Vincent Paul Kartheiser (born May 5, 1979) is an American actor known for playing Connor in Angel and Pete Campbell in Mad Men.

Kartheiser was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Janet Marie (née Gruyé) and James Ralph Kartheiser. The youngest of six children, he has four sisters, Andrea, Colette, Elise and Theresa, and a brother, Nathan.

Some of Kartheiser’s first acting experiences were on stage of Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis, including roles in Pippi Longstocking, Our Town, Dr. Seuss’ The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

Kartheiser made his screen debut with a bit role in the 1993 film Untamed Heart, opposite Marisa Tomei and Christian Slater. Kartheiser found himself cast in mostly family fare, including The Indian in the Cupboard and the action-adventure drama Alaska, in which he starred opposite Thora Birch and Charlton Heston, whose son, Fraser Clarke Heston, directed the film. The film led to Kartheiser getting the lead role in Masterminds, playing opposite Patrick Stewart.

Peter Dyckman "Pete" Campbell is a fictional character on AMC's television series Mad Men. He is portrayed by Vincent Kartheiser.

In the show's backstory, Pete Campbell was born in New York City to an upper class WASP family. In the show's pilot episode, he has just turned 26, which makes his birth year 1934. His mother, Dorothy Dyckman Campbell, is a member of the elite Dyckman family ( /ˈdaɪkmən/), owners of most of upper Manhattan prior to 1929. Pete's great-grandfather was the Dutch immigrant Silas Dyckman. Pete's grandfather loses most of his property in the stock market crash of 1929, and his father Andrew Campbell eventually squanders the remainder of the family fortune before his death, yet Pete's upbringing is in line with many children of his social status. As a youth he attends The Buckley School and Deerfield Academy and spends summers at his parents' estate on Fishers Island, as well as at exclusive country clubs in the Hamptons and Newport. Pete is in the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity during his college years at Dartmouth College.

Jonathan Daniel "Jon" Hamm (born March 10, 1971) is an American actor best known for playing advertising executive Don Draper in the AMC drama series Mad Men, which premiered in July 2007. His performance on the show earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series in 2008.

Hamm was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Daniel and Deborah Hamm. His father ran a family trucking company and his mother was a secretary. Hamm's parents divorced when he was two, and he lived with his mother in Creve Coeur, Missouri, until she was diagnosed with terminal abdominal cancer when he was 10. Hamm then moved in with his father, who died when Hamm was 20.

Hamm's first acting role was as Winnie-the-Pooh in first grade. At 16, he was cast as Judas in Godspell. Although he enjoyed the experience, he did not take acting seriously. Hamm attended John Burroughs School in Ladue, Missouri, where he was a member of the football, baseball, and swim teams. Following graduation in 1989, Hamm enrolled at the University of Texas, where he was a member of the Upsilon Chapter of Sigma Nu fraternity. Hamm returned home to attend the University of Missouri after his father's death. At Missouri, he auditioned for and won a role in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Other roles followed, including Leon Czolgosz in Assassins.

Kirsten Caroline Dunst (born April 30, 1982) is an American-German actress, singer and model. She made her film debut in Oedipus Wrecks, a short film directed by Woody Allen for the anthology New York Stories (1989). At the age of 12, Dunst gained widespread recognition playing the role of vampire Claudia in Interview with the Vampire (1994), a performance for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. The same year she appeared in Little Women, to further acclaim.

Dunst achieved international fame as a result of her portrayal of Mary Jane Watson in the Spider-Man trilogy (2002–07). Since then her films have included the romantic comedy Wimbledon (2004), the romantic science fiction Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Cameron Crowe's tragicomedy Elizabethtown (2005). She played the title role in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette (2006) and starred in the comedy How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008). She won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 for her performance in Lars von Trier's Melancholia.

Alexis Bledel (born September 16, 1981) is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Rory Gilmore in the television series Gilmore Girls and Lena Kaligaris in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.

Bledel was born Kimberly Alexis Bledel in Houston, Texas, the daughter of Nanette (née Dozier) and Martin Bledel. Her father is from Argentina, and has Danish ancestry. Her mother had been raised in Mexico from a young age. Of her parents' upbringing in Latin America, Bledel has stated "It's the only culture my mom knows from life, and my father as well, and they made the decision to raise their children within the context they had been raised in". Bledel was raised in a Spanish-speaking household, and did not learn English until she began school. She has a younger brother, Eric.

Bledel attended Catholic St. Agnes Academy in Houston, as well as Baptist and Lutheran schools. Her mother encouraged her to try community theater to overcome her shyness. As a child, Bledel appeared in local productions of Our Town and The Wizard of Oz.^{[citation needed]} She was scouted at a local shopping mall and given work as a fashion model. She went to Page Parkes Center for Modeling and Acting and attended NYU's Tisch School of the Arts for one year.