Career: Whishaw made his film debut in The Trench (1999). His other film credits include Layer Cake (2004), Stoned (2005), Brideshead Revisited (2008), The Tempest (2010) and Cloud Atlas (2012). He has played Q in the James Bond movies Skyfall (2012) and Spectre (2015). More recently, he has voiced the title character in Paddington (2014) and appeared in The Lobster (2015), Suffragette (2015), The Danish Girl (2015) and In the Heart of the Sea (2015). On the small screen, he has starred in Nathan Barley, Criminal Justice, The Hollow Crown, The Hour and London Spy.

Career: Following a spell on stage, Bonneville made his TV debut in teen sitcom Dodgem. He spent the next few years dividing his time between theatre, TV and film work, having small parts in such projects as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Cadfael, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Tomorrow Never Dies, Bugs, and Mosley. He had a regular role in sitcom Holding the Baby, but finally became a recognisable face thanks to the movie Notting Hill in 1999. Since then he's appeared in The Cazalets, Madame Bovary, The Gathering Storm, Tipping the Velvet, Doctor Zhivago, Twenty Twelve, and Love Again. He won rave reviews for his role in the TV comedy Freezing and Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story. However, he's become a TV superstar on both sides of the Atlantic in recent years thanks to his starring role in period drama Downton Abbey. Recent projects have included W1A and The Monuments Men.

Career: Grant started out as a member of comedy troupe The Jockeys of Norfolk. He appeared in his first film, Privileged, in 1982. Other early projects include The Detective, A Very Peculiar Practice, The Demon Lover and Ladies in Charge. He had higher profile roles in Maurice, The Lair of the White Worm and The Remains of the Day. His big break came when he was cast in Four Weddings and a Funeral in 1994. Big-screen productions since include An Awfully Big Adventure, Sense and Sensibility, Notting Hill, Mickey Blue Eyes, About a Boy, Love Actually and two Bridget Jones films. He could recently be heard in animated film The Pirates!

Career: Hawkins made guest appearances in TV shows Casualty and Doctors but her first break in front of the camera came in Mike Leigh's film All or Nothing (2002). Since then, she has starred in Vera Drake (2004), Layer Cake (2004), The Painted Veil (2006) and Cassandra's Dream (2007). She won a number of awards, including a Golden Globe, for her portrayal of Poppy Cross in Happy-Go-Lucky (2008). Her other film credits include An Education (2009), Never Let Me Go (2010), Made in Dagenham (2010), Submarine (2010), Blue Jasmine (2013) and Godzilla (2014).

Career: Walters' first acting job was at Liverpool's Everyman Theatre, where she caught the eye of playwright Alan Bleasdale - the beginning of many collaborations. She appeared in his first stage success, Scully, in 1974, and in Boys from the Blackstuff in 1980, a year after making her TV debut in Victoria Wood's Talent. She reunited with Wood in the series Wood and Walters, and reprised her stage role in Educating Rita on the big screen, earning an Oscar nomination. Walters has worked steadily ever since. Her most notable projects include Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Pat and Margaret, Mamma Mia! and the Harry Potter films. She was awarded an OBE in 1999, gained a second Oscar nomination for Billy Elliot in 2000, and won a Bafta (her seventh) in 2010 for her performance in TV drama Mo.

Career: Gleeson's classical acting skills gained the attention of Mel Gibson and he was cast in Braveheart (1995). Since then he has been in a huge variety of films, such as Mission: Impossible II (2000), Lake Placid (1999), The General (1998) and Gangs of New York (2002). He proved his was in the A-league when he was cast in the Harry Potter films and has several leading man roles to his name, including the popular crime caper, In Bruges.

Career: After graduating, she spent the next six years working in repertory companies across the UK, proving her versatility in a wide variety of parts. Her big break came when she gained a place with the National Theatre company in 1982. Staunton quickly landed increasingly larger roles and won numerous awards in the process. Her TV debut was in 1986's The Singing Detective, while her first film, Comrades, was made a year later. Since then, she's appeared in such acclaimed projects as Much Ado About Nothing, Sense and Sensibility, and Shakespeare in Love. She was Oscar-nominated for Vera Drake, and also appeared in period drama Fingersmith and the movie Nanny McPhee, before earning millions of new fans in the guise of Dolores Umbridge as part of the Harry Potter franchise.