Trivia: Born Walter Willis -- an Army brat to parents stationed in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany -- on March 19, 1955, Bruce Willis grew up in New Jersey from the age of two. As a youngster, he developed a stutter that posed the threat of social alienation, but he discovered an odd quirk: while performing in front of large numbers of people, the handicap inexplicably vanished. This led Willis into a certified niche as a comedian and budding actor. After high-school graduation, 18-year-old Willis decided to land a blue-collar job in the vein of his father, and accepted a position at the DuPont Chambers Works factory in Deep Water, NJ, but withdrew, shaken, after a co-worker was killed on the job. He performed regularly on the harmonica in a blues ensemble called the Loose Goose and worked temporarily as a security guard before enrolling in the drama program at Montclair State University in New Jersey. A collegiate role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof brought Willis back in touch with his love of acting, and he instantly decided to devote his life to the profession.Willis made his first professional appearances on film with minor roles in projects like The First Deadly Sin, starring Frank Sinatra, and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict. But his big break came when he attended a casting call (along with 3000 other hopefuls) for the leading role on Moonlighting, an ABC detective comedy series. Sensing Willis' innate appeal, producers cast him opposite the luminous Cybill Shepherd. The series, which debuted in 1985, followed the story of two private investigators working for a struggling detective agency, with Willis playing the fast-talking ne'er-do-well David Addison, and Shepherd playing the prim former fashion model Maddie Hayes. The show's heavy use of clever dialogue, romantic tension, and screwball comedy proved a massive hit with audiences, and Willis became a major star. The show ultimately lasted four years and wrapped on May 14, 1989. During the first year or two of the series, Willis and Shepherd enjoyed a brief offscreen romantic involvement as well, but Willis soon met and fell in love with actress Demi Moore, who became his wife in 1987.In the interim, Willis segued into features, playing geeky Walter Davis in the madcap 1987 comedy Blind Date. That same year, Motown Records -- perhaps made aware of Willis' experiences as a musician -- invited the star to record an LP of blue-eyed soul tracks. The Return of Bruno emerged and became a moderate hit among baby boomers, although as the years passed it became better remembered as an excuse for Willis to wear sunglasses indoors and sing into pool cues.Then in 1988, Willis broke major barriers when he convinced studios to cast him in the leading role of John McClane in John McTiernan's explosive action movie Die Hard. Though up until this point, action stars had been massive tough guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, execs took a chance on Willis' every-guy approach to the genre - and the gamble paid off. Playing a working-class cop who confronts an entire skyscraper full of terrorists when his estranged wife is taken hostage on Christmas Eve, Willis' used his wiseacre television persona to constantly undercut the film's somber underpinnings, without ever once damaging the suspenseful core of the material. This, coupled with a smart script and wall-to-wall sequences of spectacular action, propelled Die Hard to number one at the box office during the summer of 1988, and made Willis a full-fledged movie star.Willis subsequent projects would include two successful Die Hard sequels, as well as other roles the 1989 Norman Jewison drama In Country, and the 1989 hit comedy Look Who's Talking, in which Willis voiced baby Mikey. Though he'd engage in a few stinkers, like the unsuccessful Hudson Hawk and North, he would also continue to strike told with hugely popular movies like The Last Boyscout , Pulp Fiction, and Armageddon.Willis landed one of his biggest hits, however, when he signed on to work with writer/director M. Night Shyamalan in the supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense. In that film, Willis played Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist assigned to treat a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) plagued by visions of ghosts. The picture packs a wallop in its final minutes, with a now-infamous surprise that even purportedly caught Hollywood insiders off guard when it hit U.S. cinemas in the summer of 1999. Around the same time, tabloids began to swarm with gossip of a breakup between Willis and Demi Moore, who indeed filed for divorce and finalized it in the fall of 2000.Willis and M. Night Shyamalan teamed up again in 2000 for Unbreakable, another dark fantasy about a man who suddenly discovers that he has been imbued with superhero powers and meets