Career: At the age of 10, Christian made his West End debut in The Nerd, opposite Rowan Atkinson. He was hand-picked from 4,000 auditionees to take the lead role in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun in 1987. Unlike many child stars, he has successfully made the transition to serious grown-up actor. Films since include Little Women, The Portrait of a Lady, Velvet Goldmine, American Psycho, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Shaft, Reign of Fire, Equilibrium and The Machinist. His status soared after playing Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins and its sequels. His other recent films have included The Prestige, 3:10 to Yuma, Terminator Salvation, Public Enemies, The Fighter (for which he won an Oscar) and American Hustle.

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.

Career: In 1995, Saldana began acting with the FACES theatre group in Brooklyn. She also performed with the New York Youth Theater and it was her appearance in a production of Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat that led to her being recruited by a talent agency. She used her dance training in her first film role, playing a ballet dancer in Center Stage (2000). Roles followed in Crossroads (2002), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), and The Terminal (2004), but she didn't become widely known until she starred in the hugely popular Avatar (2009). In the same year, she appeared in Star Trek. More recently, Saldana has been cast in Death at a Funeral (2010) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).

Career: Willem toured with Theatre X for four years, before joining avant garde New York company The Performance Group. He made his first venture into film acting with a role in Heaven's Gate, but was cut from the finished movie. He went on to win parts in To Live and Die in LA and The Loveless, but his big break came with Platoon, which earned him an Oscar nomination. He also made headlines in 1988 when he took the lead role in the controversial The Last Temptation of Christ. Since then, his movies have included Mississippi Burning, Born on the Fourth of July, The English Patient, Shadow of the Vampire (for which he received another Oscar nod) and Spider-Man. His more recent films include Antichrist, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, Daybreakers and Miral.

Career: Whitaker made his screen debut in Fast Times at Ridgemont High alongside Judge Reinhold, Nicolas Cage and Phoebe Cates. Roles on TV followed, in such shows as Diff'rent Strokes and Cagney & Lacey, before an excellent scene in The Colour of Money opposite Paul Newman showcased his talents to a wider audience and led to further film roles in the likes of Platoon and Good Morning Vietnam. He starred in the 1988 Charlie Parker biopic Bird, and has since put together an impressive body of work, including The Crying Game, Ghost Dog, The Last King of Scotland, Vantage Point and two seasons of The Shield. He always has a number of films and TV work in the pipeline.

Career: Affleck made his film debut in dark comedy To Die For (1995) and followed this up with box-office flop Race the Sun (1997). He had better luck when he starred with his brother in Chasing Amy (1997) and Good Will Hunting (1997). He went on to star in a string of commercial failures but his fortunes changed when he was part of the ensemble cast in Ocean's Eleven (2001). He reprised his character, Virgil Malloy, in two Ocean's sequels. Affleck's big break came in 2007 when he starred opposite Brad Pitt in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a role that earned him an Academy Award nomination. Since then, Affleck has starred in The Killer Inside Me (2010), Tower Heist (2011), Out of the Furnace (2013) and Manchester By the Sea (2016).