Career: Early roles came in Dallas, Growing Pains, Head Of The Class and several TV movies. Pitt's big break was playing young stud JD in Thelma And Louise. Hits include True Romance, Se7en, Interview With The Vampire, Snatch, Fight Club, Ocean's Eleven and Spy Game. Keen to stretch himself, he turned down a role in Apollo 13 to make Twelve Monkeys, for which he received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Since then his films include Mr & Mrs Smith, two sequels to Ocean's Eleven, Babel, Burn After Reading and The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. He received an Oscar nomination for The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button in 2008. His recent work includes Inglourious Basterds, Moneyball, World War Z, 12 Years a Slave and Fury.

Career: De Niro made a handful of films in the 1960s and early 1970s, but it wasn't until 1973's Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets (his first collaboration with Martin Scorsese) that his career took off. He received an Oscar for The Godfather Part II a year later and was nominated Academy Awards for Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter, and took home his second Oscar for Raging Bull. The King of Comedy, Once Upon A Time in America, Brazil, The Mission, Angel Heart and The Untouchables followed. Over the past few decades, De Niro has made crowd pleasers such as Cape Fear, Casino, Heat, Meet the Parents and Analyze This, as well as directing A Bronx Tale and The Good Shepherd. He gave a fabulous comic performance in the fantasy movie Stardust, before starring alongside fellow big-screen icon Al Pacino in cop thriller Righteous Kill. His more recent films have included Silver Linings Playbook and The Family.

Career: Hoffman spent 10 years trying to get decent roles, making ends meet by teaching and appearing in commercials and TV series. In 1967 he landed the lead role in The Graduate which made him a star and secured his first Oscar nomination. He gained further nods from the Academy for Midnight Cowboy, Lenny, Tootsie and Wag the Dog, and has won twice for Kramer vs Kramer and Rain Man. Other notable films include Straw Dogs, Little Big Man, Sleepers, Runaway Jury, Finding Neverland, I Heart Huckabees, Meet the Fockers and Stranger Than Fiction. More recent projects include Last Chance Harvey, Little Fockers, the short-lived TV series Luck and Esio Trot. He also directed the BBC-backed film Quartet.

Career: Bacon's professional debut came in an off-Broadway production of Forty Deuce, for which he won a coveted Obie award. His first Broadway play, Slab Boys, came in 1983, five years after he made his debut movie Animal House. Other early projects include films Starting Over, Diner and Friday the 13th, as well as soap opera The Guiding Light. Footloose made him a star in 1984, but he refused to be typecast in the teen idol roles. Initially, his career stalled, but over the years he has won widespread recognition as a reliable character actor. His CV includes JFK, The River Wild, A Few Good Men, Apollo 13, Hollow Man, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Frost/Nixon and X-Men: First Class. Away from acting, he sings in the band The Bacon Brothers, with his sibling Michael.

Career: Driver's TV debut was in 1990's God on the Rocks. She then appeared in The House of Eliott, and Mr Wroe's Virgins. Her big break came in 1995 when she starred in The Politician's Wife and Circle of Friends. Her most notable movies since include Sleepers, Good Will Hunting (for which she received an Oscar nomination), Grosse Pointe Blank, and Return to Me. In 2003 she appeared in the West End opposite Matthew Perry. She returned to the big screen in the movie version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera, and released her debut album in 2004. More recently she's appeared in TV series The Riches and The Deep, and on the big screen in Barney's Version and I Give It A Year.

Career: Crudup's first big film role was in Grind, which was made in 1994 but didn't see the light of day until 1997. He followed this up with roles in Sleepers (1996), Everyone Says I Love You (1996) and Inventing the Abbotts (1997). More recent film credits include Almost Famous (2000), Big Fish (2003), The Good Shepherd (2006), Watchmen (2009), Public Enemies (2009) and Eat Pray Love (2010). He regularly returns to performing on the stage.