Trivia: Before deciding upon an acting career, Philadelphia-born Linda Fiorentino briefly flirted with the notion of becoming a lawyer. Fiorentino fans consider her first year of filmmaking her most rewarding, and her inaugural movie role as an erstwhile, love-struck artist in Vision Quest (1985) among her finest performances. After a conventional heroine stint in Gotcha! (1985), she raised eyebrows (and temperatures) as a mellow sculptress with a predilection for kinky sex games in the bizarre After Hours (1985). But Fiorentino was seldom well served in later pictures, hampered by too many nondescript performances in ensemble films. Then came her startling portrayal of the utterly amoral "black widow" Bridget in John Dahl's low-budget sleeper The Last Seduction (1994). In a less rule-bound world, the actress would have been nominated for an Oscar, but the film was, unfortunately, shown on cable TV before its theatrical release, thus rendering it ineligible for the Academy race. The success of The Last Seduction and Fiorentino's widely praised performance provided the resuscitation her career needed, but subsequent lead roles in a series of complete turkeys -- most notably the David Caruso thriller Jade (1995) and Dahl's Unforgettable (1996) -- quickly negated the film's positive effects. Fiorentino did enjoy a measure of acclaim for her role as Jesus Christ's only living descendent in Kevin Smith's Dogma (1999), and she continued to work steadily in all sorts of films, including Thaddeus O'Sullivan's Ordinary Decent Criminal, in which she played one of the loves of a charismatic Dublin criminal (Kevin Spacey).

Trivia: Fair-haired Canadian actor (and Toronto native) Jonathan Scarfe began signing for roles in the late '90s; he specialized predominantly in bit parts and guest roles on television series programs including Murder, She Wrote, NYPD Blue, and especially ER, where he enjoyed a lengthy, multi-episode run as heroin addict Chase Carter (Dr. John Carter's cousin). Scarfe also carved out a frequent presence on telemovies such as Our Mother's Murder (1997), White Lies (1998), and Judas (2004).

Trivia: Hart Bochner is a handsome, dark-haired supporting actor who has worked in several major theatrical and television movies. He is the son of Lloyd Bochner, a film and TV actor himself, and was born in Canada. As a teenager, he made his film debut in Franklin Schaffner's 1975 film Islands in the Stream. Before deciding to become an actor like his father, Bochner earned a graduate degree in English literature at a university in San Diego. Following college, he appeared in a supporting role in the 1979 sleeper Breaking Away. It was a promising start to his career and he next went on to appear in George Cukor's final film, Rich and Famous (1981). Though he appeared in many subsequent films, Bochner unfortunately has not become a well-known cinema actor though he did turn in a memorable performance as a sleazy yuppie businessman in 1988's Die Hard. With television, he has done a little better starring in adaptations such as East of Eden, The Sun Also Rises, and most notably the TV mini-series War and Remembrance.

Trivia: His family moved from Jamaica to Vancouver when he was 11. His first airplane flight at age 11 inspired him to become a pilot. Acted in church and school plays, but never considered doing it professionally until after college, while waiting for a pilot job to open up. Worked as a stuntman on 21 Jump Street.

Trivia: Studied acting in London for one year before attending college in America. Made his Broadway debut in Lost in Yonkers as a replacement for Louie, the character originated by Kevin Spacey. Has worked numerous times on both stage and screen with director Mike Nichols. Appeared in the Vancouver Playhouse's production of True West in 2008, opposite Vincent Gale. Holds Canadian citizenship.

Trivia: After a series of small child-actor roles starting at age 11, his big break came at age 15 when he landed his starring turn in the 1979 Canadian television series, Huckleberry Finn and His Friends. Decided to take a break from acting after high school and credits a stint setting up lights on film sets for teaching him the most about the business. Expanded his career by directing two episodes of the 2001 series Da Vinci's Inquest, which led to other directing gigs.

Trivia: Chinese-Canadian actor Terry Chen first achieved international recognition at the dawn of the millennium, when he appeared in two very different A-listers: Romeo Must Die, an avant-garde, martial-arts-saturated take on Romeo and Juliet (starring ill-fated pop diva Aaliyah and DMX); and Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe's nostalgic coming-of-ager about the early experience of a rock journalist-cum-roadie. Despite occasional dips into more conventional material -- a Dean Koontz telemovie, the glamorized spy film Ballistic (2002) -- Chen remained generally selective about Hollywood parts. He was memorable as a Merc Pilot in The Chronicles of Riddick, as Chin in the futuristic Will Smith sci-fi film I, Robot (2004), and as Tom Lone in War (2007), an action-filled tale about an FBI agent enmeshed in a battle between rival Asian gangs. Over the coming years, Chen would remain active on screen, appearing in movies like The A-Team and on series like Combat Hospital.

