Trivia: Launching his career as a standup comic, American performer Richard Belzer entered the 1970s as a member of an odd New York-based comedy troupe called Channel One. Anticipating the home video explosion by over a decade, Channel One staged satirical, scatological routines lampooning the banalities of television -- and staged them in front of TV cameras, which transmitted the routines to little TV monitors, which in turn were watched by the live audience. Some of the best sketches were assembled into an X-rated comedy feature, The Groove Tube (1970), which featured Belzer, Ken Shapiro, and a brash newcomer named Chevy Chase. For the next decade, Belzer played the comedy-club circuit, popped up as a talkshow guest, and appeared in occasional films like Fame (1982). He joined still another comedy troupe in 1983, which appeared nightly on the syndicated interview program Thicke of the Night. The host was Allan Thicke, and Belzer's comic cohorts included such incipient stars as Charles Fleischer, Chloe Webb and Gilbert Gottfried. Thicke of the Night was one of the more notorious bombs of the 1983-84 season, but it enabled Belzer to secure better guest-star bookings, and ultimately a hosting job on his own program, debuting in 1986 over the Lifetime Cable Service. It was on this series that wrestler Hulk Hogan, demonstrating a stranglehold on Belzer caused the host to lose consciousness -- which prompted a highly publicized lawsuit instigated by Belzer against the Hulkster. In the early 1990s, Richard Belzer could be seen as a non-comic regular on the TV series Homicide. His Homicide character, John Munch, would become one of the longest-running fictional creations on TV appearing in more than a half-dozen other television shows, most notably Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Trivia: Pleasant-looking and genial American character player Reed Diamond delivered a number of early performances prior to his first major assignment -- as Detective Mike Kellerman on the series Homicide: Life on the Street. Diamond carried the role from 1995 through 1998, and reprised it in Jean de Segonzac's 2000 feature Homicide: The Movie. After essaying the Lloyd Bridges role in that same year's telemovie remake of High Noon, Diamond then branched off into cinematic work. He was memorable as John Aaron in George Clooney's Edward R. Murrow biopic Good Night, and Good Luck., and lent supporting roles to the horror picture The Darkroom (2006) and the thriller Adrenaline (2007). Diamond continued to work on the small screen as well, playing Stuart Collins for many episodes of Judging Amy and appearing in episodes of such popular series as CSI, Law & Order, The West Wing, and Ghost Whisperer. In 2007, he scored a regular role on the short-lived sci-fi drama Journeyman, as Jack Vassar, the brother of main character Dan Vasser (Kevin McKidd). He also appeared in the first season of Joss Whedon's short-lived series Dollhouse in 2009, and the next year he landed a recurring part on the 8th season of the FOX action series 24. He returned to the big screen in 2011 playing Mark Shapiro in Moneyball, and returned to the Whedonverse with a role in the director's 2012 adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.

Trivia: Gaining notice in the early '90s for his Emmy-winning portrayal of Detective Francis Xavier "Frank" Pembleton on the popular television police drama Homicide: Life on the Street, tireless Chicago native Andre Braugher remained with the show through 1998 while simultaneously building a feature career with roles in such theatrical releases as Primal Fear (1996) and City of Angels (1998). A graduate of Stanford University who also received a M.F.A. from the prestigious Juilliard School, Braugher claims to have originally taken up acting to meet girls. He later changed his major after realizing his true calling during a production of Hamlet, and his first professional role came in a performance at the Berkley Shakespeare Festival. Making the leap from stage to screen with the 1989 civil war drama Glory proved an eye opening experience, and following numerous appearances as Detective Winston Blake in a series of made-for-TV Kojak features, Braugher held onto his badge by joining the cast of Homicide in 1993. Later alternating successfully between film and television, Braugher was voted one of the "50 Most Beautiful" people in a 1997 issue of People magazine; the following year, the handsome actor turned down a prominent role in the sci-fi drama Sphere in order to spend more time with his family. Jumping back into features in 2000, roles in Frequency, Duets and A Better Way to Die proved that Braugher was still in top form, and, in 2002, he turned back to the small screen with the made-for-TV feature Hack (and later reprised his role when the feature was turned into a weekly series). Following a role in the made-for-TV feature A Soldier's Girl (2002), Braugher joined the cast of the television remake of the Stephen King vampire chiller Salem's Lot (2004), then returned to television - and changed camps to tap into the underground element - on the weekly crime drama Thief. As Nick Atwater, one of the most genial and principled of all television criminals (!), Braugher evoked an unusual ethical balance in his character and tapped into the fence's deep-seated devotion to his family, even as he drummed up a fiery intensity from episode to episode. Successive years found the actor moving into supporting roles in Hollywood A-listers with a heightened emphasis on effects-heavy action, adventure and fantasy-themed material; projects included Poseidon (2006), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) and Stephen King's The Mist (2007).Braugher would star in the TV mini-series The Andromeda Strain in 2008, before taking on a role in the cult favorite comedy series Men of a Certain Age from 2009-2011. He would also enjoy a recurring role on House M.D., and play a memorable supporting role in the Angelina Jolie action flick Salt.

