Career: After an initial struggle to find work, Quaid had a number of small roles on TV and in film before enjoying success with 1979's Breaking Away. He co-starred with Randy, as well as the Keach brothers and the Carradines, in the Western The Long Riders a year later. Quaid gained great reviews for the movie The Right Stuff in 1983, the same year he made the disastrous Jaws 3-D. The late-1980s brought him a series of box-office hits, such as Enemy Mine (1985), The Big Easy (1986), Innerspace (1987), Suspect (1987) and DOA (1988). Movies since then include Great Balls of Fire (1989), Wyatt Earp (1994), Traffic (2000) and Far from Heaven (2002), for which he won a clutch of awards. More recent offerings include GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra (2009), Pandorum (2009) and the remake of Footloose (2011). He starred in short-lived period drama Vegas, which ran for one season before being cancelled.

Career: At the age of 25, Fox made his TV debut on an episode of Wings. That same year, he also starred in short-lived drama Freshman Dorm, and landed several supporting roles on TV. In 1994, Fox was cast as Charlie Salinger, the eldest of five siblings who lose both parents in a car accident on the 1990s teen drama Party of Five. Between 2004 and 2010, Fox played the role of the troubled and dedicated surgeon Dr Jack Shephard on Lost. He initially auditioned for the role of James `Sawyer" Ford but the show's co-creator JJ Abrams thought him better suited to the role of the handsome, driven doctor. He has appeared on the big screen in We Are Marshall, Smokin' Aces, Vantage Point and Speed Racer.

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: Weaver's professional career began with several theatre roles. She had blink-and-you'll-miss-them roles in Serpico and Annie Hall, but it was 1979's Alien that made her a star. A string of acclaimed films, such as The Janitor and The Year of Living Dangerously, followed. Since then, she's received Oscar nominations for the sequel Aliens (a scene featuring her mother was eventually cut from the finished film), Working Girl and Gorillas in the Mist. Other notable projects include more Alien movies, the Ghostbusters films, Copycat, Galaxy Quest, The Ice Storm and Heartbreakers. More recent big-screen offerings include Avatar, Paul, Abduction and Vamps.

Career: Hurt spent the early years of his acting career on the stage and his first major film role was in science fiction-horror Altered States (1980). His big break came a year later when he starred alongside Richard Crenna, Ted Danson and Kathleen Turner in Body Heat. He won an Academy Award for Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and picked up further nominations for Children of a Lesser God (1986), Broadcast News (1987) and A History of Violence (2005). His other film credits include The Big Chill (1983), The Accidental Tourist (1988), I Love You to Death (1990), Lost in Space (1998), Syriana (2005) and The Incredible Hulk (2008). On the small screen, he had a regular role in Damages and starred as Captain Ahab in a 2011 TV adaptation of Moby Dick. More recently, he has starred in miniseries Bonnie and Clyde and the film Winter's Tale (2014).

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).