Trivia: The 5' 3," sandy blonde-haired Gen-Y icon Sarah Michelle Gellar's life story reads like a preteen wish fulfillment fantasy. Born in Manhattan in 1977 and discovered by an agent in a Manhattan restaurant at the age of four, Gellar signed for her first role (in the 1983 telemovie An Invasion of Privacy) not one week later. A plethora of bit parts in television series (Spenser: For Hire) and theatrical films (Over the Brooklyn Bridge, 1984; Funny Farm, 1988; High Stakes, 1989) followed, before Gellar landed a recurring role, in the early '90s, on the decades-long daytime soap opera All My Children. Throughout the early years of her career, Gellar was managed and supervised by her mother, a former nursery school teacher who insisted on straight A's as a prerequisite of an acting career. Sarah Michelle delivered, time and again.Despite the apparent fairy tale-like quality of her rise, Gellar reportedly battled several decidedly unhappy experiences as a child, including a parental divorce, decades of estrangement from her father, and social struggles in a New York City high school, experiences parlayed into her first (and most infamous) lead: that of Buffy, a California valley girl high school student-turned-"exterminator of the undead" in the early-'90s syndicated cult fantasy series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Gellar inherited the role from Kristy Swanson, who fleshed it out in the (decidedly more comic) 1992 theatrical release of the same name. Under Gellar's aegis, the show lasted seven years, from 1996 through 2003, and it became a massive international hit, garnering legions of fans. The subject matter of the series required the young actress to engage in rigorous exercise and physical training off-camera throughout Buffy's run.Gellar (a compulsive shopper and brand aficionado off-camera) then signed as a Maybelline spokeswoman and prepared to move into the third phase of her acting career. As Buffy wrapped, it coincided with the resurgence of American teen horror films led by Wes Craven's Scream series, and although Gellar did not join the cast of the first installment, her popularity on Buffy the Vampire Slayer thematically paved the way for involvement in one Scream sequel and one emulator: Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer (both 1997). In 1999, Gellar teamed up with two other notables of the same generation, Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe, for the Dangerous Liaisons teen update Cruel Intentions. As Kathryn Merteuil -- the depraved schemer who coaxes her stepbrother (Phillippe) into deflowering the school headmaster's daughter (Witherspoon), and thus inadvertently sets in motion a chain of disasters that will destroy them all -- Gellar played off of her wholesome, "all-American girl" image and helped turn the picture into a minor hit. Meanwhile, Gellar met and fell in love with Hollywood heartthrob Freddie Prinze Jr. (the son of the ill-fated, late-'70s Hispanic comedian Freddie Prinze), and the two married in Mexico in 2002, the same year they co-starred as Fred and Daphne for director Raja Gosnell in the live-action summer blockbuster Scooby-Doo. Two years later, Gellar and Prinze took the wheel of the Mystery Machine to fight a mischievous specter in 2004's Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Gellar (long a student and admirer of Japanese culture) then traveled to Japan to do battle with some truly frightening entities in the 2004 J-horror remake The Grudge. In that effort, she plays an American student employed at a Japanese health center who uncovers a centuries-old curse that feeds off of anger and guides one victim after another into an unquenchable, violent rage.Subsequent vocal work on the animated cult hit Robot Chicken found the former vampire slayer having a bit of behind-the-scenes fun without the stress of appearing before the camera, and a role as an ambitious porn star teetering on the edge of the apocalypse in director Richard Kelly's eagerly anticipated Donnie Darko follow-up, Southland Tales, preceded a trip back into terror as a successful business woman haunted by a decades-old murder in the 2006 supernatural thriller The Return. In that picture, Gellar plays Joanna Mills, a thick-skinned, courageous Midwestern girl plagued by haunting supernatural visions, who attempts to uncover the origin of these specters. Unfortunately, that film opened to horrendous critical reviews and lackluster box office numbers in November 2006, appearing and disappearing quickly.Gellar would do plenty of voice acting in movies like the family-friendly CG-animated fairy tale Happily N'Ever After and the Weinstein-produced, CG-animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Gellar would ultimately find continued success in TV, however, lending her voice to the animated sketch comedy series Robot Chicken, and her role on the series Ringer.

