Career: After graduating from Rada, he made his West End debut in Another Country and enjoyed success in Northern Ireland with his appearances in three Belfast-set Play for Today productions. He then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. Despite some big hits, he disliked the organisation's structure and so set up his own theatre company. TV series Fortunes of War made him a star in the UK, but it was his film version of Henry V that catapulted him to global fame. Other films include Peter's Friends, Dead Again, Love's Labours Lost, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. More recently, he's appeared in TV dramas Conspiracy, Shackleton, 10 Days to War and Wallander, and the movies Rabbit-Proof Fence, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and My Week with Marilyn. He also directed the revamp of Sleuth, The Magic Flute and had a huge hit with blockbuster Thor.

Career: Following acclaimed performances at university, Jacobi joined Birmingham Rep. He was spotted by Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the National Theatre Company. He made his film debut alongside Olivier in 1965's Othello. Since then, Jacobi has continued to make acclaimed appearances on stage and screen. Among his films are The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, Love Is the Devil, Gladiator, Gosford Park, The King's Speech and Hereafter. He inspired Kenneth Branagh to become an actor and worked alongside him in Henry V, Hamlet and Dead Again. Jacobi won a Bafta for I, Claudius in 1977, starred in the medieval-set series Cadfael, played The Master in Doctor Who, is the narrator of In the Night Garden and scored a surprise hit with Last Tango in Halifax.

Career: On a visit to Los Angeles, Depp met Nicolas Cage who took him to see his agent. Depp made his movie debut in A Nightmare on Elm Street, but didn't become a star until the TV series 21 Jump Street. Despite gaining fame via the series, he quit to concentrate on offbeat movies. He has since gained critical acclaim in Edward Scissorhands (where he began his long association with director Tim Burton), Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood, Blow, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Finding Neverland, Chocolat, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and the Pirates of the Carribean movies - he received his first Oscar nomination for his role in the original film. He always has a number of films in the pipeline and his recent movies include Alice in Wonderland, The Tourist, Dark Shadows, The Lone Ranger and Transcendence.

Career: Pfeiffer gained regular parts in short-lived sitcom Delta House in 1979, and crime drama BAD Cats. Her first film was 1980's The Hollywood Knights. Landing the lead in Grease 2 should have boosted her career, but the film was a flop. Parts in Scarface, Ladyhawke, and Sweet Liberty followed, and The Witches of Eastwick made her star in 1987. Since then, she's received Oscar nominations for Dangerous Liaisons, The Fabulous Baker Boys, and Love Field. She also starred in Frankie and Johnny, Batman Returns, The Age of Innocence, One Fine Day, and I Am Sam. After some time away from the movies, she returned with a vengeance in star-studded fantasy Stardust and won rave reviews for her role as a courtesan in Cheri. More recently she's appeared in New Year's Eve, Dark Shadows and The Family, and claims she plans to work a lot now that her children are grown up.

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: Dench made her professional debut with the Old Vic Company before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1961, and has frequently worked on stage ever since. She became a household name in the 1980s thanks to sitcom A Fine Romance, for which she won a Bafta. She's also won the award for Four in the Morning, Talking to a Stranger, Iris, The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, Shakespeare In Love (for which she picked up an Oscar too), A Handful of Dust, Mrs Brown and A Room With a View. Other notable productions include Chocolat, Notes on a Scandal, J Edgar, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its sequel, and several Bond movies, including Skyfall, in which she bowed out as M.