Trivia: A former music-video girl who appeared in clips by Pharrell and Ludacris before making her big-screen debut in ATL, Los Angeles native Lauren London possesses a small-town beauty with a distinctive smile and a slight city-girl edge. It was during London's stint in the Las Angeles public school system that the aspiring actress first began dabbling in theater and drama, and though she would later be home-schooled for her last three years of high school, the desire to perform never went away. Appearances in a handful of music videos helped to get London comfortable in front of the cameras, and when buzz began to build around the production of an upcoming film called ATL, she hired an acting coach and convinced director Chris Robinson's assistant to get her an audition. Despite being two hours late for the audition, London performed well enough under pressure to land the role of roller-skating rich girl New New -- who changes her identity and soon begins dating former high-school hotshot Rashad (played by hip-hop recording artist T.I.). With buzz around the rising starlet subsequently beginning to gain momentum, London next appeared in episodes of Everybody Hates Chris and Entourage while preparing for a role in the holiday-themed family drama This Christmas. She had a small part in Next Day Air, and landed a major role in the comedy I Love You, Beth Cooper. Two years later Tyler Perry tapped her to appear in Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family.

Trivia: Due to his father's career in the air force, he attended 12 schools in 13 years. Attended Concordia University on a basketball scholarship. Completed college in three years. Is co-owner of spin and Pilates health clubs in Louisiana. Actively involved with the charities Miracles for Kids and Mind Matters.

Trivia: If there's one word that can best describe Brandy, it's synergy. Dominating pop charts wasn't enough for the young R&B singer, so she followed in the footsteps of Madonna, Charo, and many a one-named diva and began to take more acting and modeling gigs. Brandy was born in McComb, MS, on February 11, 1979, but grew up in Carson, CA, with her parents and younger brother Ray-J, another aspiring musician. She declared precociously at age four that she would sing professionally and drew attention performing with youth groups in her middle-class neighborhood.Brandy made her acting debut in 1993 with a supporting role on ABC's short-lived television series Thea. Shortly after Thea's demise in 1994, the 15-year-old released her self-titled first album, which went triple-platinum and featured hit singles like "I Wanna Be Down" and "Baby."But interestingly enough, music sat on the back burner while Brandy pursued her acting career. She won the title role in UPN's family drama Moesha in 1996 and starred a year later as Cinderella in ABC's star-studded TV-movie version of the fairy tale. During breaks from these and other projects, she recorded Never S-A-Y Never, the eagerly awaited follow-up to her first album. Powered by "The Boy Is Mine," her duet with fellow teen star Monica, the 1998 album sold extraordinarily well and also produced the hits "Have You Ever" and "Almost Doesn't Count." 1998 and 1999 were busy years for her. In addition to Moesha, she starred in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer with Jennifer Love Hewitt and starred and executive produced Double Platinum, a TV-movie feature with Diana Ross. Brandy also spent time touring in support of her album, performed on VH1's Divas Live, and became a spokesmodel for Cover Girl cosmetics. It's a wonder she had time to go to the prom with future basketball star and good friend Kobe Bryant.But it was all due to catch up to her. In November 1999, amid rumors that she was addicted to diet pills and squabbling with producers on her TV show, Brandy collapsed and was hospitalized three days for dehydration. Moesha ended its run in 2001 and Brandy focused her energies on attending classes at Pepperdine University.In 2006, she served as a judge on America's Got Talent for one season, and had a recurring role on One on One. She appeared on her brother's reality show, For the Love of Ray J, before the two had their own show together, Brandy & Ray J: A Family Business. She also competed on season 11 of Dancing with the Stars in 2010. She joined BET sitcom The Game in 2012 as a recurring character before being bumped up to a series regular.

Trivia: A tall, tough, muscle-bound Hollywood actor of mixed ethnicity (which doubtless increased his perceived versatility among casting agents), Coby Bell first gained audience recognition during the late '90s, via scattered appearances on such hit series as ER and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A short time later, Bell began to find more prominent TV roles, starting with a recurring part as Patrick Owen on L.A. Doctors (1998-1999). After moving on from that series, he scored his first major role, playing Officer Tyrone "Ty" Davis Jr. throughout all six seasons of the emergency-services drama Third Watch (1999-2005). Not long after that series folded, Bell was back on prime-time television with the football-themed comedy drama The Game. On that show, Bell played Jason Pitts, an African-American NFL player and the resolutely unfaithful husband of a white "trophy wife" (Brittany Daniel). He also parlayed his television success into one of the main roles (and co-production status) on director Amy Glazer's indie feature drama Drifting Elegant (2006), in which he portrayed Renny, an African-American man investing in a gated community for middle-class blacks.

