Career: Hollander read English at Cambridge where fellow student Sam Mendes directed him in several plays (including a controversial staging of Cyrano de Bergerac) before graduating. He spent nine months as a toy demonstrator at Hamley's before theatre work began rolling in. He won the Ian Charles Award for his performance in The Way of the World in 1992, and hasn't looked back since. When encouraged to try films, he appeared in True Blue and Some Mother's Son and while the films got mixed responses, Hollander stood out as their true star. He went on to appear in Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence, Gosford Park, The Lost Prince, Pirates of the Caribbean, Pride and Prejudice, In the Loop, and Any Human Heart. He's also returned to the stage on numerous occasions. Hollander co-created the sitcom Rev, in which he also stars.

Career: Elba's earliest roles came in Crimewatch UK reconstructions, 2point4 Children, Absolutely Fabulous and Bramwell. He spent a couple of years in Channel 5 soap Family Affairs and featured in Ultraviolet and Dangerfield before playing a suave, but doomed, urban gangster in the critically acclaimed The Wire on US TV from 2002 to 2004. The role turned him into a star on both sides of the Atlantic. Projects since include 28 Weeks Later, American Gangster, RocknRolla, The Office (US version), Thor, The Big C, Prometheus and the hugely successful Luther. More recently, he has starred in Pacific Rim, Thor: The Dark World, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and No Good Deed.

Career: Byrne started acting at The Focus Theatre and the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, then joined the Royal Court and the National Theatre in London. He landed a part in popular Irish series The Riordans, before making his big-screen debut in 1981 Arthurian epic Excalibur. That brought him to Hollywood's attention, and although some of the films he made in the 1980s had a mixed reception, he went on to star in such well-received movies such as Miller's Crossing, Little Women, The Usual Suspects and Spider. More recently, he gained acclaim for playing a troubled psychiatrist in TV series In Treatment and the period crime drama Quirke.

Career: During his senior year at college, he teamed up with Jill Mazursky to write a feature film treatment that became the basis for Taking Care of Business (1990). He wrote the screenplays for Regarding Henry (1991) and Forever Young (1992) before working with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Michael Bay on 1998 box office hit Armageddon. In the same year, he co-created the TV series Felicity, which ran for four seasons. He went on to create Alias and co-create Lost. He made his feature film directorial debut in 2006 with Mission: Impossible III. Other projects include producing Cloverfield (2008), directing Star Trek (2009), co-creating TV series Fringe and writing and directing Super 8 (2011). He directed Star Trek sequel Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and he is directing Star Wars Episode VII, which is due to be released in cinemas in the summer of 2015.

Career: Harrelson was an understudy for Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues on Broadway and appeared in various small productions before gaining the role of dimwitted barman Woody Boyd in Cheers in 1985. His TV commitments made it difficult for him to gain good movie roles, although he did star in the hit White Men Can't Jump in 1992. When the sitcom finished a year later, he concentrated on films, and has since starred in Indecent Proposal, Natural Born Killers, The People vs Larry Flynt, Welcome to Sarajevo, The Thin Red Line, A Scanner Darkly, No Country for Old Men, The Messenger, Zombieland, 2012 and The Hunger Games movies. In 2014, he starred alongside Matthew McConaughey in HBO crime drama True Detective.