A baker is someone who bakes and sells bread, Cakes and similar foods may also be produced, as the traditional boundaries between what is produced by a baker as opposed to a pastry chef have blurred in recent decades. The place where a baker works is called a bakery.

The first group of people to bake bread were ancient Egyptians, around 8000 BC. During the Middle Ages it was common for each landlord to have a bakery, which was actually a public oven; Housewives would bring dough that they had prepared to the baker, who would tend the oven and bake them into bread. As time went on, bakers would also sell their own goods, and in that some bakers acted dishonestly, tricks emerged: for example, a baker would have trap door(s) in the oven or other obscured areas, that would allow a hidden small boy or other apprentice to take off some of the dough brought in for baking. Then the dishonest baker would sell bread made with the stolen dough as their own. This practice and others eventually lead to the famous regulation known as Assize of Bread and Ale, which prescribed harsh penalties for bakers that were found cheating their clients or customers. As a safeguard against cheating, under-filled orders, or any appearance of impropriety, bakers commonly began to throw in one more loaf of bread; this tradition now exists in the phrase "baker's dozen", which is 13.

Brian Thomas Helgeland (born January 17, 1961) is an American screenwriter, film producer and director. He is most known for writing the screenplays for L.A. Confidential (for which he received an Academy Award), Mystic River, and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master.

Helgeland was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Norwegian-born parents Karin and Thomas. His surname is Norwegian, named after a landscape in Northern Norway. A graduate of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, he received his undergraduate degree at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

In 1998, Helgeland won both an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (for L.A. Confidential) and a Razzie (for The Postman) in the same year. Only one person had achieved the dubious feat before (Alan Menken in 1993), and only one other (Sandra Bullock in 2010) has achieved it since. He accepted the Razzie and became only the fourth person in its history to be personally presented with the statuette.

Morgan Freeman (born June 1, 1937) is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won in 2005 for Million Dollar Baby. He has also won a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Freeman has appeared in many other box office hits, including Unforgiven, Glory, Seven, Deep Impact, The Sum of All Fears, Bruce Almighty, Batman Begins, March of the Penguins, The Bucket List, Wanted, The Dark Knight, and RED.

Morgan Freeman was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of Mayme Edna (née Revere), a teacher, and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber who died April 27, 1961, from cirrhosis. He has three older siblings. Freeman was sent as an infant to his paternal grandmother in Charleston, Mississippi. His family moved frequently during his childhood, living in Greenwood, Mississippi; Gary, Indiana; and finally Chicago, Illinois. Freeman made his acting debut at age 9, playing the lead role in a school play. He then attended Broad Street High School, later named Threadgill Elementary School, in Mississippi. At age 12, he won a statewide drama competition, and while still at Broad Street High School, he performed in a radio show based in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1955, he graduated from Broad Street, but turned down a partial drama scholarship from Jackson State University, opting instead to work as a mechanic in the United States Air Force.

Robert De Niro (pronounced /dəˈnɪəroʊ/; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973. In 1974, he played the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II, a role that won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

His critically acclaimed, longtime collaborations with Martin Scorsese began with 1973's Mean Streets, and earned De Niro an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jake LaMotta in the 1980 film Raging Bull. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for his roles in Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) and Cape Fear (1991). In addition, he received nominations for his acting in Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978) and Penny Marshall's Awakenings (1990). Also in 1990, his portrayal as Jimmy Conway in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas earned him a BAFTA nomination.

He has earned four nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy: New York, New York (1977), Midnight Run (1988), Analyze This (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000). De Niro directed A Bronx Tale (1993) and The Good Shepherd (2006). He has received accolades for his esteemed career, including the AFI Life Achievement Award and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award.

Sophia Loren, OMRI (born Sofia Villani Scicolone; 20 September 1934) is an Italian actress.

In 1962, Loren, among 21 other awards, won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance. Loren has won several international awards, including one Golden Globe Award, a Grammy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Laurel Award. Her other films include: Houseboat (1958), El Cid (1961), Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963), Marriage Italian-Style (1964), and A Special Day (1977). She has received critical and commercial success in TV movies such as Courage (1986) and in American blockbusters such as Grumpier Old Men (1995), and Nine (2009). In 1994 she starred in Robert Altman's Ready to Wear, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination the same year. In 1995 she received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievements. In 2011 she dubbed one of the characters of Pixar blockbuster Cars 2 for non-English speaking markets.