Julie Bowen (born March 3, 1970) is an American film and television actress. She is best known for playing Carol Vessey on Ed (2000–2004), Denise Bauer on Boston Legal (2005–2007) and Claire Dunphy on the sitcom Modern Family (2009–present), for which she was twice nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, winning in 2011.

Throughout Bowen's career she has played supporting roles in films including Happy Gilmore (1996), Multiplicity (1996), Venus and Mars (2001), Joe Somebody (2001), Kids in America (2005), Sex and Death 101 (2007), Crazy on the Outside (2010), Jumping the Broom (2011), and Horrible Bosses (2011).

Bowen was born Julie Bowen Luetkemeyer in Baltimore, Maryland, the middle of three daughters of Suzanne (née Frey) and John Alexander Luetkemeyer, Jr., a commercial real estate developer. She is of English, Irish, French, and German descent. Her older sister, Molly Luetkemeyer, is an interior designer who has appeared on Clean Sweep, and her younger sister, Annie Luetkemeyer, is a doctor at the University of California, San Francisco in the HIV/AIDS Division.^{[citation needed]} Her parents were socially prominent in Baltimore. Raised in suburban Ruxton, she first attended the Calvert, Garrison Forest School, and also attended St. George's School, Newport, in Rhode Island. She matriculated at Brown University, majoring in Italian Renaissance studies. In her junior year, Bowen spent a year in Florence, Italy. During college, she had roles in Guys and Dolls, Stage Door, and Lemon Sky.^{[citation needed]} Before graduating, Bowen had the lead role in the independent film Five Spot Jewel.^{[citation needed]} Among other places, Bowen studied acting at the Actor's Institute.^{[citation needed]}

Louis (Louie) Psihoyos (born 1957) is an American photographer and documentary film director known for his still photography and contributions to National Geographic. Psihoyos, a licensed scuba-diver, has become increasingly concerned with bringing awareness to underwater life. In 2009 he directed and appeared in the feature-length documentary The Cove, which won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.

Psihoyos was born in Dubuque, Iowa in 1957, the son of a Greek immigrant who fled communist occupation of the Peloponnesos region near Sparta after World War II. Psihoyos took an interest in photography at the age of fourteen. As a teenager, he worked as a photo intern with the Telegraph Herald. During that time he also worked as an extra on the set of F.I.S.T. Psihoyos attended the University of Missouri, majoring in photojournalism. In 1980, at the age of twenty-three, he was hired by National Geographic and remained with the magazine for seventeen years. During this time he married and had two children. He received multiple awards for his photography, including first place in the World Press Contest and the Hearst Award. In addition, he has worked with magazines such as Smithsonian, Discover, GEO, Time, Newsweek, New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine, Sports Illustrated, and Rock and Ice.

Walter Stacy Keach Jr. (born June 2, 1941) is an American actor and narrator. He is most famous for his dramatic roles; however, he has done narration work in educational programming on PBS and the Discovery Channel, as well as some comedy (particularly his role in the Fox sitcom Titus as Ken, the hard-drinking, chain-smoking, womanizing father of comedian Christopher Titus) and musical roles.

Keach was born in Savannah, Georgia, the son of Mary Cain (née Peckham), an actress, and Walter Stacy Keach, a theater director, drama teacher, and actor. His brother James Keach is an actor and television director. Keach graduated from Van Nuys High School in June 1959, where he was class president, then earned two BA degrees at the University of California, Berkeley (1963), one in English, the other in Dramatic Art. He earned an M.F.A. at the Yale School of Drama and was a Fulbright Scholar at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

In 1966 Keach played the title role, (with his take on Lyndon Johnson being MacBeth) in MacBird! an Off Broadway spoof at the Village Gate. Then in 1967, he was cast, again Off Broadway, in George Tabori's The Niggerlovers with Morgan Freeman (in his first ever acting job). To this day, Freeman credits Keach with teaching him the most about acting. Keach first appeared on Broadway in 1969 as Buffalo Bill in Indians by Arthur Kopit. Early in his career, he was credited as Stacy Keach, Jr. to distinguish himself from his father Stacy Keach, Sr. He played the lead actor in The Nude Paper Sermon an avant-garde musical theatre piece for media presentation, commissioned by Nonesuch Records by composer Eric Salzman.

Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton Wykeham Fiennes ( /ˈreɪf ˈfaɪnz/; born 22 December 1962) is an English theatre and film actor. A noted Shakespeare interpreter, he first achieved success onstage in the Royal National Theatre. Since then, he has portrayed characters such as Nazi war criminal Amon Goeth in Schindler's List, Count Almásy in The English Patient, and Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show. He also starred in The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, Red Dragon, Onegin, and The End of the Affair, among others. He is also well known for playing Lord Voldemort in five Harry Potter movies (of eight).

In 2011, Fiennes made his directorial debut with his film adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy Coriolanus, in which he also played the titular character. Fiennes won a Tony Award for playing Hamlet on Broadway and has been nominated twice for the Academy Award.

Ralph Twisleton Wykeham Fiennes was born in Ipswich on 22 December 1962, the eldest child of Mark Fiennes (1933–2004), a farmer and photographer whose father was industrialist Sir Maurice Fiennes (1907–1994), and Jennifer Lash (1938–1993), a writer of English and Irish descent. His surname is of Norman origin.

Xosha Kai Roquemore(pronouced Zo-sha) (born December 11, 1984) is an American actress. She is best known for her portrayal of Jo Ann in the 2009 film Precious.

Roquemore was born in Los Angeles in 1985. She started with an acting program, The Amazing Grace Conservatory, in ninth grade. After graduating high school, she moved to New York City and graduated from the Tisch program of the New York University.

She was a supporter of Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.