Trivia: One of the most versatile actresses working in film today, Lili Taylor is known for taking on complex, thorny roles that many of her more glamorous colleagues avoid. In the 1990s, she became a staple of the independent film circuit, turning in one engaging performance after another in films like The Addiction (1995), Girls Town (1996), and Pecker (1998). A native of Glencoe, IL, where she was born on February 20, 1967, Taylor was raised in a comfortable middle-class household as the second youngest of six children. She started acting in grade school and briefly attended DePaul University's Goodman Theater School before launching her professional career in local and regional theater. She acted for a time with Evanston's Piven Theater, performing in the company of such future notables as John Cusack, Aidan Quinn, and Jeremy Piven. In 1987, she spent a season on-stage in Czechoslovakia, returning stateside the following year to make her New York City stage debut in a production of What Did He See? That same year, Taylor ventured into feature films with a bit part in the John Hughes comedy She's Having a Baby. Though the role brought Taylor little recognition, she scored big with her sophomore effort, a starring role in Mystic Pizza (1988) as one of three amorous pizzeria girls (the other two were Julia Roberts and Annabeth Gish) working in a small Connecticut coastal town. More recognition followed for Say Anything... (1989), in which Taylor played John Cusack's hilariously obsessive best friend; she continued to shine in films like Bright Angel (1991), in which she was cast as the drifter sister of a jailbird, and in Dogfight (1991), in which she was the obligatory "ugly duckling" who both transformed and was transformed by her reluctant date, River Phoenix. From the late '80s through the 1990s, Taylor proved to be a willing and able ensemble player in the works of several respected directors: Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Nancy Savoca's Household Saints (1993), Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), and Alan Rudolph's Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994). She also did notable work in independent films, starring in Abel Ferrara's The Addiction (1995); Girls Town (1996), a drama about four high school girls trying to cope with everyday hardship, for which she also co-wrote the screenplay; and I Shot Andy Warhol (1996), which cast her in one of her most memorable roles as the mad, murderous Valerie Solanas. In 1998, Taylor played the uncharacteristically glamorous role of an art dealer who tries to seduce the young hero of John Waters' Pecker, and also tried her hand at screwball comedy with Stanley Tucci's The Imposters. Having demonstrated her range in a number of genres, Taylor then took on big-budget horror in 1999 with her starring role in Jan de Bont's The Haunting. However, staying true to her indie loyalties, she could also be seen playing an ordinary woman who begins to lead an extraordinary life in Toni Kalem's adaptation of Anne Tyler's A Slipping Down Life, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January of that year.As the new century began Taylor could be seen alongside her old co-star John Cusack in High Fidelity, and in 2001 she tackled the historical role of Miep Gies in a retelling of Anne Frank. She had a memorable role on the HBO series Six Feet Under. She continued to work steadily in diverse projects such as The Secret, Starting Out in the Evening, Brooklyn's Finest, Public Enemies, and Being Flynn.