his polar opposite, a psychotic, fragile-bodied black man (Samuel L. Jackson). The movie divided critics but drew hefty grosses when it premiered on November 22, 2000. That same year, Willis delighted audiences with a neat comic turn as hitman Jimmy the Tulip in The Whole Nine Yards, which light heartedly parodied his own tough-guy image. Willis followed it up four years later with a sequel, The Whole Ten Yards.In 2005, Willis was ideally cast as beaten-down cop Hartigan in Robert Rodriguez's graphic-novel adaptation Sin City. The movie was a massive success, and Willis was happy to reteam with Rodriguez again the next year for a role in the zombie action flick Planet Terror, Rodriguez's contribution to the double feature Grindhouse. Additionally, Willis would keep busy over the next few years with roles in films like Richard Donner's 16 Blocks, Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation, and Nick Cassavetes' crime drama Alpha Dog. The next year, Willis reprised his role as everyman superhero John McClane for a fourth installment of the Die Hard series, Live Free or Die Hard, directed by Len Wiseman. Though hardcore fans of the franchise were not overly impressed, the film did expectedly well at the box office.In the latter part of the decade, Willis would keep up his action star status, starring in the sci-fi thriller Surrogates in 2009, but also enjoyed poking fun at his own persona, with tongue-in-cheek roles in action fare like The Expendables, Cop Out, and Red. He appeared as part of the ensemble in Wes Anderson's quirky Moonrise Kingdom and in the time-travel action thriller Looper in 2012, before appearing in a string of sequels -- The Expendables 2 (2012), A Good Day to Die Hard, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Red 2 (all 2013) and Sin City: A Dame to Die For (2014).

Trivia: The daughter of Royal Shakespeare Company director Peter Hall and opera diva Maria Ewing, raven-haired British actress Rebecca Hall broke into filmed entertainment before her 12th birthday, with roles in a series of made-for-television British productions including the miniseries The Camomile Lawn (1992) and the feature Don't Leave Me This Way (1993). She subsequently took a more than ten-year departure from the screen, then returned in a big way in the late 2000s, with a series of supporting roles in features including Christopher Nolan's period psychological thriller The Prestige (2006) and Tom Vaughan's romantic comedy Starter for 10 (2007). In 2008, Hall starred opposite Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz, and Javier Bardem in Woody Allen's romantic comedy Vicky Cristina Barcelona. In 2009 she was part of the well-received Red Riding trilogy. In 2010 she was the female lead opposite Ben Affleck in his crime film The Town, and co-starred in the indie comedy Please Give. She appeared in the BBC 5-part serial Parade's End, which earned her a BAFTA TV nomination; the following year, she took a supporting role in Iron Man 3. Hall played opposite Johnny Depp in the 2014 sci-fi Transcendence and opposite Jason Bateman in the psychological thriller The Gift in 2015.

Trivia: Both exotic and classic, Wales-born actress Catherine Zeta-Jones began acting as a child. By ten she was part of the Catholic congregation's performing troupe, and by 18 she was performing professionally in the West End. It was in there that she caught the eye of French director Philippe de Broca, who offered her the lead in his film Les 1001 Nuits in 1989. After traveling to France to film the movie, she returned to Britain, where she landed a starring role in the Yorkshire Television comedy drama series The Darling Buds of May, based on a series of novels by H.E. Bates. The show was a huge hit, and made Zeta-Jones one of the U.K.'s most popular TV actresses. After the series ended in 1993, she steadily found work playing lead roles in TV movies and miniseries such as Catherine the Great and The Cinder Path. She also played supporting roles small films, including Christopher Columbus: The Discovery and Splitting Heirs. The big screen role that undoubtedly put Zeta-Jones on the map, however, came in 1998 when she was cast opposite Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas in 1998's The Mask of Zorro. America was enchanted by the dark-haired actress' charisma and beauty, and she began to be offered better and better roles in American film. She starred in films like Entrapment, The Haunting, and High Fidelity, before taking the prominent role of a white-collar drug kingpin's wife in 2000, in Steven Soderbergh's treatise on the drug war, Traffic. Her performance was impressive to critics and audiences, many of whom felt that she deserved an Oscar nomination.The actress had no time to quibble over awards, however, as she married actor Michael Douglas in November that year, and gave birth to their son Dylan Michael nine months later. Zeta-Jones' took