Trivia: A founding member of the Chicago's influential Steppenwolf Theatre Company (along with Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry) when he was barely 19, Gary Sinise made his professional acting debut at the age of 17 in a 1973 production of The Physicist. Sinise himself would sum up his career best by noting that the secret to a successful career is not to focus on taking off like a rocket, but to "always keep the engine running." With a prolific and well-defined career on each side of the camera in addition to his stage work, keeping the engine running is precisely what Sinise has done, and that engine has been well maintained.Born March 17th, 1955 in Blue Island, IL, Sinise's attraction to the stage was supported early on through the encouragement of Barbara Patterson, his high school drama teacher. After a role in West Side Story, Sinise's love for the stage was set in stone, leading him to found the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where he would meet his future wife, actress Moira Harris. Initially based in a church basement, the Steppenwolf quickly grew in stature and respectability, serving as the breeding ground for such talents as John Malkovich and Laurie Metcalf, and earning critical praise with productions like Sam Shepard's True West, which would eventually become the company's Broadway debut. Sinise's film and television career began as a director on such television series' as Crime Story and thirtysomething, eventually leading to his feature directorial debut with the rural drama Miles From Home (starring fellow Steppenwolfers Metcalf and Malkovich) and his feature acting debut in the haunting war drama A Midnight Clear (1991). Sinise's love for the stage resurfaced with his ambitious 1992 remake of Of Mice and Men (in which he also starred, again with fellow Steppenwolf alum Malkovich, in the roles they had both portrayed on stage).But it was his performance as the physically crippled and emotionally shattered Lt. Dan in Robert Zemeckis' blockbuster Forrest Gump (1994) that brought Sinise to light as an actor of considerable talent. His sensitive portrait of a once invincible soldier reduced to a pathetic self-pitying ghost of his own former glory was the perfect vessel for the actor's quiet intensity and florid emotional capabilities, and brought him the Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. That same year Sinise had a starring role in the long-anticipated television adaptation of Stephen King's apocalyptic thriller The Stand.Sinise continued to display his dramatic abilities through the '90s, rejoining Gump co-star Tom Hanks in Ron Howard's Apollo 13 and starring as both Harry S. Truman and George Wallace in the biopics Truman (1995) (for which he won a Cable Ace Award and a Golden Globe) and George Wallace (1997) (for which he won an Emmy). With minor appearances in The Green Mile and Being John Malkovich (both 1999), Sinise brought in the year 2000 in a sci-fi mode, with Brian De Palma's existential thriller Mission to Mars and as a weapons engineer with questionable motives in Imposter. Throughout the next decade Sinise worked in a variety of films including The Big Bounce, The Human Stain, and The Forgotten. However he had is most visible role on the small screen when he was cast as the male lead in the third of the popular CSI series, CSI: NY. In 2006 he brought his theater trained voice to the animated Open Season.

Trivia: With her genuine smile, earthy beauty, and striking green eyes, Melina Kanakaredes staked her claim on daytime television in The Guiding Light before expanding her talents to numerous other popular series and, eventually, the silver screen.Born and raised in Akron, OH, the second-generation Greek-American was the third daughter of an insurance salesman and homemaker who began her career as an actress in a community theater production of Tom Sawyer at the age of eight. Later enrolling in Ohio State University to study music, dance, and theater but disheartened at poor inter-departmental relations, Kanakaredes opted for a conservatory education at Point Park College in Pittsburgh. Soon performing with the Pittsburgh Playhouse and appearing in commercials and industrial videos, Kanakaredes moved to New York after graduating magna cum laude and began working in dinner boat theater and off-Broadway productions. Taking her role as Greek immigrant Eleni Andros Cooper in The Guiding Light after being spotted by the William Morris Agency in 1991, Kanakaredes was nominated for two Emmys and soon began to expand to roles on NYPD Blue and OZ. Soon turning up in such features as The Long Kiss Goodnight and Rounders, the natural beauty began to gain even more footing in her feature aspirations with her turn in the Robert DeNiro heist-thriller The Score in 2001. Kanakaredes would spend the ensuing 2000's appearing frequently on TV, joining the cast of the police proceedural CSI: NY.