Trivia: With sleek, well-muscled good looks that easily lend themselves to romantic leading roles or parts that call for running, jumping, and handling firearms, Wesley Snipes became one of the most popular Hollywood stars of the 1990s. First coming to prominence with roles in Spike Lee's Mo' Better Blues and Jungle Fever, Snipes went on to prove himself as an actor who could appeal to audiences as a man that women want and men want to be.Born in Orlando, FL, on July 31, 1962, Snipes grew up in the Bronx. He developed an early interest in acting and attended Manhattan's High School for the Performing Arts. His mother moved him back to Florida before he could graduate, but after finishing up high school in Florida, Snipes attended the State University of New York-Purchase and began pursuing an acting career. It was while performing in a competition that he was discovered by an agent, and a short time later he made his film debut in the Goldie Hawn vehicle Wildcats (1986). Although he appeared in a few more films during the 1980s, it was Snipes' turn as a street tough who menaces Michael Jackson in the Martin Scorsese-directed video for "Bad" that caught the eye of director Lee. He was so impressed with the actor's performance that he cast him in his 1990 Mo' Better Blues as a flamboyant saxophonist opposite Denzel Washington. That role, coupled with the exposure that Snipes had received for his performance as a talented but undisciplined baseball player in the previous year's Major League, succeeded in giving the actor a tentative plot on the Hollywood map. With his starring role in Lee's 1991 Jungle Fever, Snipes won critical praise and increased his audience exposure, and his career duly took off.That same year, Snipes further demonstrated his flexibility with disparate roles in New Jack City, in which he played a volatile drug lord, and The Waterdance, in which he starred as a former wild man repenting for his ways in a hospital's paraplegic ward. Both performances earned strong reviews, and the following year Snipes found himself as the lead in his first big-budget action flick, Passenger 57. The film, which featured the actor as an ex-cop with an attitude who takes on an airplane hijacker, proved to be a hit. Snipes' other film that year, the comedy White Men Can't Jump, was also successful, allowing the actor to enter the arena of full-fledged movie star. After a few more action stints in such films as Rising Sun (1993), which featured him opposite Sean Connery, Snipes went in a different direction with an uncredited role in Waiting to Exhale (1995). The same year he completely bucked his macho, action-figure persona with his portrayal of a flamboyant drag queen in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar. Snipes continued to focus on less testosterone-saturated projects after a turn as a baseball player in The Fan (1996), starring as an adulterous director in Mike Figgis' One Night Stand (1997) -- for which he won a Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival -- and as Alfre Woodard's handsome cousin in Down in the Delta in 1998. That same year, Snipes returned to the action genre, playing a pumped-up vampire slayer in Blade and a wrongfully accused man on the run from the law in the sequel to The Fugitive, U.S. Marshals. The former would prove to be a massive cult hit and one of his biggest box-office successes to date. And while the new millenium would see most of Snipes' films relegated to straight-to-video releases, a pair of Blade sequels in 2002 and 2004 helped the actor remain a presence at the multiplexes.Sentenced to three years in prison for tax evasion in 2008, Snipes began serving his term in 2010.

Trivia: A hulking character actor who brings new meaning to the concept of versatility, Oliver Platt has appeared in a dizzying array of films that make him instantly recognizable but not instantly placeable to the average filmgoer. Since making his screen debut as an oily Wall Street drone in Mike Nichols' Working Girl (1988), Platt has lent his talents to almost every conceivable genre, including period dramas, political comedies, children's films, and campy horror movies.The son of a U.S. Ambassador, Platt was born in Windsor on January 12, 1960, Platt and his family soon moved to Washington, D.C. Thanks to his father's job, he had an exceptionally itinerant childhood. By the time he was 18, he had attended 12 different schools in places as diverse as Tokyo, the Middle East, and Colorado. Long interested in acting, Platt received a BA in drama from Boston's Tufts University; following graduation, he remained in Boston for three years to pursue his stage career. In 1986 he moved to New York, where he performed in a number of off-Broadway productions and had the lead in the 1989 Lincoln Center production of Ubu. Following his screen debut in Working Girl, Platt began finding steady work in such films as Married to the Mob (1988), Postcards from the Edge (1990), Beethoven (1992) -- which featured him and future collaborator Stanley Tucci as puppy thieves -- and Benny and Joon (1993). He also proved himself adept at cheesy period drama in The Three Musketeers (1993), which cast him as Porthos, and at all-out comedy, as demonstrated by his turn as a struggling comic in Funny Bones (1995). Rarely cast as a leading man, Platt has always been visible in substantial supporting roles, equally comfortable at portraying nice guys, bad guys, and just flat out weird guys alike. As Ashley Judd's suitor in Simon Birch (1998), he was the straight man, while in The Impostors (1998), his second collaboration with Tucci (two years earlier he served as associate producer for the latter's Big Night), he again displayed his capacity for broad physical comedy as a struggling actor who finds himself a stowaway on an ocean liner. In Dangerous Beauty (1998), Platt was able to exercise his nasty side as a bitter nobleman-turned-religious zealot in 16th-century Venice; that same year, his capacity for exasperated quirkiness was displayed in Bulworth, which cast him as Warren Beatty's put-upon, coke-snorting campaign manager.1999 proved to be a somewhat disappointing year for Platt, as two of his films, Three to Tango (which featured him as a gay architect) and the schlock-horror Lake Placid, which cast him as an idiosyncratic mythology expert, were both critical and commercial flops. A third film that year, Bicentennial Man -- in which Platt played the scientist who turns the titular robot (Robin Williams) into a man -- fared somewhat better. The following year, Platt's comic abilities were again on display in Gun Shy, in which he hammed it up as a bottom-rung mafioso with an overblown ego.Fortunately for the workhorse actor, the 2000s seemed to prove the boost -- and exposure -- his sagging career needed. Earning back to back Emmy nominations in 2006 and 2007 for his performance opposite former Tufts University classmate Hank Azaria in the weekly dramedy Huff, Platt was also nominated for a Screen Actor's Guild Award for his turn as New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner in the TV mini-series The Bronk is Burning (2007). With 2008 came yet another Ammy nomination -- this time for his guest role on the hit FX series Nip/Tuck -- and in 2009 he appeared as Nathan Detroit in the Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls. Other notable television appearances from this phase of Platt's career included a recurring character on the seriocomic HBO series Bored to Death and a prominent role as the husband of a suburban housewife diagnosed with cancer in the Showtime comedy drama series The Big C.