Trivia: Legions of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans know Nicholas Brendon as the goofy but loyal character Xander, which he played for seven seasons between 1997 and 2003. Born in Los Angeles in 1971, Brendon was surrounded by the bright lights of Hollywood from the womb, but unlike a lot of hopeful stars, he didn't dive into show business as a child. Brendon's first love was baseball, and he had aspirations to pursue a career in sports until an injury forced him to change his plans. Addled with a stuttering problem that had plagued him from a young age, he tried his hand at acting at the age of 20 as a way to overcome his problem. The method worked, both curing his stuttering and offering him an avenue for career success -- eventually.Brendon's first shot at acting ended after two years, with Brendon frustrated by the shallow politics of Hollywood. He subsequently tried his hand as a janitor, daycare counselor, plumber's assistant, waiter, and even medical school student before giving acting another chance. After less than a week of auditions, he landed the role of Xander.After Buffy ended in 2003, Brendon followed the show with a starring role in the series Kitchen Confidential. Though the show was canceled after just one season in 2006, the actor had no shortage of projects lined up, soon working on both sides of the camera by producing and starring in the 2007 horror film Unholy. A short time later, he appeared in the horror comedy Blood on the Highway before assuming a recurring role on the procedural crime drama Criminal Minds. In 2009 he had a main role in the family-friendly A Golden Christmas. He had a terrifying arc on Private Practice, playing a rapist, in 2011.

Trivia: Born March 24, 1974, in Washington, D.C., Hannigan became a TV commercial veteran following her family's move to Atlanta. From the age of four, Hannigan appeared in a steady stream of commercials, including ones for Oreo and McDonald's. At the age of 11, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film and television. She made her big-screen debut in the 1988 film My Stepmother Is an Alien, as Dan Aykroyd's daughter. The following year, she won a regular spot on the short-lived sitcom Free Spirit and acted in a variety of television miniseries and sitcoms (including Roseanne and Picket Fences) until 1997, when she won the part of Willow on Buffy.The show proved to be an unexpected success among critics and viewers alike, and paved the way for Hannigan to appear opposite Tom Everett Scott in the 1998 comedy Dead Man on Campus. American Pie followed the next year, giving Hannigan wider recognition and making her an unintentional poster child for band camps everywhere. She would return for sequels in the franchise, but Hannigan would also become just as well known for her subsuquent role on the popular sitcom How I Met Your Mother.

Trivia: An unlikely candidate to end up as immortal vampire Spike on Joss Whedon's popular television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (in addition to reprising his role for the spin-off series Angel), former stage actor James Marsters got his start in the spotlight by performing in such Shakespeare classics as The Tempest before donning fangs to portray the conflicted bloodsucker who eventually falls for the one girl sworn to do battle with the undead. Marsters was born in the Northern California logging town of Greenville, later moving with his family and spending much of his childhood in nearby Modesto. From his grade-school stage debut as Eeyore in a production of Winnie the Pooh, the aspiring thespian knew that he had the talent and drive to become an actor. After studying his craft at New York's renowned Juilliard School of the Arts, he set his sites on Chicago, making a name for himself with impressive performances at the Goodman Theater before heading west to Los Angeles. The talented stage actor made a transition to the small screen when he made an appearance on the popular series Northern Exposure in 1992, with a few other minor television roles preceding his rise to fame on the wildly popular Buffy. Though his character, Spike, was originally supposed to be killed off during his first season on the show, he proved so popular that he was kept on and eventually made a regular. In addition to his appearances on Buffy and Angel, Marsters also found time to act in a pair of independent films entitled Winding Roads and Chance. While fans of his character on Buffy may have been saddened when that series wound to a close, they could take some solace in the fact that he would return as the mischievous Spike in the 2003-2004 season of successful spin-off Angel. Marsters' other small-screen roles included appearances in Strange Frequency and Andromeda, as well as voice work on the animated television series Spider-Man in 2003. In addition to his theater roles, Marsters maintained an entirely different stage persona as a member of the rock band Ghost of the Robot.

Trivia: Born in 1977, actress Amber Benson entered the hallowed halls of show business as a child star, with multifaceted, audience-commanding portrayals in such respected arthouse fare as King of the Hill (1993) and Imaginary Crimes (1994). Benson netted far greater exposure, however, as Tara Maclay, the lesbian sorceress and first girlfriend of fellow witch Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan) on the cult hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That assignment lasted for two and a half years; near the end of Benson's participation in it, she assumed quadruple-threat status as the writer, director, producer, and star of the offbeat comedy drama Chance (which, unfortunately, bypassed wide release and received extremely limited ancillary exposure). She then returned to acting in films including Intermedio (2005), Tripping Forward (2006), and the medieval monster-themed telemovie Attack of the Gryphon (2007) before re-assuming directorial duties with the 2007 feature Lovers, Liars and Lunatics.

