Hal Harry Magee Sparks III (born September 25, 1969) is an American actor, comedian, musician and television personality. He is known for his contributions to VH1, hosting E!'s Talk Soup, and the role of Michael Novotny on the American television series Queer as Folk.
Sparks was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, but grew up in the small community of Peaks Mill, Kentucky. He started Boy Scouts at age 7 and karate at age 8, and filled his childhood between video games, movies, and comedy albums since the nearest TV was a mile from where he lived.
When he was 14 years old, he moved to the Chicago area and enrolled at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, where he fortuitously entered the theater department. Thanks to an influential teacher named Mrs. Adams, he was able to cultivate his natural talent and boundless energy into marketable skill. Despite some initial opposition by his dad, by 15 he began performing standup comedy and by 17 he won the title of "Chicago's Funniest Teenager" from the Chicago Sun-Times.
Miley Ray Cyrus (born Destiny Hope Cyrus; November 23, 1992) is an American actress and pop singer-songwriter. She achieved wide fame for her role as Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel sitcom Hannah Montana.
Cyrus recorded music for the soundtracks, Hannah Montana (2006) and Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus (2007), released by Walt Disney Records. With the success of the Hannah Montana franchise she established herself as a teen idol. In 2007, Cyrus signed to Hollywood Records to pursue a solo career. She embarked upon the Best of Both Worlds Tour the same year, in which she performed as both herself and in character as Hannah Montana. The tour was eventually turned into a high-grossing concert film titled Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert (2008). In July 2008, Cyrus released her first solo album, Breakout (2008), which was commercially successful.
She began her foray into film by providing the voice of "Penny" in the animated film Bolt (2008). Cyrus earned a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for her performance of Bolt's theme song, "I Thought I Lost You". She also reprised her role as Miley Stewart/Hannah Montana in Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009). The Hannah Montana: The Movie' soundtrack introduced her to new audiences within country and adult contemporary markets.
John Fugelsang (born September 3, 1969, Long Island, New York) is an American actor, television personality and stand-up comedian.
Fugelsang has appeared in diverse projects as an actor, ranging from CSI and Providence to Coyote Ugly. As a comedian, he has performed at the US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen and the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal and made over 20 appearances on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher.
In 2007 he premiered the acclaimed solo show All The Wrong Reasons off Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop. The show received a Drama League nomination for "Distinguished Performance".New York Magazine said "Fugelsang has the soul of an iconoclast" and The New York Daily News said the piece "packed an unexpectedly lovely and life affirming wallop."[citation needed] Subsequent runs include Los Angeles, Seattle, New York City's Barrow St. Theatre, Albuquerque, and closing the South Beach Comedy Festival in Miami.
Additional film, television, and stage credits include Becker, Somewhere in the City, The Michael Richards Show, Beyond Belief, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Hamlet, Blue Window, and Savage in Limbo.
Harry Robinson Hamlin (born October 30, 1951) is an American film and television actor, known for his role as Perseus in the 1981 fantasy film Clash of the Titans, and as Michael Kuzak in the legal drama series L.A. Law.
Hamlin was born in Pasadena, California, the son of Berniece (née Robinson), a socialite, and Chauncey Jerome Hamlin, Jr., an aeronautical engineer who once worked with scientist Wernher von Braun. As a teenager, he attended Flintridge Preparatory School, near Pasadena, and The Hill School, a private boarding school in Pennsylvania, where he played soccer and lacrosse and acted in the school's musicals and plays. Hamlin attended University of California, Berkeley and is an alumnus of the Theta Zeta chapter of the national fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon, of which he was President in 1972. Hamlin graduated from Yale University with a BA in Drama and Psychology in 1974. Hamlin then attended the American Conservatory Theatre's Advanced Actor Training Program from which he was subsequently awarded a Master of Fine Arts degree in acting.
Joseph James "Joe" Rogan (born August 11, 1967) is an American martial artist, stand-up comedian, actor, writer and color commentator. He is best known for playing Joe Garrelli on the NBC sitcom NewsRadio, commentating for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, hosting the NBC reality show Fear Factor and The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
Rogan was born in Newark, New Jersey. His paternal grandfather was Irish and the remainder of his ancestry is Italian.
In 1981, at age fourteen, he became a practitioner of Kenpo Karate before transitioning to Taekwondo. He eventually gained a 2nd dan black belt. A four-time state champion in Massachusetts, in 1987 he was the USA Taekwondo U.S. Open Champion. In 1996, he began training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Jean Jacques Machado, eventually earning his brown belt. In addition, he holds a brown belt in 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu under Eddie Bravo.
He also practiced and competed in kickboxing.
In 1994, he co-starred on the Fox comedy Hardball as Frank Valente, the young, ego-centric star player on a fictional professional baseball team. From 1995 to 1999, he co-starred on the comedy NewsRadio. He portrayed Joe Garrelli, the electrician at WNYX, a news radio station in New York City. In 2002, he appeared on the episode "A Beautiful Mind" of Just Shoot Me as Chris, Maya Gallo's boyfriend. In 2011, Rogan played his first major character in a movie in the Kevin James movie Zookeeper. He is slated to play himself in an upcoming action-comedy starring Kevin James called Here Comes the Boom, set to be released in the summer of 2012.