Trivia: Hailing from Montgomery, AL, Hosea Chanchez started working in television consistently at the age of 18 with a recurring role on For Your Love. He then moved on to play Travis Holms on Robbery Homicide Division and a rapist on What Should You Do? After a series of one-off appearances on programs such as Jack & Bobby, Over There, and The Shield, Chanchez portrayed Malik Wright on The Game, a show about women married to professional athletes.

Trivia: Actor, dancer, and choreographer Wendy Raquel Robinson is best known for her role on The Steve Harvey Show, but her career in fact spans far outside television and onto both the big screen and the stage. She appeared in several plays such as The Vagina Monologues, Black Woman's Blues, Agnes of God, A Midsummer's Night Dream, The Colored Museum, and Vanities, all of them receiving rave reviews, and she was also a co-founder of the Amazing Grace Conservatory in South Central Los Angeles, a theatrical training institute for teens. She appeared in movies such as A Thin Line Between Love and Hate and Rebound, and in 2007, she joined the cast of the series The Game.

Trivia: Decided to move to Los Angeles in order to pursue a career as a screenwriter.Was a tour guide in Paramount Studio in Hollywood. Started his career as a production assistant.After obtaining his first acting role on television, he decided to become a full-time actor.Is a fan of actor Samuel Jackson.

Trivia: African-American actor Pooch Hall began his career on a noble and dignified note, by landing one of his first significant acting assignments in the critically acclaimed miniseries Miracle's Boys -- under the aegis of revered directors Spike Lee, Ernest Dickerson, LeVar Burton, Bill Duke, and Neema Barnette. In Boys, Hall starred as the eldest of three orphaned brothers, Ty'ree, who sacrifices an MIT scholarship in order to look after his siblings, remaining in Harlem and working in a publishing-house mail room. The work received positive notices and scored favorable ratings for Hall when it premiered on The N network in 2005, and marked an auspicious beginning for the actor. He then opted to portray football hero Derwin Davis (the boyfriend of med student Melanie Barnett [Tia Mowry] in the weekly series The Game) and, also in 2006, signed for a supporting role in the blood-soaked comic fright-fest Snoop Dogg's Hood of Horror. The next year, Hall contributed a minor role to the romantic comedy Blind Dating. In 2011 he joined the cast of the comedy drama Jumping the Broom.

Trivia: Named after the Revlon perfume Ciara. Traveled around the world as an army brat, with stints in Germany, New York, California, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. Wrote the song "Got Me Waiting," on Fantasia Barrino's album Free Yourself (2004). Released her debut album, Goodies, in 2004. Her sophomore album, Ciara: The Evolution, went to number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. In 2009, opened for Britney Spears' Circus Tour in London, and then headlined her own tour, Jay-Z and Ciara Live. Invited as a guest to the White House in 2015. Titled her sixth album Jackie in honor of her mother.

