Joel David Coen (born November 29, 1954) and Ethan Jesse Coen (born September 21, 1957) known together professionally as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers. Their films include Blood Simple, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, No Country for Old Men, and True Grit.

The brothers write, direct and produce their films jointly, although until recently Joel received sole credit for directing and Ethan for producing. They often alternate top billing for their screenplays while sharing film credits for editor under the alias Roderick Jaynes.

Joel and Ethan Coen, of Jewish heritage, grew up in a Jewish community in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Their father, Edward, was an economist at the University of Minnesota, and their mother, Rena, an art historian at St. Cloud State University.

When they were children, Joel saved money from mowing lawns to buy a Vivitar Super 8 camera. Together, the brothers remade movies they saw on television with a neighborhood kid, Mark Zimering ("Zeimers"),^{[citation needed]} as the star. Their first attempt was a romp titled, Henry Kissinger, Man on the Go. Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey (1966) became their Zeimers in Zambia, which also featured Ethan as a native with a spear.

Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993. He has also co-anchored CBS This Morning since January 2012. Rose, along with Lara Logan, has hosted the revived CBS classic Person to Person, a news program during which celebrities are interviewed in their homes, originally hosted from 1953 to 1961 by Edward R. Murrow.

Rose was born in Henderson, North Carolina, the only child of Margaret Frazier and Charles Peete Rose, Sr., tobacco farmers who owned a country store. As a child, Rose lived above his parents' store in Henderson and helped out with the family business from age seven. Rose admitted in a Fresh Dialogues interview that as a child his insatiable curiosity was constantly getting him in trouble. A high school basketball star, Rose entered Duke University intending to pursue a degree with a pre-med track, but an internship in the office of Democratic North Carolina Senator B. Everett Jordan got him interested in politics. Rose graduated in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in history. At Duke, he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. He earned a Juris Doctor from the Duke University School of Law in 1968. He met his wife, Mary (née King), while attending Duke.

Noah Baumbach (born September 3, 1969) is an American writer, director and independent filmmaker.

Baumbach was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of novelist/film critic Jonathan Baumbach and Village Voice critic Georgia Brown. He graduated from Brooklyn's Midwood High School in 1987 and received his BA in English from Vassar College in 1991. Noah is the third out of four siblings. His father is Jewish and his mother is Protestant.

Baumbach made his writing and directing debut at the age of 26 with Kicking and Screaming (1995), a comedy about four young men who graduate from college and refuse to move on with their lives. The film starred Josh Hamilton, Chris Eigeman, and Carlos Jacott and premiered in 1995 at the New York Film Festival. Baumbach was chosen as one of Newsweek's "Ten New Faces of 1996".

In 1997 he wrote and directed Mr. Jealousy, a film about a young writer so jealous about his girlfriend that he sneaks into the group therapy sessions of her ex-boyfriend to discover what kind of relationship they had. He then co-wrote (under the name Jesse Carter) and directed (under the name Ernie Fusco) the New York-set comedy of manners Highball. He co-wrote The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) with Wes Anderson.

Patton Oswalt (born January 27, 1969) is an American stand-up comedian, writer, actor and voice actor known for roles such as Spencer Olchin in the popular sitcom The King of Queens, and voicing Remy from the film Ratatouille and Thrasher from the Cartoon Network original series Robotomy.

Oswalt was born January 17, 1969 in Portsmouth, Virginia, to Carla and Larry J. Oswalt, a career United States Marine Corps officer. He was named after George S. Patton. While a military brat, he later lived in Ohio and Tustin, California, before settling in Sterling, Virginia. He is a 1987 graduate of Broad Run High School in Ashburn, Virginia and later attended the College of William and Mary, where he majored in English and was initiated into the Alpha Theta Chapter of the Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity.^{[citation needed]}

Oswalt first began performing standup comedy in the late 1980s or early 1990s, by his own reckoning. After writing for MADtv and starring in his own 1996 comedy special for HBO, he went on to garner notable roles in films and television shows. His most prominent and long-running role was as Spence Olchin on The King of Queens. His first starring film role was as the voice of Remy, the lead character in the 2007 Pixar film Ratatouille. He has also appeared in smaller roles in such films as Magnolia and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. He lent his voice as in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas as a caller on the WTCR show "The Tight End Zone", and was the voice of a caller on "Chatterbox" on LCFR in the game Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. He was also the voice of a reporter on "New World Order", a radio show on VCPR in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. He supposedly lent his voice as Randall Tugman in the zombie game Dead Rising 2, although he denies this. The character Randall Tugman is credited to have been voiced by John Murphy.

Marc Maron ( /ˈmærən/ MAR-ən; born September 27, 1963) is an American stand-up comedian and radio and podcast host.

He has been host of The Marc Maron Show, and co-host of both Morning Sedition, and Breakroom Live, all politically oriented shows, produced by Air America Media. He was also the host of Comedy Central's Short Attention Span Theater for a year, replacing Jon Stewart. Maron has been a frequent guest on the Late Show with David Letterman and made over 44 appearances on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, more than any other stand-up performer. He was also a regular guest on Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn and hosted the short-lived American version of the British game show Never Mind the Buzzcocks on VH1.

In September 2009, Maron began hosting a twice-weekly podcast titled WTF with Marc Maron, in which he interviews comedians and celebrities.

Maron was born into a Jewish family in Jersey City, New Jersey, but lived in Wayne, New Jersey and Pompton Lakes, New Jersey until he was six. Maron's father then joined the US Air Force for two years, and Maron and his family lived in Alaska. When his father left the Air Force, he moved his family to Albuquerque, New Mexico and started a medical practice.