Trivia: A burly, thickset, and occasionally scruffy character actor with a domineering and imposing presence, Peter Gerety often accepted roles as ordinary working-class stiffs, judges, or inner-city law officers. A performer with equal footing in film and on the stage, Gerety took his premier onscreen bow during the early '80s but first began drawing substantial attention over a decade later. Gerety remains best known for his multi-season portrayal (1996-1999) of Detective Stuart Gharty on the cop drama Homicide: Life on the Street. He also played the recurring role of Judge Daniel Phelan on another Baltimore-set crime series, The Wire (2002-2008). Big-screen projects include Sleepers (1996), K-PAX (2001), Syriana (2005), Charlie Wilson's War (2007), Leatherheads (2008), and Public Enemies (2009).

Trivia: Black supporting actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: African American actor Yaphet Kotto was one of the most prominent beneficiaries of the upsurge in black-oriented theatrical pieces of the late 1950s; he appeared in many prestigious Broadway and off-Broadway productions, taking regional theatre work rather than accept stereotypical "mainstream" roles in movies and TV. Kotto's first film was Nothing But a Man (1964), an independently produced study of black pride in the face of white indifference. Though he vehemently steered clear of most of the '70s blaxploitation fare, in 1972, Kotto produced, directed and wrote the feature film Speed Limit 65 (aka The Limit and Time Limit), a one-of-a-kind "black biker" film. The biggest production with which Kotto was associated in the early 1970s was the James Bond film Live and Let Die, in which, as the villainous Mr. Big, he was blown up in the final scene (a similarly grisly fate awaited Kotto in 1979's Alien). On television, Yaphet Kotto was a regular on the TV series For Love and Honor (1983) and Homicide: Life on the Streets (1992), and was seen as Ugandan president Idi Amin in the 1977 TV movie Raid on Entebbe.

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

Trivia: A boyishly handsome boxer-turned-actor who turned in his gloves for real after making his screen debut as a pugilist in the 1992 drama Gladiator, New York-born film and television star Jon Seda rose through the ranks in the '90s to make a name for himself as a bit player in such high-profile films as Carlito's Way and Twelve Monkeys -- though it wasn't until his 1997 debut on television's Homicide: Life on the Streets that audiences truly sat up and took notice. Those who had been following Seda's career since his early days had little doubt that the rising young star had what it took to make it as an actor, and following an Independent Spirit Award-winning role as a flawed but well-meaning husband and father in the 1994 drama I Like It Like That, major offers quickly began pouring in. An impressive run in the mid-'90s found Seda turning up in everything from such high-profile Hollywood fare as Primal Fear to such little-seen efforts as New York Cop and Michael Cimino's The Sunchaser -- the latter of which offered Seda in a particularly memorable role as a terminally-ill juvenile delinquent who kidnaps his doctor in hopes of finding a mythical healing lake. Following an impressive turn in the hit HBO prison series Oz, Seda hit his stride on the small screen with a turn as Detective Paul Falsone on Homicide: Life on the Street. By this time Seda was becoming a familiar face to audiences, and in 2000, he once again laced up his boxing gloves for a role opposite Jimmy Smits in the well-received feature Price of Glory. Despite his prominence and success in film and television, it still seemed as if Seda was awaiting the breakout role that would truly make him a household name. In 2002 he proved that he could carry a film when he took the lead in the street-gang drama King Rikki, with a role on the 2004 UPN series Kevin Hill, marking what fans hoped would be a successful return to the small screen.

Trivia: An actress whose capability to seamlessly alternate between roles that call for unchallenged authority figures and vulnerable, coyly girlish types, Callie Thorne is equally comfortable on small-screen crime and police dramas (Homicide: Life on the Street, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Wire, and Prison Break) and big-screen comedies (Next Stop Wonderland, Wirey Spindell, and Strangers With Candy). It was her recurring role as Sheila Keefe on the hit FX series Rescue Me, however, that truly allowed Thorne to gain considerable notice as an actress. A graduate of Lincoln-Sudbury High School who went on to study at Wheaton College, Thorne credits much of her success to Wheaton theater director Pamela Bongas. While early roles in such features as Turbulence and Next Stop Wonderland served well to get the emerging actress comfortable in front of the camera, it was her performance as Detective Laura Ballard on Homicide: Life on the Street that truly propelled Thorne's career to the next level. After breaking the glass ceiling on the series by becoming the first female homicide detective to be paired with another female on a case, Thorne displayed her indie side with commendable roles in Ed Burns' Sidewalks of New York and Tim McCann's Revolution #9. But Thorne truly shined on the small screen, and despite the occasional appearance in such big-budget efforts as Analyze That, recurring roles on The Wire, ER, Prison Break, and, of course, Rescue Me made her a favorite of television viewers who liked their drama served with a side of grit.

