Career: Within five years of his big-screen debut, Cruise was one of the hottest actors of his generation, having starred in the likes of Risky Business and Top Gun. The likes of Rain Man, The Color of Money, Interview with the Vampire and Days of Thunder followed. He has also turned his hand to producing and made the smart move of taking a share of several of his film's profits, making him one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood. Recent hits include Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Jack Reacher, Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow. He has been Oscar-nominated three times, for his performances in Born on the Fourth of July, Jerry Maguire and Magnolia, but has yet to win. His next major film is Mission: Impossible 5.

Career: Dougray made his TV debut in an episode of Taggart in 1992, the same year he also appeared in Lovejoy, Tell Tale Hearts and his first film, The Weak and Wide Astray. Three years later he got his big break when he was cast as Major Rory Taylor in Soldier Soldier. He followed that with The Crow Road and Twin Town before moving to Hollywood to make Ever After and Deep Impact. A well-known face on both sides of the Atlantic, Dougray's work also includes Mission: Impossible II, This Year's Love, Enigma and Ripley's Game. He was a frontrunner to replace Pierce Brosnan as James Bond before it eventually went to Daniel Craig. More recently, he has starred on TV in The Day of the Triffids, My Week with Marilyn, Hitman and United. He is constantly in demand.

Career: Hopkins's first professional work was on stage. He later joined Laurence Olivier's National Theatre, but left to make acclaimed movie The Lion in Winter. A steady stream of TV and film work followed (as well as some theatre appearances), including War and Peace, The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, The Bunker, A Bridge Too Far, The Elephant Man, and Across the Lake. But Hopkins didn't become a major Hollywood star until after giving up alcohol. He won an Oscar for 1991's The Silence of the Lambs, and since then has starred in such hits as The Remains of the Day, Howards End, Hannibal, Shadowlands, Thor and Hitchcock.

Career: Rhames first appeared on Broadway in the play The Winter Boys in 1984. Ving continued his rise to fame through his work in soap operas. He found work as a supporting actor, and came to the attention of the general public by playing the role of Marsellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction (1994). Major hits like Con-Air and the three Mission Impossible movies followed. He won a Golden Globe in 1998 for best actor in a TV miniseries for his performance in HBO's Don King: Only in America - and memorably presented it to Jack Lemmon. Other hits include Bringing Out the dead and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. He played the title role in a short-lived remake of Kojak.