Trivia: With classic, square-jawed good looks, Australian actor Guy Pearce brings to mind the leading men of Hollywood's Golden Age; however, the actor is a thoroughly modern one, using his talents to play characters ranging from flamboyant drag queens to straight-arrow Los Angeles policemen. Pearce was born October 5, 1967, in Cambridgeshire, England. His father, who was a member of the Royal Air Force, moved his family to Australia when Pearce was three. Following the elder Pearce's tragic death in a plane crash, Pearce's mother decided to keep her family in Australia when young Pearce was eight, and it was there that he grew up. Interested in acting from a young age, he wrote to various members of the Australian television industry requesting a screen test when he was 17. His efforts proved worthwhile, as he was invited to audition for a new soap called Neighbours. Pearce won a significant part on the show and was part of it from 1986 to 1990. Following his stint on Neighbours, Pearce found other work in television and made his screen debut in the 1992 film Hunting. He acted in a few more small films and in My Forgotten Man, a 1993 TV biopic of Errol Flynn, before coming to the attention of film audiences everywhere in the 1994 sleeper hit The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. As the flamboyant and often infuriating Adam/Felicia, Pearce gave a performance that was both over the top and immensely satisfying. The role gave him the international exposure he had previously lacked and led to his casting in Curtis Hanson's 1997 adaptation of James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential. The film was an all-around success and drew raves for Pearce and his co-stars, who included Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, Kim Basinger (who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance) and fellow Australian Russell Crowe.After the success of L.A. Confidential, Pearce went on to make the independent A Slipping Down Life, which premiered at Sundance in 1999. He followed that with the highly original but fatally unmarketable Ravenous (1999), Antonia Bird's tale of chaos and cannibalism which cast Pearce alongside the likes of David Arquette and Robert Carlyle. Though his role in the following year's military drama Rules of Engagement would offer a commendable performance by the rising star, it was another film that same year that would cement his status as one of the most challenging and unpredictable performers of his generation. Cast as a vengeance seeking, tattoo-covered widower whose inability to form new memories hinders his frantic search for his wife's killer, Pearce's unforgettable performance in the backwards-structured thriller Memento drove what would ultimately become one of the biggest sleepers in box office history. Pearce was now officially hot property on the Hollywood scene, and producers wasted no time in booking him for as many upcoming blockbusters as they could. A memorable performance as the villain in The Count of Monte Cristo found Pearce traveling back in time for his next film, and his subsequent role in The Time Machine would find him blasting so far into the future that mankind had reverted to the days of prehistoric times. A trip to the land down under found Pearce next appearing as a hapless bank robber in the critically panned crime effort The Hard Word, and the popular actor would remain in Australia for the elliptical drama Till Human Voices Wake Us (2002). In 2004, Pearce played a lion hunter in the family-oriented epic Two Brothers.Yet despite his increasing prominence as an international movie star, Pearce continued to display a flair for unusual, often demanding roles that would send lesser actors running. His performance as an outlaw tasked with killing his own brother in John Hillcoat's The Proposition earned Pearce a well-deserved AFI nomination for Best Lead Actor in 2005 (an honor he would share with his co-star Ray Winstone, though the award ultimately went to Hugo Weaving for Little Fish), and on the heels of an appearance as Andy Warhol in George Hickenlooper's Factory Girl he could be seen as famed magician Harry Houdini in Gillian Armstrong's Death Defying Acts -- a role which found a second AFI award slipping though his fingers. Though Pearce's turn as a military man in 2008's The Hurt Locker found him in fine form, it was Jeremy Renner who stole the show in Katherine Bigelow's multiple Oscar-winner and, curiously enough, the actor's next AFI nomination would come from his appearance in the Adam Sandler fantasy/comedy Bedtime Stories. A brief reunion with Hillcoat in The Road preceded a grim turn as a grieving father in the harrowing 2009 true crime drama In Her Skin, and in 2010 Pearce lost yet another AFI award to a talented co-star when Joel Edgarton took home the Best Supporting Actor award for his memorable performance in Animal Kingdom (which found Pearce cast in the role of an honest cop reaching out to a troubled youth). As if to balance out all of the awards disappointment in recent years, Pearce nabbed an Emmy for his performance opposite Kate Winslet in the made-for-cable drama Mildred Pierce following a brief appearance as KIng Edward VIII in the Oscar-winning historical drama The King's Speech, with additional roles in Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and Lockout proving that respected actors can still have a bit of fun on the big screen from time to time. Meanwhile, after an almost unrecognizable appearance in Ridley Scott's quasi-Alien prequel Prometheus, Pearce prepared to team up with his frequent collaborator Hillcoat once again, this time as a special agent determined to get his piece of the bootlegging pie in Lawless, which also starred Tom Hardy and Shia LeBeouf. He played the main antagonist, Aldrich Killian, in Iron Man 3, and earned an AACTA nomination for Best Lead Actor for his work in the dystopian film The Rover (2014).