it easy during the next year, appearing only in the romantic comedy America's Sweethearts, but her next project would be the one to cement her as Hollywood royalty: a starring role in the Broadway adaptation Chicago. Few fans were aware of the singing and dancing skills that she'd honed on the musical stage at the beginning of her career, much less that she had sometimes performed with the English National Opera. Her performance blew audiences away, and won her the 2002 Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Zeta-Jones lightened things up in 2003, making audiences laugh alongside George Clooney in the Coen Brothers' movie Intolerable Cruelty, then as an airport employee who falls for stranded immigrant Tom Hanks in The Terminal (2004).The actress' screen time, however, began to diminish at about that point, given her decision to shift priorities and hone in on raising a family with Douglas; her film appearances grew decidedly less frequent, and she thus found time to give birth to a baby girl named Carys Zeta Douglas in April of 2003. On the side, however, she continued to appear in occasional commercials, and the paparazzi often published candid photos of the actress in public, baby-in-arms, which held her in the limelight. The motion pictures in which Zeta-Jones appeared during this period took fewer chances by banking off of recent successes (gone, at least temporarily, were the challenges of such films as Chicago and Traffic). Efforts during this period included the blockbuster sequel Ocean's Twelve (with Clooney, 2004), the onscreen reunion with Antonio Banderas The Legend of Zorro and even the musical concert film Tony Bennett: An American Classic, which reunited Zeta-Jones and Chicago wunderkind Rob Marshall.In 2007, she teamed with Shine director Scott Hicks for an Americanized remake of the German-language comedy Mostly Martha, retitled No Reservations. She followed that up with Australian director Gillian Armstrong's period piece Death Defying Acts -- a cinematization of Harry Houdini's 1926 tour of Britain, co-starring Timothy Spall and Guy Pearce, and scripted by Brian Ward and Tony Grisoni. Zeta-Jones returned to the musical fold in Rock of Ages, a 2012 adaptation of the 2006 Broadway show. She next took on several supporting roles, in films like the sports rom-com Playing for Keeps, the psychological thriller Side Effects and the action sequel Red 2.

Trivia: From The Mighty Ducks to the mighty Dawson, Joshua Jackson has proven to be one of the more promising members of the Hollywood teen invasion. The Canadian actor, best known for his portrayal of hellion-with-a-heart-of-gold Pacey Witter on Dawson's Creek, has enjoyed a rising popularity since Dawson's 1998 premiere and was named one of Teen People's "21 Hottest Stars Under 21" in 1999.Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, on June 11, 1978, Jackson spent most of his early childhood in California with his casting director mother. After moving back to Vancouver, Jackson got his start in commercials, and from there went on to appear in a number of forgettable films. His big break came in 1992 with The Mighty Ducks and its two sequels. Following these, he got a bit role in a film that was helping to usher in the teen horror flick craze, Scream 2 (1997). Then, in 1998, Jackson landed the part that was to give him stardom in Dawson's Creek. As the show gained popularity among both critics and television viewers, Jackson was able to broaden his film experience with 1998's Apt Pupil and Urban Legend. In 1999 he appeared as the gay and peroxided Blaine Tuttle in Cruel Intentions, which he starred in with fellow teen sensations Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, and Reese Witherspoon. For his next role, however, Jackson chose to stray from the teen genre with his appearance in Muppets From Space (1999), where his co-stars were more likely to do advertisements for the Children's Broadcasting Network than Noxzema.In 2000, the young actor returned to the teen genre with two separate projects, The Skulls and Gossip. Both films were set on elite college campuses and featured Jackson as upright young men forced to right the wrongs committed by their peers, something that signified the audience's growing identification with the actor as an unlikely hero for the new millennium.When Dawson's Creek finally came to a close, he kept plugging away at a movie career showing up in the indie comedy I Love Your Work, Cursed, and Emilio Estevez's Bobby. However, he found his greatest success on the small screen when he was the center of Fringe, a J.J. Abrams sci-fi show that built and maintained a cult audience and ran from 2008 to 2013. Once Fringe wrapped up, he was immediately cast in The Affair, opposite Dominic West, Ruth Wilson and Maura Tierney. The show was critically lauded and Jackson received a People's Choice Award nomination for his work.