Trivia: Becoming, at the age of 24, the youngest individual and the first African American ever to be nominated for a Best Director Academy Award, John Singleton made movie history with Boyz 'N the Hood, his astonishing 1991 directorial debut. An intensely personal portrait of life and death in South Central L.A. that was inspired by the director's own experiences, the film earned Singleton comparisons to past wunderkind Orson Welles and heralded him as one of Hollywood's most important new directors.Born January 6, 1968, in the South Central L.A. neighborhood he would later immortalize on celluloid, Singleton was the son of a mortgage broker father and a company sales executive mother. Raised jointly by his divorced parents, he went on to attend the University of Southern California, where he majored in film writing. While a student at U.S.C., Singleton won a number of writing awards that led to a deal with the Creative Artists Agency during his sophomore year. At the age of 23, he wrote and directed Boyz 'N the Hood, a coming-of-age drama that centered on an intelligent 17-year-old's (Cuba Gooding Jr.) efforts to make it out of his neighborhood alive. Featuring a strong cast that included Gooding Jr., Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut, and Laurence Fishburne, and deft direction that humanized the violence of South Central L.A. rather than sensationalized it, the film was a major critical and commercial triumph. One of the highest-grossing films in history to have been directed by an African American, Boyz 'n the Hood also made history with its twin Best Screenplay and Best Director Oscar nominations for its young writer/director. In addition to those nominations, Singleton was also honored with the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best First-Time Director.Singleton followed Boyz 'N the Hood with Poetic Justice in 1993. Starring Janet Jackson as its heroine, a South Central L.A. hairdresser coping with the shooting death of her boyfriend, the film boasted magnetic performances from its entire cast, which also included rapper Tupac Shakur as Jackson's love interest. Although it was profitable, Poetic Justice failed to find favor with most critics, some of whom noted that it lacked the power and urgency of Singleton's previous effort. The director's subsequent project, Higher Learning (1995), also fared rather poorly among critics. A drama about racial, gender, and political conflict on a college campus, it benefited from the performances of its ensemble cast, which included Omar Epps, Laurence Fishburne, Ice Cube, and Kristy Swanson, but was weighed down by the presence of one too many one-dimensional characters that existed to highlight the issues Singleton was attempting to explore. Ironically, it was Singleton's most critically appreciated effort since Boyz 'N the Hood that was virtually ignored by audiences. Rosewood, a powerful drama based on the real-life 1923 massacre and destruction of an African-American town in Florida by whites from a neighboring community, was widely considered Singleton's strongest film since his directorial debut. A dense and ultimately depressing multi-character epic fueled by the presence of such talented actors as Ving Rhames, John Voight, and Don Cheadle, the film did not attempt to make a happy ending out of its stark material, which may have accounted for its inability to win a large audience.In 2000, Singleton returned with his biggest project to date, a glossy, expensive remake of Shaft. Starring Samuel L. Jackson as its titular, Armani-clad hero, the nephew of original Shaft Richard Roundtree (who had a cameo in the new film), the film was an exercise in flamboyant, unapologetic political incorrectness, featuring easily distinguishable bad guys and good guys and meaty helpings of bad-ass attitude. Shaft earned decidedly mixed reviews but was a summer audience pleaser, putting its director back on the map. Finding his way back into familiar territory, Singleton's next film, Baby Boy (2001), was constructed as a loose follow up to Boyz 'N the Hood. Starring vocalist/model Tyrese Gibson and Omar Gooding, the film marked a notable return to the sensative issues that Singleton had touched upon in the past after the flashily entertaining but ultimately inconsequencial departure of Shaft. Singleton made a rare appearance in front of the camera for BAADASSSSS! before helming the hit sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious. He produced {Craig Brewer's Oscar winning Hustle & Flow, a film that ended up overshadowing his directorial effort form that same year, Four Brothers. He maintained his working relationship with Brewer by producing his Hustle & Flow follow-up Black Snake Moan. In 2010 he made a documentary about shamed Olympian Marion Jones, and the next year he helmed the Taylor Lautner action vehicle Abduction

Trivia: Trained at Juilliard, actor Michael Beach worked in regional theater and off-Broadway productions before moving to Los Angeles to work on television and film. His stage credits include Much Ado About Nothing and Ascension Day. Though he appeared on television a lot in the late '80s, his film breakthrough came in Carl Franklin's 1991 crime thriller One False Move. He played the ex-con Pluto opposite Billy Bob Thornton, who also co-wrote the script. Thornton later wrote the role of Virgil for Beach in the 1996 drama A Family Thing, starring James Earl Jones. In 1993, he was a part of the ensemble cast in Robert Altman's award-winning feature Short Cuts. After playing opposite Laurence Fishburne in the crime thriller Bad Company (1995), Beach went on to play several unfaithful husbands. He cheated on Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale (1995), Vanessa Williams in Soul Food (1997), and Gloria Reuben on ER. Fellow ER cast member Eriq La Salle cast Beach in his sports drama Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996) for HBO. Back on television, Beach earned an Image Award for his role of Monte 'Doc' Parker on the NBC dramatic series Third Watch. In 2002, he re-teamed with actor/director La Salle for the lead role of Dr. Ty Adams in the thriller Crazy as Hell.

Trivia: Discovered acting at age 13; at 15 won a scholarship to study at the famed Inner City Acting Academy in Los Angeles. Was the first African American to be ranked as the No. 1 college speaker in the nation (for two consecutive years); led USC Trojan Debate Squad to a national championship. In 1987 founded the Young Foundation to help youth achieve success; reorganized in 2000 as the Young Center for Academic and Cultural Enrichment to focus on youth leadership training. Was named an Ambassador of Goodwill by President Bill Clinton. Was an adjunct professor of English and Dramatic Arts at Woodbury University. Was inducted into the African American Hall of Education. Is the recipient of several distinguished awards, including the Ford Foundation Freedom Unsung Award, NAACP Social Achievement Award, President's Icon Award, and Man of the Year Award from the National Organization of Women at Work. Best known as Brandy Norwood's father, Frank Mitchell, on Moesha. Is a sought after motivational speaker.