of the show, in addition to other films like My One and Only and Lovelace. Noth would also enoy successful turns on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Good Wife, and Titanic: Blood and Steel.

Trivia: Tall, gangly, and oddly handsome, stage, screen, and television actor Jeff Goldblum is an unlikely sex symbol. But for many women, especially those fond of eccentric intellectual types, he fits the role perfectly. Known for the range of quirky, often otherworldly characters he has portrayed, Goldblum is adept at playing lead and supporting roles in dramas and comedies alike. A native of Pittsburgh, PA, where he was born October 22, 1952, Goldblum moved to New York at the age of 17 to pursue an acting career. He got his start at Sanford Meisner's distinguished Neighborhood Playhouse, and in the '70s began performing in a wide variety of on and off-Broadway productions. When he was 22, Goldblum made his film debut with a small role as a rapist in Michael Winner's brutal revenge drama Death Wish (1974). He was performing on-stage in the El Grande de Coca Cola review when Robert Altman gave him a small part in California Split (1974) and a slightly larger role in Nashville (1975). Afterwards, Goldblum was steadily employed as a bit player in both major and minor features, turning in one of his most notable performances as a nervous houseguest struggling to remember his mantra in the Los Angeles-set segment of Annie Hall (1977). In 1980, Goldblum branched out into television, starring opposite Ben Vereen in the short-lived television detective comedy Tenspeed and Brown Shoe. As Brown Shoe, Goldblum played an uptight stockbroker trying to make it as a hardboiled private detective. Although the role may have given him greater recognition, the actor gained his first really favorable reviews playing a tabloid magazine reporter in The Big Chill (1983). This led to leading roles in such films as Into the Night (1985), where Goldblum played an aerospace engineer opposite Michelle Pfeiffer, and Silverado (also 1985), which cast him as a villainous gambler. In 1986, he had his first hit movie with David Cronenberg's terrifying sci-fi-horror film The Fly (1986), playing a driven scientist whose research turns him into a gruesome mutant. His co-star was his then-wife, Geena Davis, whom he met while they were on the set of the comedy-thriller Transylvania 6-5000 (1985). The couple divorced in the early '90s and Goldblum then embarked on a highly publicized relationship with actress Laura Dern that broke up in the mid-'90s.In 1989, Goldblum made a favorable transatlantic impression in the British romantic comedy The Tall Guy, playing a perpetually unemployed actor who is cast as the lead of a musical about the Elephant Man. He continued to work steadily throughout the subsequent decade, appearing in films of markedly varying quality. He found great success in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park, playing a mathematician in one of the decade's biggest blockbusters. In 1996, Goldblum again explored blockbuster territory with a leading role as a computer genius in Independence Day. He reprised his role from Jurassic Park in that film's sequel 1997 sequel, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. He starred opposite Eddie Murphy in the notorious bomb Holy Man.At the beginning of the next decade Goldblum worked primarily in independent films such as Burr Steers' debut Igby Goes Down, and playing the romantic and professional rival to Bill Murray in Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. In 2006 he scored a role in his most mainstream film in quite sometime as part of the impressive ensemble in Barry Levinson's satire Man of the Year. In 2009, Goldblum joined the cast of Law & Order: Criminal Intent in the show's eighth season to play the role of Detective Zach Nichols. 2010 found the actor co-starring with Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton for the showbiz comedy Morning Glory. In 2014, he re-teamed with Anderson in The Grand Budapest Hotel. The following year, he appeared opposite Johnny Depp in Mortdecai and began filming his role in the long-awaited Indepdendence Day sequel, due in 2016.

Trivia: From the catwalk to the silver screen, model-turned-actress Julianne Nicholson has a way of turning heads. A freckled starlet whose fresh-faced beauty and boundless energy have no doubt served her well in juggling multiple projects in film and television, Nicholson first made a name for herself in a trio of independent dramas before achieving recognition among the masses with a role in the 1999 Stephen King miniseries Storm of the Century. Born and raised the oldest of four siblings living in Medford, MA, Nicholson dabbled in modeling following graduation from high school. Later studies at New York's Hunter College found the aspiring actress waiting tables in the Big Apple to support herself, though it didn't take long for Nicholson to throw caution to the wind and take up acting full time. Following her appearance in Storm of the Century Nicholson returned to features for a slew of supporting roles, and in 2000, she made her first foray into weekly television as a college student with the gift of second sight in The Others. Despite the series' short lifespan, Nicholson escaped relatively unscathed, resurfacing later the same year with an Independent Spirit Award-nominated role in the indie drama Tully. Back on the small screen Nicholson offered a breath of fresh air to Ally McBeal when she joined the cast of the popular series in 2001, with a brief leap back to the big screen in I'm With Lucy preceding a stint with a stethoscope on the 2002 medical drama Presidio Med. Cast opposite Jay Mohr as the bride-to-be in the 2004 feature Seeing Other People, Nicholson proved without a doubt that she had more than enough charm to carry the small comedy before moving on to a supporting role in the wide-release romantic comedy Little Black Book and getting meatier television roles on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Boardwalk Empire, and The Good Wife.

Trivia: Tall, slim, and possessing impossibly large cheekbones, English actress Saffron Burrows first came to the attention of international audiences with her role in Circle of Friends (1995). Burrows, who had made her screen debut two years earlier in Jim Sheridan's In the Name of the Father, was cast as one of Minnie Driver's titular circle, an Irish girl who makes the mistake of getting involved with an older, morally suspect Englishman (Colin Firth).Thanks to the film's great success, Burrows found herself steadily employed, though not always in films of great quality. In 1999, she earned the label of "star on the rise" thanks to leading roles in four different films. Two of these, Wing Commander and Deep Blue Sea, were big-budget action films, while the others were art-house dramas directed by Mike Figgis. The first, The Loss of Sexual Innocence, cast Burrows as identical twins separated at birth, while the second, Miss Julie, was an adaptation of August Strindberg's play that featured Burrows as the title character, a wealthy young woman who enters into a ruinous affair with a servant.Later gravitating toward television with roles in Boston Legal, My Own Worst Enemy, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Bones, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Burrows continued to hone her skills as a journalist by penning articles for such prominent British publications as The Guardian and The Times of London while she wasn't plying her trade in front of the cameras.