Trivia: A true case of fate intervening in the most unexpected of ways, the career of aspiring baseball star Carmine Giovinazzo, born August 24th, 1973,seemed decidedly grim when a major back injury dashed any hopes of achieving his childhood dreams of running the bases as millions of fans screamed in excitement. If those dreams weren't meant to come true, however, the fallen athlete would turn the negative into a positive by using his injury as a means of pushing himself to find his talent as an actor and realizing his true calling before the camera. A native of Staten Island, NY, Giovinazzo spent much of his childhood making short films as a hobby. The athlete-turned-actor was pounding the pavement soon after recovering from his career-altering injury. With the support of his family and an impressive resume that included many short films from NYU and SUNY Purchase, Giovinazzo was soon setting his sights on Los Angeles. The up-and-comer achieved an impressive feat by landing his very first audition for a small role in the pilot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a feature debut in the 1996 drama No Way Home, proving without a doubt that he could captivate on the big screen as well. If many of his subsequent screen roles weren't exactly memorable, he did prove promising as the lead in the 1998 thriller Fallen Arches before returning to the diamond for Spider-Man director Sam Raimi's 1999 baseball drama For Love of the Game. A stab at television with the short-lived and regrettably titled Shasta McNasty didn't further his career nearly as much as bit roles in such high-profile features as Black Hawk Down, though he did carry the 2001 crime drama The Learning Curve with suitable charm. In 2004 Giovinazzo's career was finally on the verge of breaking through with his role as forensic scientist Danny Messer on the CBS CSI spin-off CSI: NY.

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.

Trivia: A spunky actress with a winning on-camera presence, Anna Belknap got her start as a guest star on a wealth of popular TV series -- everything from Homicide: Life on the Street to Law & Order: SVU to Third Watch -- before her establishment as a regular on the short-lived (one-season) shows The Handler and Medical Investigation. She found more enduring success on the popular spin-off series CSI: NY. Her portrayal of Detective Lindsay Monroe, a Midwestern transplant with deep-seated emotional scars from a decade-old mass murder that she just barely survived, imparted Belknap's scenes with a tense undercurrent even as it spoke to the character's deeply moving vulnerability. 2005 marked a fortuitous year for Belknap; in addition to joining the CSI program, she signed on as Marissa in Evan Oppenheimer's gentle, techno-hip romantic comedy Alchemy. Unfortunately, that picture encountered extremely limited theatrical distribution (despite a favorable Variety review) and went almost straight to video.

Trivia: Genial and handsome character actor Eddie Cahill garnered significant attention for two onscreen series portrayals during the early 2000s: that of Tag, the twentysomething assistant hired by Rachel (Jennifer Aniston) in the 2000-2001 season of the blockbuster sitcom Friends, and that of NYPD homicide detective Don Flack on the successful crime series spin-off CSI: NY (2004). In addition, he had starred in the shortlived WB comedy drama Glory Days (2002) as author Mike Dolan, but it took the CSI role to secure him lasting small-screen success. In 2004, Cahill made his first feature-film appearance, as famous goalie Jim Craig in the Olympic hockey drama Miracle, followed soon after by his role as Larry Gordon in Catherine Hardwicke's bittersweet skateboarding movie Lords of Dogtown (2005). In 2008 he appeared in both This Is Not a Test, and the drama The Narrows.

Trivia: Canadian actor Robert Joy has been appearing in films on both sides of the Canada/U.S. border since the 1970s. He has always been a welcome presence, even when the scripts took pains not to make him feel welcome. As Susan Sarandon's husband in Atlantic City (1981), Joy stuck around just long enough to be bumped off by drug dealers. And as demented socialite Harry K. Thaw in Ragtime (1981), Joy existed principally to shoot Stanford White (Norman Mailer) full of holes and then get thrown in the looney bin. One of Robert Joy's largest, and most unorthodox, film assignments was as the would-be political demagogue (and one-time flamenco dancer) in the Newfoundland-based The Adventures of Faustus Bidgood (1986). Over the next several years, Joy would continue to remain an ongoing force on screen, appearing in films like Joe Somebody, Pretty Persuasion, Land of the Dead, and Superhero Movie. He would find success with a starring role on the long running crime proceedural CSI: NY.

Trivia: Immigrated to Canada with his family when he was 6 years old. Made his first television appearance in the 1994 made-for-TV drama The Disappearance of Vonnie. Made his feature-film acting debut in the 1998 teen horror movie Disturbing Behavior, starring Katie Holmes and James Marsden. Has appeared in several sci-fi/horror TV series, including Nickelodeon's Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Fox's The X-Files and Millennium, and the CW's Supernatural. Has a movie and television production company called Fourfront Productions, and is part-owner and frequent contributor to Louisiana's Scene magazine.