Trivia: Actress Michelle Trachtenberg was born on October 11, 1985, in New York City, and made a recognized splash into the Hollywood scene only 11 years later when she starred with Rosie O'Donnell in Harriet the Spy. Before the film, she had commercial and television acting experience, most notably with future Buffy the Vampire Slayer co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar on the soap opera All My Children. After Harriet, Trachtenberg made smaller film appearances, along with additional television roles. In 1999, she co-starred as Penny in Inspector Gadget with Matthew Broderick. She took on the role of Gellar's younger sister on the WB series Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 2001, and a recurring turn as pop star Celeste on Six Feet Under in 2004. She appeared in Ice Princess and Black Christmas. In 2009 she joined the cast of the series Mercy, and continued to work on the big-screen in projects like 17 Again, Cop Out, and Take Me Home Tonight.

Trivia: Holding a degree in psychology, Emma Caulfield began her acting career in television on shows like General Hospital and Beverly Hills 90210. After a couple of brief film appearances, she landed her breakthrough role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as the demon Anyanka, reborn as the human Anya Emerson, at Sunnydale High. Her popularity on the show led to an expanding role for her character as well as a lead in the thriller Darkness Falls (2003).

Trivia: Singer/songwriter Aimee Mann is probably best known for her fights with major record labels regarding her artistic freedom, but she's also made a name for herself by scoring or taking small roles in quirky, acclaimed films. Mann was born in Virginia on September 8, 1960. After dropping out of the Berklee School of Music in the early '80s, Mann formed a few bands, most notably 'Til Tuesday, and launched a solo career after that band folded in 1989.But her solo career found her constantly at odds with various record labels (Imago, Geffen, Interscope) and she ended up buying back her master recordings. This left Mann with a lot of animosity towards the music industry and some spare time, wherein she took a memorable role as a German nihilist who sacrifices her toe for a big payoff in the Coen brothers' 1996 screwball-noir The Big Lebowski. Her most memorable contributions to cinema, however, were the haunting songs she penned for the soundtrack to pal Paul Thomas Anderson's Altman-esque multi-character opus Magnolia (1999). An unabashed fan, Anderson writes in the soundtrack's liner notes that his dysfunctional ensemble drama is basically an interpretation of Mann's music. The album earned Mann commercial and critical success, and resulted in a Best Song Oscar nomination for "Save Me", which was passed over in favor of popster-turned-Disney-troubadour Phil Collins. She is married to fellow singer/songwriter Michael Penn.

Trivia: A graduate of Columbia Law School, Robinne Lee began her acting career as a supporting actress in romantic comedies with Hav Plenty in 1997 and appeared the same year in an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She then made a few made-for-TV movies, including the Hallmark Hall of Fame productions Cupid & Cate and The Runaway, both originally broadcast on CBS. In 2003, Lee appeared in Deliver Us From Eva with LL Cool J and the action comedy National Security with Martin Lawrence.

Trivia: Anthony Head (often credited by his full name, Anthony Stewart Head) became most widely recognized in the U.S. for his role on the WB prime-time drama series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. However, on his British home-front, he is perhaps more well known for his recurring role in the dramatic Taster's Choice commercials. Wherever he is, his abundant credits both on television and on-stage have earned him notice as a talented performer.Head was born February 20, 1954, in Camden, London, England. The son of an actress mother, and documentary-filmmaker father, show business was in his blood. At an early age, his interest in the field his parents had pursued was already apparent, and would also be reflected in his brother Murray Head's acting career. Anthony Head started acting in school plays at the age of six, and was writing his own within just a few years. After high school, he attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, where he studied until 1976. He began a long-term relationship with Sarah Fisher, ten years his junior, in 1982. The couple had two daughters, Emily Rose (1989) and Daisy May (1991).In addition to decades of theatrical experience in Britain, Head has earned recognition to mass audiences with his roles on television. His first TV role came in 1978 with the British series Enemy at the Door, a World War II drama (which would perhaps go on to inspire the name of the 2001 film Enemy at the Gates). That same year he appeared on a miniseries called Lillie. After a lengthy focus on his career in theater and smaller television appearances, Head returned to starring dramatic TV roles with Buffy the Vampire Slayer in 1997. On the program, he portrayed Rupert Giles, the mentor to Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), who followed her in disguise as the school librarian, in order to be on guard against evil powers. The character provoked a spin-off to the original series that features Rupert "Ripper" Giles as a "watcher," who returns to England after watching Buffy. Entitled Ripper, the program began its run in 2002. Also that year, Head played the role of James on the TV series Manchild. He was in the cast of Little Britain and appeared in a variety of projects including Imagine Me & You, Sparkle, and Amelia and Michael. In 2008 he landed a recurring role on the series Merlin playing King Uther, and that same year he appeared in the big-screen musical Repo! The Genetic Opera. In 2011 he appeared in the Oscar winning drama The Iron Lady, and he had a small part in the 2012 sequel Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.