Trivia: Although he had almost no prior acting experience, Mekhi Phifer made a highly auspicious screen debut as Strike, a 19-year-old petty drug dealer in Spike Lee's gritty urban drama Clockers (1995). A veteran of the Harlem streets, Phifer got his break when he attended an open casting call with only photo booth pictures of himself to give to interviewers. Displaying a rare charisma and intensity that was perfect for the role of Lee's ambitious protagonist, the novice actor beat the considerable odds against him and out-acted nearly 1,000 other applicants for the part. Following the success surrounding his Clockers debut, Phifer appeared in The Tuskegee Airmen, a powerful drama starring Laurence Fishburne that first aired on the HBO cable network. In 1997, Phifer made another strong impression playing the volatile but good-hearted Lem in George Tillman Jr.'s comedy drama Soul Food. The following year, he took part in the rage of teen horror films as one of the stars of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and further established himself as one of Hollywood's more photogenic up-and-comers by starring alongside Julia Stiles and Josh Hartnett in O (2000), a loose adaptation of Shakespeare's Othello that saw Phifer as a high-school basketball star betrayed by his jealous best friend.Though a well-known performer, Phifer didn't have a bona fide hit until 2002 when he played Future alongside hip-hop star Eminem in the urban drama 8 Mile. That same year, Phifer found success on the small screen as well, joining the cast of NBC's long-running hit medical series ER. Phifer played the role of Dr. Greg Pratt for six seasons before exiting the show at the beginning of season 15 in 2008. Phifer continued to stick with television work after leaving the series, first joining the cast of Fox's crime-drama Lie to Me as an FBI agent, and then playing a CIA agent on the fourth season of the BBC's Torchwood.

Trivia: One of the most prolific and reliably excellent actors on the independent film circuit, Kevin Corrigan has made a name for himself portraying a painfully memorable array of geeks, stoners, and generally pathetic losers. Consistently good at playing bad, he has elevated the expression of basic freakishness into something of an underrated art form.A native of the Bronx, where he was born on March 27, 1969, Corrigan first became interested in acting as a teenager. At the age of 17, his play The Boiler Room was produced by the Young Playwrights Festival of New York. The 1990s got off to a promising start for Corrigan with a supporting role as Ray Liotta's brother in Martin Scorsese's critically acclaimed Goodfellas (1990). More gangster action followed the next year with a part in Billy Bathgate, but Corrigan then took a turn toward smaller features with Zebrahead, a 1992 film that opened to generally positive reviews but little box-office action. After supporting roles in The Saint of Fort Washington and True Romance (both 1993), Corrigan had a substantial part in director Matthew Harrison's Rhythm Thief, a black-and-white drama that won Harrison a directing award at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. The film marked the beginning of Corrigan's immersion in the growing and increasingly lucrative world of independent film, with supporting roles in Tom DiCillo's acclaimed Living in Oblivion (1995), in which the actor provided laughs as a dimbulb cameraman, and Trees Lounge (1996), the directorial debut of Corrigan's Oblivion co-star Steve Buscemi. The same year, Corrigan had substantial roles in the well-received independent comedy Walking and Talking, in which he had a memorable turn as a nebbishy video clerk who sleeps with Catherine Keener, and Illtown, a crime drama in which he starred with Lili Taylor and Zebrahead co-star Michael Rapaport. Following a turn as a stoner guitarist in the obscure Bandwagon (1996) and a supporting role in Hal Hartley's 1997 film Henry Fool, Corrigan co-wrote and starred in the comedy Kicked in the Head, his second collaboration with Rhythm Thief director Harrison. The film had the distinction of being executive produced by Martin Scorsese, who had signed on after being favorably impressed by Rhythm Thief. The movie was also notable for the fact that the misadventures of Corrigan's character -- a guy who gets kicked out of his apartment and dumped by his girlfriend -- were based on events in the actor's own life. He would later remark that the film was a form of therapy and followed it up with what was essentially a form of therapy for another director, Tamara Jenkins' The Slums of Beverly Hills (1998). Playing a Manson Family-obsessed stoner, Corrigan made a repugnantly vivid impression in the widely acclaimed movie and the same year made a similar impression with his role as Vincent Gallo's best friend in Buffalo '66. After a small part in Paul Auster's Lulu on the Bridge (which premiered at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival), Corrigan worked on two more independents, the romantic drama Roberta, which premiered at the 1999 Sundance Festival and featured Corrigan in a lead role as a shy computer expert, and Coming Soon, which opened at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival in April of the same year.