Trivia: Born January 30, 195, Charles Dutton attended the Yale School of Drama, and in 1983 he first appeared off-Broadway in Richard III. Before long he was delivering Tony-calibre performances in such Broadway productions as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and The Piano Lesson. In films since 1986's No Mercy, the forceful, thunder-voiced Dutton has been seen in movies ranging from the mirth-provoking Crocodile Dundee 2 to the spine-chilling Alien 3. In 1991, Charles Dutton began a long TV run as the star of the Fox Network sitcom Roc.Dutton became an actor while serving a seven and a half-year prison sentence for stabbing a man during a street fight. While in prison, Dutton was stabbed in the neck with an ice pick during a fight with another inmate. The incident proved to be the turning point in Dutton's life when he refused to retaliate. Shortly thereafter, he became interested in drama and while serving his sentence completed a two-year college degree course. Upon his release from prison, Dutton was admitted into the Yale School of Drama. There he studied under playwright August Wilson and director Lloyd Richards.In 2000, Dutton directed The Corner, an acclaimed miniseries from HBO adapted from David Simon and Ed Burns' novel "The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood". The Corner won several awards, including an Emmy for Best Miniseries, and Dutton himself was honored for his direction. This would not be the last Emmy he received; the actor won Emmy Awards in 2002 and 2003 for supporting roles in televisiond dramas The Practice and Without a Trace. In 2003, Dutton starred in the made-for-TV drama D.C. Sniper: 23 Days of Fear, and continued to make appearances on popular television shows including The L Word, The Sopranos, and House, M.D. Dutton joined the cast of Threshold in 2005. While the CBS science fiction series gained a loyal following, the show was short-lived. The actor went on to appear in filmmaker John Sayles' 2007 drama Honeydripper, which follows the owner of a blues club that was revitalized by a young electric guitarist.

Trivia: Mare Winningham is a critically acclaimed performer on stage, television, and occasionally feature films. She began her career performing a song on TV's notorious Gong Show. While playing Maria in a high school production of The Sound of Music, opposite classmate Kevin Spacey, Winningham was spotted by Hollywood agent Meyer Mishkin who landed her a role in the short-lived TV Western series The Young Pioneers in 1978. This led to her first TV movie, Special Olympics. For her role as an independent-minded farmer's daughter in 1980's Amber Waves, she won an Emmy. That year, Winningham made her feature-film debut starring opposite Paul Simon in Robert M. Young's One-Trick Pony. She fared better in her next film, Threshold (1981), where she played the recipient of an artificial heart. Winningham then went on to play a number of supporting roles and the occasional lead in a series of unremarkable films. She continues to fare much better on television, where she has appeared in popular films such as The Thorn Birds (1983) and Helen Keller: The Miracle Continues (1984). She was part of the ensemble in the Gen X touchstone St. Elmo's Fire in 1985 and went on to appear in Shy People, Miracle Mile, the Tom Hanks with a dog vehicle Turner and Hooch, and Wyatt Earp. She earned long-deserved award recognition in 1995 for playing a successful singer struggling with her drug-addicted sister in Georgia. Her work in that film garnered her an Oscar nomination Best Supporting Actress, and she won that award at that year's Independent Spirit Awards. She had a recurring role on the hit medical drama ER at the close of the '90s. As the 21st century began she maintained her status as a first-class character actress appearing in a variety of projects such as Snap Decision, The Adventures of Ociee Nash, and Dandelion. She enjoyed a recurring role on Grey's Anatomy, but she found even greater small screen success with back to back Emmy nominations for Best Supporting actress in a movie or miniseries in 2011 and 2012 with her work in Mildred Pierce and Hatfields & McCoys.

Trivia: Is the London-born daughter of a Ghanaian mother and an American father; moved to the United States at age 4 and was raised in the suburbs of Washington, DC. As a teenager, was inspired to pursue a college degree in theater after attending a summer theater camp at Carnegie Mellon University. Replaced Lesley-Ann Brandt in the role of Naevia in Season 2 of the Starz series Spartacus.

Trivia: Brooklyn, NY, native Vanessa Ferlito grew up amid somewhat challenging circumstances as an only child (the daughter of two Italian-American hair salon owners) whose father died before she reached the age of three. She developed acting aspirations early in life and broke into the entertainment business via television, with guest spots and recurring roles on crime-themed series programs including CSI: New York and The Sopranos -- where her unmistakably ethnic, weathered but voluptuous look lent her time and again to effective portrayals of molls, mistresses, and other gritty urban female types. She landed her most prominent early feature roles in Spider-Man 2 (as a co-star in Mary Jane's play) and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof segment of the 2007 two-episode omnibus Grindhouse (as one of the low-down women stalked and murdered by Kurt Russell's psychopath Stuntman Mike). After the Tarantino project, Ferlito joined co-stars Debra Messing and Alfred Molina for the gentle comedy Nothing Like the Holidays and worked with Tyler Perry on the farce Madea Goes to Jail (2009).