Trivia: The daughter of first generation Italian-Americans, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was born in Oak Park, IL. Oak Park was also the home town of Ernest Hemingway; some of his "don't mess with me" spirit seems to have been passed on by osmosis to Mastrantonio, who has made her career playing a number of feisty, strong-willed women. Trained for an operatic career, she studied voice at the University of Illinois, Champaign, and had one of her first gigs in an Opryland production of Showboat. Once in New York, Mastrantonio was hired for the 1981 revival of West Side Story, and was lauded in the press for her peppery portrayal of Viola in a New York Shakespeare Festival staging of Twelfth Night.Mastrantonio's first film was Scarface (1983), in which she played Al Pacino's sister (the incestuous subtext was just as pronounced here as in the original 1931 version). She then essayed the role of Benito Mussolini's embittered daughter Edda in the TV miniseries Mussolini: The Untold Story, which starred George C. Scott in the title role. In both of these productions, Mastrantonio tended to be overshadowed by her male co-stars, but she more than held her own opposite such heady company as Paul Newman and Tom Cruise in The Color of Money (1986), an assignment which won her both a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe nomination.After appearing in a few more films -- most notably The Abyss, in which she played Ed Harris' estranged engineer wife -- she starred as Maid Marian in Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in 1991. As a mark of the impression the actress had made in strong, self-reliant roles, her transformation into a damsel in distress during the film's final scenes were greeted with audible audience groans. Unfortunately, following the huge commercial -- if not critical -- success of the film, Mastrantonio's visibility receded; over the next few years she could be seen in a number of relatively obscure films, perhaps the most notable of which was Two Bits (1995) with Al Pacino. However, in 1999 Mastrantonio reemerged in the public -- or at least art house -- consciousness, thanks to lead roles in My Life So Far, in which she played Colin Firth's wife, and John Sayles' Limbo, in which she portrayed another strong-willed woman, an itinerant lounge singer who meets an uncertain fate in deepest, darkest Alaska.In the years to come, Mastrantonio would appear in many successful projects to come, most notably on the TV series Without a Trace and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

Trivia: Born in Connecticut and raised in New York City, Annabella Sciorra began her formal acting training at 13 years old, when she began attending the prestigious Hagen-Berghoff theatrical studios. By the time she was an adult, Sciorra was able to make a well-received film debut as an angst-ridden, Italian-American, Brooklyn-raised bride in 1989's True Love. Before long, the young actress found herself starring largely in wife and girlfriend roles opposite Hollywood A-listers including Tim Robbins, Robin Williams, and Richard Gere. Sciorra's supporting roles in Reversal of Fortune (1990) and The Hard Way (1991) were so successful, in fact, that they led to her breakout performance as Angie Tucci, the Italian-American woman in love with the African-American protagonist, played by Wesley Snipes, in director Spike Lee's groundbreaking urban drama Jungle Fever (1991). Sciorra's skill led to a slew of roles throughout the 1990s, most of them character parts; from Mr. Wonderful to The Hand That Rocks the Cradle to Romeo Is Bleeding, the actress proved her ability, though it wouldn't be until 1997's Cop Land that Sciorra's talent as a supporting actress was showcased to her fans' satisfaction. After a powerful performance as Annie Nielson, who contemplates suicide after the death of her husband and children in What Dreams May Come (1998), Sciorra participated in a variety of moderately faring movies until 2001, when she made her debut as tough-as-nails Italian-American Gloria Trillo in the third season of HBO's hit series The Sopranos.

Trivia: Supporting player, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Attended several Broadway shows while growing up in New Jersey, and this inspired her to start taking acting classes.Adopted the mantra "Work hard" as she honed her acting skills and took on challenging roles in productions in high school, such as the M.C. in Cabaret.Made her feature film debut in Bryan Wizemann's experimental feature Sense in 1998.Performed on Broadway from October 2009 to January 2010, playing Mrs. Daldry in Sarah Ruhl's play In The Next Room at the Lyceum Theatre.Made her professional directing debut with productions of the Lizzie Vieh's The Loneliest Number in 2018.

Trivia: Best-known for his long-running and infamously trashy TV talk show, U.K.-born Jerry Springer first entered the public eye as a politician, running a failed congressional campaign and later serving briefly as the mayor of Cincinnati, OH. Springer segued into TV news in the 1980s with a series of on-air editorials before becoming Cincinnati's most-watched anchor on the local NBC affiliate, a gig he held on to until 1993. The Jerry Springer Show premiered in 1991 and was at first a straight-forward political and current-event show. However, before long, Springer upped the sensational aspects of the show in an attempt to boost ratings. And while he garnered plenty of criticism for the lowest-common-denominator antics, the show did indeed become a hit. In 1998, Springer lampooned himself and his show in Ringmaster, a feature film that was met with low box-office performance and unanimous critical panning. He also played himself in a brief appearance in the hit film Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. In 2007, after an unsuccessful stab at liberal talk radio, Springer appeared on the fourth season of ABC's hit reality competition Dancing with the Stars. While he was declared one of the season's worst dancers, Springer stuck with the genre, taking over for Regis Philbin later that year as host of the reality talent show America's Got Talent.