Trivia: A native of Sarasota, FL, Gugino spent most of her youth being shuttled by her mother to various locations in California. At age 15, she and her mom were living in San Diego, when Gugino was convinced to try a modeling career in New York City. She succeeded, but soon found the fast pace of high-fashion modeling too much for her and moved to Los Angeles, where she took advice from an aunt, model Carol Merril, and enrolled in acting classes to study under drama coach Gene Bua. Gugino soon made her film debut in the comedy Troop Beverly Hills (1986). More features followed, until she got her first supporting major role, that of Norma in the Robert De Niro/Leonardo Di Caprio drama This Boy's Life (1993), and later scored a co-starring role on the Michael J. Fox sitcom Spin City. As her star continued to rise, Gugino would spend the subsuquent years appearing in a wide variety of high profile projects, like Spy Kids, Out of Sight, Sin City, Night at the Museum, Sucker Punch, Watchmen, and Mr. Popper's Penguins. Gugino would also find major success on the small screen, with roles on shows like Entourage and Californication.

Trivia: Actress Ellen Burstyn enjoyed her greatest prominence during the '70s, a decade during which she was a virtual fixture of Academy Award voters' ballots. Born Edna Rae Gillooly in Detroit, MI, on December 7, 1932, as a teen she studied dancing and performed in an acrobatic troupe. She later became a model for paperback book covers, subsequently dancing in a Montréal nightclub under the name "Keri Flynn." In 1954, she was tapped to appear as a Gleason Girl on television's Jackie Gleason Show, and in 1957, she made her Broadway debut in Fair Game, again with a new stage name, "Ellen McRae." While in New York, Burstyn studied acting under Stella Adler, and later married theatrical director Paul Roberts. She briefly relocated to Los Angeles for television work but soon returned east to work at the Actors' Studio. She made her film debut in 1964's For Those Who Think Young, quickly followed by Goodbye Charlie. The cinema did not yet suit her, however, and she spent the remainder of the decade appearing on the daytime soap opera The Doctors.It was after marrying her third husband, actor Neil Burstyn, that she adopted the name most familiar to audiences, and was so billed in 1969's film adaptation of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. While the picture was unsuccessful, it did attract the notice of director Paul Mazursky, who cast her in his 1970 project Alex in Wonderland. Burstyn then began a string of high-profile films which established her among the preeminent actresses of the decade: The first, Peter Bogdanovich's 1971 masterpiece The Last Picture Show, earned her a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination, but she lost out to co-star Cloris Leachman. Burstyn next appeared opposite Jack Nicholson in Bob Rafelson's acclaimed The King of Marvin Gardens before starring in William Friedkin's 1973 horror hit The Exorcist, a performance which earned her a Best Actress nomination. For Mazursky, she co-starred in the whimsical 1974 tale Harry and Tonto, and then appeared in a well-received TV feature, Thursday's Game.However, it was 1974's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore which truly launched Burstyn to stardom. Warner Bros. had purchased the screenplay at her insistence two years earlier, but her efforts to bring it to the screen were met with considerable resistance. Her first choice for director was Francis Ford Coppola, who declined, but he suggested she approach Martin Scorsese. In the wake of Mean Streets, Scorsese was eager to attempt a "woman's film," and agreed to take the project on. The result was a major critical and commercial success, and on her third attempt Burstyn finally won an Oscar. That same year, she won a Tony for her work on Broadway in the romantic drama Same Time, Next Year, the first actress to score both honors during the same awards season since Audrey Hepburn two decades prior. However, upon wrapping up her theatrical run, Burstyn was not besieged by the offers so many expected her to receive. In fact, she did not appear onscreen for three years, finally resurfacing in Alain Resnais' Providence.The film was not a success, nor was 1978's Jules Dassin-helmed A Dream of Passion. With co-star Alan Alda, Burstyn reprised her Broadway performance in a 1978 feature version of Same Time, Next Year, but it too failed to meet expectations, although she was again Oscar-nominated. After a two-year hiatus, she starred in Resurrection, followed in 1981 by Silence of the North, which went directly to cable television. For the networks, she starred in 1981's The People vs. Jean Harris, based on the notorious "Scarsdale diet" murder. After 1984's The Ambassador, Burstyn co-starred in the following year's Twice in a Lifetime, which was to be her last feature film for some years. She instead turned almost exclusively to television, appearing in a series of TV movies and starring in a disastrously short-lived 1986 sitcom, The Ellen Burstyn Show. Finally, in 1988, she returned to cinemas in Hanna's War, followed three years later by Dying Young. Other notable projects of the decade included 1995's How to Make an American Quilt, The Spitfire Grill (1996), and the 1998 ensemble drama Playing by Heart, in which she played the mother of a young man dying of AIDS. If her success and talents had eluded younger audiences for the past decade all of that would change with Burstyn's role as the delusional mother of a heroin addict in Darren Aranofsky's grim addiction drama Requiem for a Dream. An adaptation of Hubert Selby, Jr.'s novel of the same name, Burstyn's heartbreaking performance as an abandoned mother whose dreams come shattering down around proved an Oscar nominated performance. She subsequently appeared in such made-for-television dramas as Dodson's Journey and Within These Walls (both 2001) and such films as Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and Cross the Line (both 2002). Burstyn appeared in a variety of well-received television films including Mrs. Harris and The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and had a role in the short-lived series The Book of Daniel. She maintained her presence on the big screen by reteaming with Arronofsky in his big-budget tale The Fountain, and she appeared in Neil La Bute's remake of The Wicker Man. Burstyn was soon gearing up to reteam with Aranofsky for the time travel fantasy thriller The Fountain. She continued to work steadily in various projects such as the political biopic W.; Lovely, Still; and played a stern matriarch in the indie drama Another Happy Day.