Trivia: With her laid-back but quick-witted personality and striking copper mane, spunky Laura Prepon quickly built a loyal television viewer fan base for her portrayal of easygoing Donna Pinciotti on the popular FOX sitcom That '70s Show. As with her portrayal of Donna, Prepon carries little pretension, and with her natural and tomboyish personality in close keeping with her small-screen persona (not to mention a fondness for vintage clothes), she seems on much the same wavelength as her prime-time alter ego. Born on March 7, 1980, in Watchung, NJ, Prepon is the youngest of five siblings (including three sisters and a brother), whose father passed away in 1994. Attending Watchung Regional High School and studying ballet, dance, and acting at New York City's Total Theater Lab from age 15, the aspiring actress convinced her mother to drive her into the city for frequent weekend auditions and soon began landing modeling jobs both stateside and abroad. With little acting experience under her belt before auditioning for her role on That '70s Show, it seemed unlikely that she would land the role, though the producers were quick to note that Prepon's natural disposition was in nearly pitch-perfect tune with the demands of the role. Frequently confused with both Alicia Witt and Claire Danes, Prepon was also cast in They Go On, the first series broadcast over the Internet. It wasn't long before Prepon decided to attempt a transition to features, and with roles in Pornographer: A Love Story (2000), Southlander (2001), and Slackers (2002), she seemed to be on her way.In 2004 Prepon added the role of producer to her resume with the low-budget horror drama Lightning Bug (which she also starred in), and the following year she found a way to work her passion for poker into the mix as producer of E! Television's Hollywood Hold 'Em. With the end of That 70's Show in 2006, Prepon branched out with a turn as notorious Canadian serial killer Karla Homolka in the controversial true crime drama Karla, though she was decidedly more in her element as a small town girl in the shortlived ABC drama October Road. Later, on the heels of guest appearances on such hit shows as House, Castle, and How I Met Yuor Mother, Prepon was cast in the lead of the NBC sitcom Are You There, Chelsea?, based loosely on the best-seller "Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea" by Chelsea Handler. The show was quickly cancelled by the network, however, after it failed to find a loyal following.

Trivia: An actor whose strong features and sinewy 6'4" physique appear to have been chiseled from a slab of testosterone, Vince Vaughn is Hollywood's closest human approximation of a Chevy pick-up. Born March 28th, 1979, Vaughn's roles invariably reflect these qualities, and have given him a genial affability among middle Americans. Thanks to Vaughn's skills as a performer, however, he continues to resist typecasting, lending effortless portrayals to characters ranging from slick bachelors to raging psychopaths to morally conflicted limo drivers. A tried-and-true Midwestern boy, Vaughn was born in Minneapolis on March 28, 1970, and raised in the wealthy Chicago suburb of Lake Forest. The son of a self-made businessman and a stock and real-estate broker, Vaughn diverged from the upwardly mobile path forged by his parents. A hyperactive teen (and lackluster student), Vaughn spent time in special ed. and ran with a fast crowd (though he later claimed that he never felt the need for all-out rebellion). Despite his poor scholastic performance, Vaughn derived ambition from his interest in acting -- an interest that first blossomed at the age of seven -- and even served as senior class president. Upon graduation, with only his diploma and a role in a Chevy commercial as his credentials, Vaughn headed for Hollywood. Upon arrival, he proceeded to work in almost complete obscurity for the next seven years.During this period, Vaughn made the acquaintance of Jon Favreau, another struggling actor who hailed from the East. Their ensuing friendship and real-life adventures provided the inspiration for their ticket to the bigtime, 1996's Swingers. Directed by Doug Liman, the comedy stars Vaughn and Favreau (who also co-wrote the script) as two amiable, Rat Pack-obsessed, "so money" bachelors prowling the streets and bars of L.A. for "beautiful babies" and the occasional job opportunity. This irreverent-but-insightful Miramax release became a bona-fide sleeper hit. Vaughn, whose character, Trent, was the film's resident fast-talking ladies' man, emerged as a sex symbol in the making. A supporting role in Steven Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park heightened the actor's profile and revealed his