Trivia: Actress Piper Perabo learned one of Hollywood's rules of self-preservation early on: lie. Auditioning for her first major film role in Whiteboyz (1999), a spoof of white homeboy culture, Perabo was asked if she knew how to rap. She replied that she did, even though she was completely clueless about the musical style. After getting the part, she took a two-week crash course in hip-hop and emerged well-versed in both the music and the art of securing employment. Although Whiteboyz failed to make much of an impression in theaters, Perabo did manage to attract attention in her role as the college-bound girlfriend of the film's protagonist and was soon being touted as the latest blonde, blue-eyed Next Big Thing to sashay across the collective psyche of the filmgoing public.A native of Toms River, NJ, where she was born in 1977, Perabo first became involved in acting through drama lessons at Manhattan's LaMama Theatre. After graduating summa cum laude from Ohio University with a BFA in acting in 1998, she worked on the stage and soon landed her role in Whiteboyz. On the heels of that film, Perabo was cast as FBI agent Karen Sympathy opposite Robert De Niro, Rene Russo, and Jason Alexander in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and also bagged the lead in Jerry Bruckheimer's Coyote Ugly. Both debuting in the summer of 2000, neither film found much popularity among critics, but the latter--a flamboyant and fairly disconcerting blend of Flashdance, Cocktail, and an extended-play Budweiser ad--succeeded in putting Perabo in the summer spotlight.Over the ensuing few years, Perabo maintained most of her buzz despite failing to attach herself to any bonafide hits, appearing in such disparate films as the 2001 well-received indie-film Lost and Delirious and the 2002's DOA comedy Slap Her... She's French. Finally, at the end of 2003, Perabo hit paydirt, starring as the eldest of twelve children in the holiday blockbuster, Cheaper by the Dozen. She never had the breakout role she seemed destined for, but she worked steadily in projects like the Cheaper By the Dozen sequel, The Prestige, The Lazarus Project, and Beverly Hills Chihuahua. In 2010 she was cast as one of the leads in the TV series Covert Affairs.

Trivia: Roles in such popular small-screen series as Party of Five, Popular, and Felicity have made actor Christopher Gorham a familiar face to television viewers, and with the premiere of his sci-fi drama Jake 2.0 in 2003, it seems as though the burgeoning actor may have finally come into his own in the competitive realm of prime-time television. Born to a certified public accountant and a school nurse in California, Gorham discovered his love of acting early on when he took home his school's Best Actor award for his portrayal of The Mad Hatter in a fourth grade production of Alice in Wonderland. Gorham advanced to Roger Rocka's Dinner Theater before enrolling in the Roosevelt School of the Arts, and it was there that he truly began to refine his skills on-stage. A B.A. in film and theater arts from U.C.L.A. was soon to follow, and shortly after college, Gorham began landing roles in television (Party of Five) and film (A Life Less Ordinary). After sticking to the small screen for Popular, Gorham took a supporting role in the 2000 feature Dean Quixote and the lead in the Mormon drama The Other Side of Heaven (2001). Of course it was only a matter of time before Gorham took the lead on the small screen as well, and following supporting performances in Felicity and Odyssey 5 he was heading the cast of the weekly sci-fi drama Jake 2.0. The story of a young man's journey from typical teen to superhuman hero debuted in September of 2003. He would continue to work on the small screen playing Henry, the love interest on Ugly Betty, and he had major parts in the 2010 indie comedy Answer This! And the 2011 thriller The Ledge.

Trivia: Credits S.E. Hinton's novels, in particular The Outsiders, with helping her focus on acting. Became a star in Canada by appearing on TV and in films, such as The Rez, Power Play, Cube 2: Hypercube, A Colder Kind of Death and Blue Murder. Won a 2001 Gemini Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Guest Role for her appearance on Blue Murder and was subsequently invited to join the show as a regular cast member. Broke into American TV with the A&E series Nero Wolfe. Has appeared with Timothy Hutton in three projects: Nero Wolfe, 5ive Days to Midnight and Leverage. A sign in her hometown of Spalding, Saskatchewan, welcomes passing motorists to the birthplace of Kari Matchett.