Trivia: Look up the words "handsome" and "brooding" in any dictionary and chances are you'll have a pretty good description of actor David Boreanaz. Tall, dark, and possessing the sort of alluring charisma that suggests an Abercrombie and Fitch model from the dark side, Boreanaz flourished on the small screen in the early 2000s when his Buffy the Vampire Slayer role was spun off into the supernatural-flavored series Angel.Born in Buffalo, NY, and raised in Philadelphia, Boreanaz was inspired at age seven to pursue a career in acting after witnessing the legendary Yul Brynner's performance in The King and I. In the years that followed, the aspiring actor would strive to keep the dream alive, and when it came time for higher education, Boreanaz opted to study his craft at Ithaca College in New York. The allure of a life in films soon drew Boreanaz to Los Angeles, although it wouldn't take him long to realize that struggling actors were a dime a dozen in sunny California. Dreams of his name in lights soon gave way to realities such as earning a living by parking cars and handing out towels at a sports club -- and uncredited parts in such films as Aspen Extreme and Best of the Best 2 (both 1993) certainly weren't paying the rent. A one-time role on Married...With Children as daughter Kelly's (Christina Applegate) motorcycle-riding boyfriend gained the struggling actor modest exposure -- and his luck would soon change in the most unexpected (though somewhat typical by Hollywood standards) way. While Boreanaz was walking his dog in Hollywood, a manager was taken by his captivating intensity, and a subsequent introduction to casting agent Marcia Shulman almost immediately ensured his landing the role of the vampire Angel on the soon-to-be-hit series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Two years after the premiere of Buffy, Boreanaz's character proved popular enough to earn his own eponymously titled spin-off series, and the show proved a solid hit for the WB until it was inexplicably canceled in mid-2004. Of course, by this point, Boreanaz could rest fairly easy thanks to roles in such features as Valentine (2001) and I'm With Lucy (2002). Fans who couldn't get enough of the actor's dark side could look forward to his role as the villainous Luc Crash in The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2004).Soon however, Boreanaz found another compelling small-screen role, playing Special Agent Seeley Booth on the hit detective series Bones.

Trivia: An actress whose fresh-faced girl-next-door beauty has adapted easily to both comic and dramatic roles, Marley Shelton was born in southern California on April 12, 1974. Her mother was a schoolteacher who dabbled in acting while her father worked as a director for film, television, and the stage. During her high-school days, Shelton was a member of the cheerleading squad and was named prom queen in her senior year. She began to develop an interest in acting, and in 1991 won her first film role, a slam supporting part in Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon. In the next two years, Shelton made a few appearances on episodic television and appeared in the made-for-TV movie In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco, but it was in 1993's The Sandlot that she made her first real impression on the big screen as Wendy, the lust-inducing teenage lifeguard. That same year, Shelton earned a recurring role on the dramatic television series Angel Falls, alongside fellow cast members Jean Simmons, Shirley Knight, Peggy Lipton, and James Brolin, but the show only lasted one season. More television work followed, including key roles in several made-for-TV movies and appearances on Hercules and the revived Fantasy Island, before Shelton's film career began to take hold. She played Tricia Nixon in Oliver Stone's biopic Nixon and a beautiful but fickle teenager in the little-seen comedy Trojan War, but her first major hit came in 1998 with Pleasantville, in which she played Margaret, the love interest of leading man Tobey Maguire (and one of the first teens to become "colorful"). In 1999, she played Kristin, one of the "popular girls" in Never Been Kissed, and two years later scored her first leading role, in which she got to put her cheerleading skills to use as Diane, the pep-squad girl-turned-teenage mother and criminal in Sugar & Spice. Offscreen, in 2001, Shelton married television and movie producer Beau Flynn, who helped cast her as Chloe, the beautiful girl next door in the comedy Bubble Boy.In the following few years, Shelton's onscreen career seemed to plateau somewhat when a variety of indie projects including Just a Kiss, Dallas 362, Grand Theft Parsons, and Moving Alan -- directed by her father, Christopher, and starring her sister Samantha -- failed to achieve mainstream success. Nevertheless the actress remained busy, and it was shortly after appearing in a failed updating of the once-popular gothic soap opera Dark Shadows that Shelton landed the role which, however small, seems to have been a turning point in her career. Though her role opposite Josh Hartnett in Robert Rodriguez's violent comic-book adaptation Sin City amounted to little more than a glorified cameo, it did provide wide-scale exposure in addition to connecting her with one of the most innovative and tireless filmmakers of his generation. Subsequent roles in Wim Wenders' Don't Come Knocking, Paul Weitz's American Dreamz, and the Paul Haggis-scripted The Last Kiss were quick to follow, and in 2007, Shelton reunited with Sin City director Rodriguez for a substantial role in "Planet Terror" -- Rodriguez' zombie-filled contribution to the ambitious double-feature throwback Grindhouse. Shelton would go on to appear in films like W. and Scream 4, as well as on the TV series Eleventh Hour.

Trivia: For decades, actress Phyllis Somerville checked in as one of Hollywood's most popular character actresses when filling roles for matronly types. Somerville did much of her early work on the theatrical stage, prior to moving into features and television in the early '80s. Some cinematic contributions included small roles in Arthur (1981) and Leap of Faith (1992), while on the small screen, the actress enjoyed multi-episode roles on NYPD Blue and Law & Order. She received heightened exposure with a turn as the mother of a beleaguered sexual predator (Jackie Earle Haley) in Todd Field's Little Children (2006), and in 2008 joined stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in David Fincher's epic-scaled fantasy opus The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Trivia: Character actor, onscreen from 1970.