Trivia: Best known for portraying time traveler Dr. Sam Beckett in the popular sci-fi series Quantum Leap, Scott Bakula is also a noted Broadway actor and occasional movie star, though it is in the last venue that he has had the least amount of success. The son of a musician, Bakula is said to have started his own rock band when he was in the fourth grade. He also sang with the St. Louis Symphony before attending the University of Kansas. Bakula launched his acting career as a teen in regional theater and as a stage actor specializes in musical comedy. He made his Broadway debut in 1983 in Marilyn: An American Fable. He started showing up regularly on television as a guest star on such series as My Sister Sam and Designing Women during the 1980s. In 1986, Bakula starred in an unsuccessful television series, Gung Ho! Two years later he headlined another unsuccessful one, Eisenhower and Lutz. In 1988, Bakula was nominated for a Tony for his work in Romance, Romance. The following year, he was cast in Quantum Leap and has since gained a cult following; in 1992, he won a Golden Globe and was nominated four more times. Bakula was also nominated for a quartet of Emmys. Bakula made his feature-film debut starring opposite Kirstie Alley in Sibling Rivalry (1990). Other notable film appearances include L.A. Story (1991) and My Family/Mi Familia (1995). In 1993, Bakula had a recurring role on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown as a love interest of Candice Bergen. He has also appeared in a number of television movies and in 1996, he had a stint in another short-lived series, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.Though he worked steadily in movies, television turned out to be his next great success when, in 2001, he took the part of Capt. Jonathan Archer on Star Trek: Enterprise, a program that lasted four seasons.In 2009 Bakula would star alongside Ray Romano and Andre Braugher in the well-respected comedy/drama series Men of a Certain Age, and landed in one of the best films of his career, Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!.

Trivia: Fans of the science fiction television series Quantum Leap will know supporting and character actor Dean Stockwell as the scene-stealing, cigar chomping, dry-witted, and cryptic hologram Al. But to view him only in that role is to see one part of a multi-faceted career that began when Stockwell was seven years old.Actually, his ties with show business stretch back to his birth for both of his parents were noted Broadway performers Harry Stockwell and Nina Olivette. His father also provided the singing voice of the prince in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1931). Stockwell was born in North Hollywood and started out on Broadway in The Innocent Voyage (1943) at age seven. Curly haired and beautiful with a natural acting style that never descended into cloying cuteness, he made his screen debut after contracting with MGM at age nine in Anchors Aweigh (1945) and continued on to play sensitive boys in such memorable outings as The Mighty McGurk (1946), The Boy With Green Hair (1948), and The Secret Garden (1949). He would continue appearing in such films through 1951 when he went into the first of several "retirements" from films. When Stockwell resurfaced five years later it was as a brooding and very handsome 20-year-old who specialized in playing introverts and sensitive souls in roles ranging from a wild, young cowboy in Gun for a Coward (1957) to a murderous homosexual in Compulsion (1958) to an aspiring artist who cannot escape the influence of his domineering mother in Sons and Lovers (1960). Stockwell topped off this phase of his career portraying Eugene O'Neill in Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962). Stockwell would spend the next three years as a hippie and when he again renewed his career it was in such very '60s efforts as Psych-Out (1968) and the spooky and weird adaptation of a Lovecraft story, The Dunwich Horror. During this period, Stockwell also started appearing in television movies such as The Failing of Raymond (1971). In the mid-'70s, the former flower child became a real-estate broker and his acting career became sporadic until the mid-'80s when he began playing character roles. It was in this area, especially in regard to comic characters, that Stockwell has had his greatest success. Though he claims it was not intentional, Stockwell has come to be almost typecast as the king of quirk, playing a wide variety of eccentrics and outcasts. One of his most famous '80s roles was that of the effeminate and rutlhess sleaze, Ben, in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986). Stockwell had previously worked with Lynch in Dune and says that when the director gave him the script for Velvet, his character was not specifically mapped out, leaving Stockwell to portray Ben in any way he felt appropriate. The actor's intuition has proven to be one of his greatest tools and helped create one of modern Hollywood's most creepy-crawly villains. Whenever possible, Stockwell prefers working by instinct and actively avoids over-rehearsing his parts. His career really picked up after he landed the part of Al in Quantum Leap. Since the show's demise, Stockwell has continued to appear on screen, starring on series like Battlestar Galactica.

Trivia: The capable and effective actress Amy Ryan proved herself adept at a myriad of portrayals in many genres. Ryan was often, though not always, cast as a solid and dependable housewife, mother, or girlfriend, per her contributions to the 2004 Keane (as the impoverished single mother of a young girl, who unwittingly entrusts her daughter to a schizophrenic), the 2006 Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World (as Albert Brooks' wife and straight man), and the 2005 Capote (as the wife of Chris Cooper's no-nonsense sheriff). On television, Ryan gained notice as Officer Beatrice "Beadie" Russell on the critically acclaimed HBO drama series The Wire. In 2007, Ryan ascended several notches in terms of feature billing with her portrayal of Carolyn Cassady, the wife of 1950s icon Neal Cassady, in director Noah Buschel's eponymous biopic of the legendary beatnik. Ryan also tackled a small supporting role in the Steve Carell comedy Dan in Real Life. That same year, her work in two crime films catapulted her even further into the limelight. As the mother of the missing girl in Gone Baby Gone, Ryan earned rave reviews and dominated the year-end critics awards for Best Supporting Actress, garnering Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe, and Oscar nominations in the process. Her work as Ethan Hawke's dissatisfied ex-wife in Before the Devil Knows You're Dead helped cement her new status as a rising star.She appeared in Clint Eastwood's period drama Changeling, and had a major part in the action thriller Green Zone in 2010. She joined the cast of In Treatment for that program's thirds and final season on HBO. Philip Seymour Hoffman cast her as his leading lady for his directorial debut Jack Goes Boating, and she was Paul Giamatti's loving wife in Win Win.

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

Trivia: Made her TV debut in Alice (1979) and her film debut in Smokey and the Bandit II (1980). Has guested on some 70 TV series, including Hill Street Blues, Newhart, Murphy Brown, Roseanne, The Golden Girls, Seinfield, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, ER, Everybody Loves Raymond and Nip/Tuck. Was a regular on ABC's Married to the Kellys, and had recurring roles on My Name Is Earl, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Grace Under Fire and Ellen. Hobbies include knitting and quilting; sews for the nonprofit organization Stitches From the Heart, which aids seniors and parents with premature babies.

Trivia: North Carolina native Liz Vassey began acting on-stage when she was just nine years old, studying acting at a number of universities over the coming years before beginning her onscreen acting career. She appeared on the soap opera All My Children beginning in 1988 and would make guest appearances on numerous TV series, including Murphy Brown, Quantum Leap, and others. Soon, Vassey would be snagging staring roles on TV shows, playing roles like Captain Liberty on the cult favorite The Tick and Wendy Simms on the procedural drama CSI. Among her other credits are the supernatural series Tru Calling and the Elmore Leonard adaptation Maximum Bob.