Trivia: A handsome, brooding actor equally at home in mainstream Hollywood fare and in American independent projects -- as well as on the theatrical stage -- Peter Gallagher was born August 19, 1955, in Armonk, NY. While attending Tufts University, he spent his summers appearing with area theater groups, and after graduating in 1977, he acted on Broadway in a revival of Hair. Gallagher then starred as Danny Zuko in Grease, a performance which led to his portrayal of a '50s-era pop singer in his film debut, 1980's The Idolmaker. Summer Lovers followed two years later, but proved such a miserable experience that Gallagher fled Hollywood to return to the stage. He won a Theatre World Award that same year for his work in the Broadway musical A Doll's Life, and earned a Clarence Derwent Award in 1984 for his turn in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing.In 1985, Gallagher returned to film in the Dennis Potter-scripted Dreamchild, followed in 1987 by My Little Girl. After garnering a Tony nomination for his work in a controversial revival of Long Day's Journey into Night, he enjoyed his motion picture breakthrough as an adulterous attorney in Steven Soderbergh's influential 1989 debut sex, lies, and videotape. The performance earned Gallagher considerable credibility within the independent filmmaking community, but his next several efforts were more mainstream productions like 1990's Tune in Tomorrow and the television drama Love and Lies. However, a subsequent turn in Peter Sellars' 1991 avant-silent The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez brought acclaim from art-house audiences, and with a lead role in Robert Altman's 1992 comeback The Player, Gallagher's stock rose even higher. That same year, the actor wowed theater audiences with his portrayal of Sky Masterson in the Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls, a widely praised production that also starred Nathan Lane.Over the following years, Gallagher split his time between edgier material (Tim Robbins' Bob Roberts, Altman's Short Cuts, and Soderbergh's The Underneath) and lighter, glossier projects (Malice, While You Were Sleeping, and To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday). In 1999, he gave smarm a good, or at least convincing, name, starring as a sleazy physician in The House on Haunted Hill, a remake of William Castle's 1958 horror classic, and as a similarly repugnant real estate salesman in American Beauty. Gallagher would spend the following years enjoying particular fame in the realm of TV, starring on such successful shows as The O.C., Californication, Rescue Me, and Covert Affairs. Gallagher would also remain active in film, however, in movies like Burlsesque and Conviction.

Trivia: One of the more compelling actors of his generation, Hill Harper, born May 17th, 1973, has earned a reputation for turning in complex performances defined by equal parts intensity and charisma. Acting since the age of 7, Harper, a native of Iowa City, continued to nurture his interest while an undergraduate student at Brown and then as a graduate student at Harvard, where he earned degrees in law and government. During his years at Harvard, the actor was a full-time member of Boston's Black Folks Theater Company, one of the oldest and most acclaimed African-American theater troupes in the country.Harper broke into both film and television in 1993, doing recurring work on the Fox series Married...with Children and making his film debut in the short Confessions of a Dog. He had his first substantial role in a feature in Spike Lee's Get on the Bus (1996), which cast him as a UCLA film student riding a bus to the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. He went on to further demonstrate his versatility in such films as Lee's He Got Game (1998) and Christopher Scott Cherot's Hav Plenty (1997), the latter of which featured him as an egotistical pop-soul singer. The actor's profile subsequently rose on both the mainstream and independent film circuits, thanks to roles in films ranging from Beloved (1998) to the independent romantic comedy Loving Jezebel (1999) to The Skulls (2000), an entry into the teen thriller/horror genre. Harper also did some of his most acclaimed work in Jordan Walker Pearlman's The Visit (2000), an independent drama in which he starred as a prisoner dying of AIDS who tries to put his life back together.