Hamish Linklater (born July 7, 1976) is an American actor. He is best known as Matthew in the CBS sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine. He is the son of dramatic vocal trainer Kristin Linklater.

Linklater was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to Scottish-born Kristin Linklater, Professor of Theatre and Chair of the Acting Division at Columbia University and a renowned teacher of vocal technique, and Jim Cormeny. A single mother, Kristin Linklater raised her son partly in the Berkshires, where she was a founder of the Shakespeare & Company drama troupe. Her son was eight years old when he began doing small Shakespearean roles. Linklater attended the Commonwealth School in Boston, and Amherst College.

His grandfather, Eric Linklater, was a noted Scottish novelist of part Swedish origin and one of the founders of the Scottish National Party. One uncle, Magnus Linklater, is a noted Scottish journalist, and another is writer and historian Andro Linklater, author of amongst many other books, 'Measuring America'.

Robin McLaurin Williams (born July 21, 1951) is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork & Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting. He has also won two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and five Grammy Awards.

Williams was born in Chicago, Illinois. His mother, Laura McLaurin (née Smith, 1922–2001), was a former model from New Orleans, Louisiana. His father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams (September 10, 1906 – October 18, 1987), was a senior executive at Ford Motor Company in charge of the Midwest region. His maternal great-great-grandfather was senator and Mississippi governor Anselm J. McLaurin. Williams is of English, Welsh, Irish, and French ancestry. He was raised in the Episcopal Church (his mother practiced Christian Science). He grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he was a student at the Detroit Country Day School, and later moved to Woodacre, Marin County, California, where he attended the public Redwood High School. Williams studied at Claremont McKenna College (then called Claremont Men's College) for four years. He has two half-brothers: Todd (who died August 14, 2007) and McLaurin.

Bonnie Lynne Hunt (born September 22, 1961) is an American actress, comedian, writer, director, television producer and daytime television host.

Hunt, who was born in Chicago, Illinois, is the daughter of Alice E. (née Jatczak), a homemaker, and Robert Edward Hunt, an electrician. Her mother is of Polish descent and her father was of Irish and Belgian ancestry. She was raised in a large Catholic family, and has three older brothers, Patrick, Kevin, and Tom, two older sisters, Cathy and Carol, and one younger sister, Mary. Hunt was educated in Catholic schools and attended St. Ferdinand Grammar School and Notre Dame High School for Girls in Chicago.

In 1982, Hunt worked as an oncology nurse at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. In 1984, she co-founded An Impulsive Thing, an improvisational comedy troupe, with Holly Wortell, Andy Miller and John Gripentrog. Hunt also performed as a member of Chicago's world-famous The Second City, joining in 1986.

In 1990, Hunt played a role on the NBC show Grand, a comedy that lasted a season and a half. Hunt refused to become a cast member of Saturday Night Live because the show's producers generally frowned on her preferred improvisational style. In 1992, she turned down a higher-paying role on Designing Women to co-star in Davis Rules with Jonathan Winters, Randy Quaid, and Audrey Meadows.

Theresa Rebeck (born c. 1958) is an American playwright, television writer and novelist. Her work has appeared on the Broadway and Off-Broadway stage, in film, and on television. Among her awards are the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award.

Rebeck was born in Kenwood, Ohio, and graduated from Cincinnati's Ursuline Academy in 1976. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame in 1980, and followed that with three degrees from Brandeis University: an MA in 1983, a M.F.A. in Playwriting in 1986, and a Ph.D. in Victorian era melodrama, awarded in 1989.

Past New York productions of her work include Mauritius on Broadway at the Biltmore Theatre in a Manhattan Theater Club Production; The Scene, The Water’s Edge, Loose Knit, The Family of Mann and Spike Heels at Second Stage Theatre; Bad Dates and The Butterfly Collection at Playwrights Horizons; and View of the Dome at New York Theatre Workshop. Omnium Gatherum (co-written, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2003) was featured at the Humana Festival, and had a commercial run at the Variety Arts Theatre in 2003. Her play The Understudy, premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in the summer of 2008, with a cast including Reg Rogers, Bradley Cooper and Kristen Johnson, and ran in New York at the Roundabout Theatre from October 2009 - January 2010, featuring Julie White, Justin Kirk, and Mark-Paul Gosselaar in the cast. Rebeck is also writing the book for the new musical Ever After, based on the Drew Barrymore movie of the same name. That show was expected to start pre-Broadway tryouts in San Francisco in April 2009, but has been indefinitely postponed. Her play, Mauritius, ran at the Pasadena Playhouse in California from March 27 through April 26, 2009.

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (born 21 February 1946) is an English actor of stage and screen. He is a renowned stage actor in modern and classical productions and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. His breakout performance was as the Vicomte de Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award. Rickman is known for his film performances as Hans Gruber in Die Hard, Severus Snape in the Harry Potter film series, Éamon de Valera in Michael Collins, and Metatron in Dogma.

Rickman has also had a number of other notable film roles such as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply, P.L. O'Hara in An Awfully Big Adventure and Colonel Brandon in Ang Lee's 1995 film Sense and Sensibility. More recently, he played Judge Turpin in the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's musical of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Rickman was born in South Hammersmith, London, to a working class family, the son of Margaret Doreen Rose (née Bartlett), a housewife, and Bernard Rickman, a factory worker. Rickman's mother was from Wales and a Methodist, and his father was of Irish Catholic background. He has one elder brother, David (b. 1944), a graphic designer, a younger brother, Michael (b. 1947), a tennis coach, and a younger sister, Sheila (b. 1949). Rickman attended Derwentwater Primary School, in Acton, a school that followed the Montessori method of education.