Trivia: A matriarchal supporting actress of film and television whose quick wit and instantly likable persona has served her well on stage and screen, Irma P. Hall has found frequent work in such African-American-oriented dramas as A Family Thing, Soul Food, and Beloved. Equally effective with comedic roles in such features as Nothing to Lose and The Ladykillers, the multi-talented educator, poet, and actress actually stumbled into a career before the cameras by accident -- impressing director Raymond St. Jacques at a poetry reading so much that the filmmaker requested she essay a role in his 1973 crime film Book of Numbers. Her acting career subsequently snowballed, and it didn't take long for the increasingly busy actress to make quite a name for herself on both the stage and screen. The Texas native's early career consisted of teaching foreign languages at public schools in her home state. An interest in acting eventually led the then educator and poet to co-found a small repertory theater in Dallas. In 1973, Hall's performance in Book of Numbers resulted in frequent small-screen work. Her career continued to blossom throughout the 1980s, and with feature-film work increasing in the 1990s, she became more recognizable than ever thanks to work in such features as Backdraft and Straight Talk. Despite the fact that the roles she essayed were frequently relegated to the supporting variety, her onscreen presence was undeniable, and Hall continued throughout the decade with roles in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and Beloved. In A Family Thing, her role as a kindly blind African-American woman who helps her family warm to their newly discovered white relative earned Hall a Chicago Film Critics Association Award. An Image award for her role in the feature Soul Food followed in 1997 -- the same year she was voted "Chicagoan of the Year." The early 2000s found Hall flourishing on the small screen with roles in such series as Soul Food (a spin-off of the popular feature), A Girl Thing, and All Souls in addition to meatier parts in such made-for-television features as Miss Lettie and Me and An Unexpected Love. For her role as the perceptive landlady who catches wind of a criminal scheme in The Ladykillers, Irma P. Hall received the Jury Prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. Unfortunately, Hall suffered a massive heart attack while driving shortly before the film was released into theaters -- resulting in an automobile accident. Hall was eventually able to overcome her injuries thanks to intense physical rehabilitation, and later that same year, she could be seen in both the family short Gift for the Living (based on O. Henry's tale The Gift of the Magi) as well as the Michael Mann thriller Collateral.

Trivia: Prolific character actor John Hawkes earned a new level of recognition with his role as Bugsy, the slow-witted fisherman who provides Wolfgang Petersen's The Perfect Storm (2000) with a degree of comic relief. Hailing from Austin, TX, Hawkes, who bears a vague resemblance to Tom Selleck, began his career as an actor and musician. After relocating to Los Angeles, where he moved to do further stage work, the actor wrote and performed Nimrod Soul, a one-man show staged at the Theatre at the Improv. He subsequently found work on television and broke into film in the late '80s. In addition to doing supporting turns in a large variety of films, including Flesh and Bone (1993), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998), Hawkes also did guest work on such long-running TV shows as E.R. and The X-Files. In 1999, he was cast in one of his first leading roles in A Slipping-Down Life, a well-received big screen adaptation of Anne Tyler's novel of the same name that also starred Lili Taylor and Guy Pearce. With his casting the following year in The Perfect Storm, a summer smash that featured him acting alongside the likes of George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, and John C. Reilly, it seemed that Hawkes' career was entering a new and possibly more lucrative phase. Over the next several years, he would appear in a number of films, like Identity, Miami Vice, American Gangster, Winter's Bone, and Higher Ground.