ability to transition with great fluidity between indie films and box-office blockbusters. Nevertheless, Vaughn subsequently took the small, quiet film route, starring in The Locusts (1997), an overheated but half-baked melodrama in debt to both Tennessee Williams and East of Eden, and A Cool, Dry Place, a family drama that garnered a cool, dry reception from both audiences and critics. In 1998, the actor fared substantially better with his turn as a limo driver who is called upon to make a great sacrifice for a friend in Joe Ruben's Return to Paradise, and he brought a fine admixture of dark humor and sublimated menace to his part as a charismatic sociopath in Clay Pigeons. Vaughn evoked colossal mental dysfunction as Norman Bates in Gus Van Sant's truly ugly and ill-advised remake of Psycho that same year. Critics and viewers regarded his performance -- like the film itself -- with a tepid blend of indifference and bewilderment. After that egregious misfire, Vaughn wisely took a couple of years off before re-emerging with a number of projects in 2000. These included The Cell, a surrealistic horror picture co-starring Jennifer Lopez and Vincent D'Onofrio, Prime Gig, with Vaughn as California's best telemarketer, and South of Heaven, West of Hell, an ensemble western that marked the directorial debut of country singer Dwight Yoakam. Following-up with a part in writer Favreau's Made, Vaughn's next big role arrived in the form of a deceptive stepfather harboring a dark secret in the thriller Domestic Disturbance. Unfortunately, the film bombed on a critical front. Vaughn again ducked out of sight for several years, but Todd Phillips's 2003 comedy Old School brought him back to the top of the heap. Teaming Vaughn with Will Ferrell and Luke Wilson as a trio of over-the-hill party animals who relive their Animal House days by returning to frat house life, Old School became a sleeper hit, and inspired the press to term Vaughn, Wilson, Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Jack Black and others as The Frat Pack. The next of the "Frat Pack" vehicles arrived in 2004, with Todd Phillips's spoofy retread of the 1970s hit Starsky & Hutch, featuring Vaughn as the slimy villain, Reese Feldman. The picture (predictably) became a mega-hit, and the actor's newfound momentum continued to build when, only a few months later, he starred in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. Apparently channeling Bill Murray circa-1985, Vaughn received positive reviews for playing the good-guy opposite muscle-bound baddie Ben Stiller.Vaughn next graced the Will Ferrell vehicle Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) with a small but memorable role, before he made an about-face for the comedy-drama Thumbsucker. Vaughn impressed critics with his characterization and received praise for his funny and heartfelt performance. He returned to the popcorn humor that initially made him a star, however (and joined the $200-million-gross club in the process) with a leading part in the comedy The Wedding Crashers, a raunchy, R-rated film that proved once and for all the actor could open a movie.Throughout 2006, rumors swarmed about Vaughn's offscreen life, and alleged romantic relationship with newly divorced Jennifer Aniston -- a relationship that blossomed on the set of The Break-Up (ironically, a comedy about an couple ending their two-year relationship and trying to divide their possessions, friends and condo without killing each other). Gossip amped up anticipation and heightened curiosity. Meanwhile, Aniston aggressively denied rumors of an engagement. Upon release, The Break-Up bolstered Vaughn's reputation as a strong comic lead, and became another surprise hit.In the holiday comedy Joe Claus -- which marks Vaughn's third outing with director David Dobkin -- he plays the title character, the no-account, loser brother of Santa Claus who teams up with his more famous sibling at the North Pole to defeat villain Kevin Spacey. Vaughn undertook a personal venture for the documentary Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show, tooling around the country on a tour bus with four aspiring stand-up comics as they travel from gig to gig. And he stayed true to form with another "Frat Pack" comedy, Outsourced. In the years to come, Vaughn would remain an ever present force in the comedy world, appearing in movies like Four Christmases, Couples Retreat, and The Watch, as well as producing projects like The Internship and the sitcom Sullivan & Son.

Trivia: Hugo Armstrong played an unhinged FBI agent in the low-budget holiday thriller A Christmas Nightmare before signing on for Nanking, Bill Guttentag's documentary about the 1937 massacre of the Chinese city.

