Career: Cusack made his film debut at 16 in Class and went on become a 1980s teen film regular, starring in the likes of Sixteen Candles, Stand By Me, The Sure Thing and Say Anything, before moving on to more adult fare with the 1990 movie The Grifters. He continued to work steadily, but his career really took off again in 1997, when he starred in the blockbuster Con Air and the acclaimed Grosse Pointe Blank, which he also co-wrote and co-produced. Since then, his credits include Being John Malkovich, High Fidelity, America's Sweethearts, Serendipty, 2012 and The Raven.

Career: Before Amistad, Chiwetel starred in TV movie Deadly Voyage. The film G:MT - Greenwich Mean Time (1999) was not well received, but his next film, Dirty Pretty Things (2002), led to him winning a number of awards. Since then, he has starred in Twelfth Night (2003), Love Actually (2003), Four Brothers (2005), Serenity (2005), Kinky Boots (2005), American Gangster (2007), 2012 (2009) and Salt (2010). An accomplished stage actor, he won a Laurence Olivier Award in 2008 for playing the lead role in Othello. More recently he played the lead role in the critically acclaimed 12 Years a Slave (2014).

Career: Following some stage work, he made his film debut in 1979's Escape from Alcatraz. Later the same year he had a small role in an episode of Lou Grant - his first TV appearance. A regular role in the series Palmerstown, USA came soon after. Other projects followed, and by the mid-1980s he was a familiar face to audiences thanks to Places in the Heart, Witness, Lonesome Dove (for which he received an Emmy nomination) and The Color Purple. The first Lethal Weapon movie made him a household name. He's appeared in all three sequels. He has also appeared in The Royal Tenenbaums and Be Kind Rewind, and gave an award-winning turn in disaster movie 2012.

Career: In 1995, Peet had a guest starring role in an episode of Law & Order and in the same year made her film debut in Animal Room. A steady stream of supporting roles followed before she played one of the leads for two seasons in American comedy drama Jack & Jill. Her first role in a major film was in the mafia comedy The Whole Nine Yards (2000). Since then, Peet has had supporting roles in a number of independent and Hollywood movies, including Something's Gotta Give (2003), Syriana (2005), A Lot Like Love (2005), The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008), 2012 (2009) and Gulliver's Travels (2010). On the small screen, she has starred in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and Bent.

Career: Platt's film career took off after a chance meeting with actor Bill Murray, who later recommended him for a role in Married to the Mob. From there, he appeared in popular films like Working Girl and The Three Musketeers. In 1998, he starred with Stanley Tucci in The Imposters, playing characters they devised while at Yale University. Then came The West Wing for which he received an Emmy nomination and Huff which saw him nominated for two Emmys and a Golden Globe. He finally made his Broadway debut in 2006, in a play called Shining City, set in Dublin. Most recently, he appeared back on Broadway, in Guys and Dolls. The re-run lasted for 113 performances. He was on movie screens in the blockbuster 2012, and won rave reviews for his role in TV drama The Big C alongside Laura Linney. He returned to the big screen in 2011 in X-Men: First Class.

Career: Harrelson was an understudy for Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues on Broadway and appeared in various small productions before gaining the role of dimwitted barman Woody Boyd in Cheers in 1985. His TV commitments made it difficult for him to gain good movie roles, although he did star in the hit White Men Can't Jump in 1992. When the sitcom finished a year later, he concentrated on films, and has since starred in Indecent Proposal, Natural Born Killers, The People vs Larry Flynt, Welcome to Sarajevo, The Thin Red Line, A Scanner Darkly, No Country for Old Men, The Messenger, Zombieland, 2012 and The Hunger Games movies. In 2014, he starred alongside Matthew McConaughey in HBO crime drama True Detective.