Trivia: An actress with the kind of versatile beauty that has allowed her to effortlessly alternate between earthy and glamorous roles, Veronica Cartwright's steel-blue eyes have a strange way of piercing through the screen and transcending their two-dimensional restraints. Having successfully made the transition from child actor to seasoned screen veteran, Cartwright continued a career which allowed her to explore roles that ran the gamut from straight drama to chilling horror. A native of Bristol, England, Cartwright's family emigrated to the United States when she was still very young. Following a series of modeling jobs and print ads, the aspiring actress became a familiar face to television viewers as the "Kellogg's Girl" in a series of breakfast cereal commercials. She made her screen debut in the 1958 war drama In Love and War, and, in the years that followed, alternated between film and TV work with roles in such features as The Children's Hour (1961) and The Birds (1963), in addition to a turn as Lumpy's sister on the small-screen classic Leave It to Beaver. From 1964-1968, the actress endeared herself to television viewers as Jemima Boone on the popular Daniel Boone series. Although the transition from adorable child star to serious adult actor has been a serious stumbling block for generations of young stars, Cartwright skillfully avoided this pitfall with a series of memorable roles in the 1970s. Playing opposite such heavies as Richard Dreyfuss in Inserts (1975) and Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), Cartwright was well on her way to crafting an enduring film career. A role as the ill-fated navigator in the 1979 sci-fi horror classic Alien found her taking part in what would become one of the most lucrative and prolific franchises in cinema history, and a memorable performance in the 1983 space program drama The Right Stuff (in which she worked again with Body Snatchers director Philip Kaufman) helped to sustain her career through the '80s. Subsequent roles in Flight of the Navigator (1986) and Wisdom (1987) offered little in the way of dramatic depth, though Cartwright's winning performance in George Miller's The Witches of Eastwick (1987) found her nearly stealing the show from stars Cher, Susan Sarandon, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Despite the fact that Cartwright kicked off the '90s with a memorable turn in the popular weekly drama L.A. Law, the roles which followed were mostly comprised of thankless appearances in made-for-TV features and forgettable horror sequels. Although she remained busy, her parts just weren't as rich as they had been. Despite the dry spell, however, Cartwright was nominated for an Emmy for three memorable appearances in the popular small-screen chiller The X Files. The following decade found her edging back toward memorable film work with appearances in In the Bedroom (2001), Scary Movie 2 (2001), and Just Married (2003). After facing off against a cat-munching alien in the 2002 short Mackenheim, Cartwright essayed a substantial role in Richard Day's 2004 comedy Straight Jacket. She played the wife of famous sexual researcher Alfred Kinsey in the 2004 biopic of the man, and appeared in the 2007 sci-fi film The Invasion. In 2009 she returned to familiar ground with a part in the small-screen adaptation Eastwick, and she landed a major part in the 2011 thriller InSight.

Trivia: Bell is a supporting actor, onscreen from the '80s.

Trivia: Thesp Shawnee Smith's name might not be a household word, but her face will register with thousands of sci-fi and horror aficionados thanks to her supporting turns in the big-screen remakes of The Blob (1988) and Carnival of Souls (1998). Smith's recurring role as Amanda, a young woman tormented by the clown-like serial killer Jigsaw, in the popular Saw series, broadened her exposure, even as it threatened to further typecast her as a woman in peril and fix her reputation as a horror queen. Yet the actress's resume demonstrates far greater versatility than this, and it may surprise fans to discover that she claims several decades of credits in multiple genres.Born on July 3, 1970, in Orangeburg, South Carolina, Smith debuted on the big screen at 11, as a dancer, in mogul Ray Stark's multimillion-dollar production of Annie (1982). A bit part in Michael Tuchner's acclaimed telemovie Not My Kid (1985) followed, at the age of fourteen; the picture drew solid Nielsen ratings and favorable critical responses, but Smith's only amounted to a bit part. She maintained greater visibility in the late eighties, with two significant roles: Rhonda Altobello in Carl Reiner's 1987 Mark Harmon-starrer Summer School. While most critics dismissed the film, it charmed a handful of others (such as Kevin Thomas and Rita Kempley) and did outstanding box office for a programmer, grossing several times its original budget. The very same could be said of Chuck Russell's 1988 remake The Blob, and then some: in addition to delighting nostalgia-hungry moviegoers (and some critics), it purportedly acquired a loyal following, becoming - in time - something of a cult film. Over the nineties and into the 2000s, Smith evinced a predilection for slightly deeper and more intelligent fare, but kept a somewhat low onscreen profile for several years, usually (though not always) with bit parts in lower budget indie dramas. Smith also appears in director Paul Quinn's Never Get Outta the Boat, which dramatizes the lives of several recovering addicts. She landed a regular role as Linda, a not-so-bright nurse's aide, on the 1998 CBS sitcom Becker, starring Ted Danson, and stuck with the series until it wrapped in 2004.When Smith's horror film quotient skyrocketed in the early 2000s (with the Saw role) it temporarily eclipsed her involvement in more substantial fare, even as her screen activity per se crescendoed. In the vein of earlier slasher film franchises, the initial Saw entry and its sequels did exemplary box office and obtained a rabid following; surprisingly, the pictures drew a favorable response in some critical quarters, as well.