Trivia: Born on September 7th, 1954, to actress Jeanne Cooper, Corbin Bernsen graduated from UCLA, boasting a BA degree in theatre arts and an MFA in playwrighting. From age 20 onward, Bernsen managed to find work in LA-based movies and TV productions. Things didn't immediately break for him when he moved to New York in the 1980s, so he took carpentry and modelling jobs until landing the part of Kenny Graham in the ABC daytime drama Ryan's Hope. Bernsen achieved celebrity status with his regular role as Arnie Becker in the TV series LA Law (1987-94). The best of his most recent films has been Major League (1990), in which he plays an investment-conscious baseball player. Corbin Bernsen remained more or less in this line of work with his role as an athlete-turned-sportcaster in the 1995 sitcom Whole New Ballgame. In more recent years, Berenger could be seen in a bevy of television series' including Psych, General Hospital, Boston Legal, and The West Wing. He worked with Steve Martin in The Big Year, director David Frankel's comedy based on a book of the same name. The actor also found success in the film 25 Hill, an inspirational drama following a New York fire chief (Bernson) who lost his son in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Trivia: As a character player of Italian extraction, Frank Grillo found himself cast, almost by default, in tough, slick, street-smart roles specializing in urban cops, detectives, and assorted mafia types. Actually, Grillo's onscreen aura -- so often perceived as "unmistakably New York" -- was somewhat misleading: he grew up not in the Bronx or Brooklyn but in upstate New York, and gravitated to sports prior to drama, weighing his options and finding himself torn between a full-time career as an athlete and life as a full-time actor. Grillo's parents, it seems, would have neither, and sent him to business school at NYU; as soon as Grillo ended up on Wall Street, however, fate intervened: his path criss-crossed with that of a casting agent, and he promptly landed a role in a beer commercial. That marked the first of over 25 similar assignments, plugging various products and services. He took a massive step up in prestige and exposure when cast as regular Hart Jessup on the soap The Guiding Light, then enjoyed multi-episode runs and guest spots on such primetime series as The Shield, CSI, Las Vegas, and Without a Trace. Grillo's feature roles include The Mambo Kings (1992), April's Shower (2003), and Pride and Glory (2008). As the yers rolled on, Grillo would find himself cast in memorable projects like Blue Eyes, Edge of Darkness, Warrior, and The Grey.

Trivia: Actor Wendell Pierce spent the first 20 years or so of his career predominantly essaying character roles as authority figures, with many bit parts as cops, attorneys, government agents, and ministers to his credit. Pierce devoted the majority of his first decade to big-screen work (including such projects as The Money Pit, Family Business, and Get on the Bus); by 1995, he began to accept occasional bit parts on television, and indeed, this venue ultimately brought Pierce higher billing, when he was tapped to play two roles: Conrad "Candyman" Jones on Third Watch and Detective William "Bunk" Moreland on HBO's police drama The Wire. Pierce remained most active on-stage, however, where his powerhouse presence illuminated an impressive array of classical dramas, among them Cymbeline (1989), Antigone (1993), and Tartuffe (1999). Over the coming years, Pierce would find additional success on a series about his hometown, Treme.

Trivia: Character actor John Carroll Lynch first gained notice for his performance as Frances McDormand's sweet and supportive husband in the Coen brother's critically acclaimed Fargo. He subsequently appeared on the ABC sitcom The Drew Carey Show as the title character's cross-dressing brother. The role was initially a recurring one, but Lynch was eventually added as a full-time cast member. Along the way, he also popped up in a number of small roles in large films like 1997's Volcano and 2000's Gone in 60 Seconds.Following the cancellation of The Drew Carey Show, Lynch switched gears from comedy to drama, but stayed on the small screen, taking a role on HBO's bleak and bizarre Carnivàle. That stint was followed by a season on the CBS legal drama Close to Home. And in 2007, he was cast alongside Anthony Anderson and Cole Hauser in Fox's post-Hurricane Katrina cop show K-Ville. That same year, he could be seen on the big-screen in David Fincher's Zodiac. Lynch would remain an active perormer for years to come, appearing in movies like Shutter Island and Crazy, Stupid, Love, as well as starring on TV shows like Body of Proof.