Trivia: At age 9, made her big-screen debut in 1988's Rocket Gibraltar. Appeared on The Learning Channel's Trading Places, exchanging home makeovers with her Less Than Perfect costar Andy Dick. Was named a spokeswoman for Jenny Craig in 2009; a year later, she had lost 50 pounds and completed a half marathon.

Trivia: Character and supporting actor Bruno Kirby (he also billed himself as B. Kirby or Bruce Kirby) made his film debut in Young Graduates (1971). Kirby was born Bruno Quidaciolu Jr. and is the son of actor Bruce Kirby. For a while he appeared regularly on the television education drama Room 222 (1969-1974) and launched into steady carefree appearances in made-for-TV movies such as The Summer Without Boys (1973) and features such as The Harrad Experiment (1973). He first gained notice for a small role he played as Clemenza in The Godfather, Pt. II (1974). It was not until the late '80s that he began getting much larger roles and greater respect. The turn-around came when Kirby was cast as Lieutenant Hauk, the hilariously untalented wanna-be comedian, in charge of zany Robin Williams' morning radio show in Good Morning Vietnam (1987). One of his most memorable roles of the '80s was that of Billy Crystal's best buddy, a man who finds romantic bliss with Carrie Fisher, in When Harry Met Sally (1989). In 1991, he again turned in another charming performance as Ed Furillo in City Slickers (1991). In 1997, he played a supporting role in Donnie Brasco. In addition to feature-film work, he also continued to appear frequently on television series as a guest star and in movies-of-the-week. He died suddenly of leukemia, at age 57, on August 14, 2006.

Trivia: First making an impression on the collective filmgoing consciousness as the resident bad-ass of the teen horror flick The Faculty (1998), Clea Duvall has managed to stand out among the crowd of young actors who gained seemingly overnight fame during the late '90s. Strong-jawed and sharp-eyed, Duvall developed an interest in acting at an early age. Born in Los Angeles on September 25, 1977, she attended the Los Angeles High School of the Arts and got her professional start on television, making occasional appearances on a variety of shows including E.R. and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After minor work in a couple of independent films, Duvall nabbed her role in The Faculty, starring as a moody goth girl alongside such up-and-comers as Elijah Wood, Shawn Hatosy, and Josh Hartnett. The film was a fairly substantial box-office success, and in 1999 Duvall could be seen in no less than three more films. In The Astronaut's Wife she played Charlize Theron's sister, while Girl, Interrupted cast her as a resident of a mental hospital occupied by the likes of Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. Duvall also starred as an unwilling patient of another kind of rehab in But I'm a Cheerleader: a comedy-satire about Megan (Natasha Lyonne), a high school cheerleader who is sent to a sort of straight rehab camp for gay teens, Duvall played a tattooed young lesbian who teaches Megan how to cheer for the other team. In 2003 she co-starred with Sean Penn and Naomi Watts in the award-winning drama 21 Grams, and played a leading role in the HBO series Carnivale. Though the show was canceled after only two seasons, Duvall received no small amount of praise for her turn as a member of a traveling circus during The Great Depression. She played a small supporting role in Zodiac (2007), a docudrama chronicling the gruesome story of the serial murderer known as the Zodiac killer. In 2012 she took on another supporting role in Argo, docudrama depicting the efforts to save a group of American diplomats after militants seize control of the U.S. embassy in Tehran during the height of the Iranian Revolution.