Rebecca Augusta Miller (born September 15, 1962) is an American film director, screenwriter and actress, most known for her films Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (winner of the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award), The Ballad of Jack and Rose, Angela and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, all of which she wrote and directed.

Miller was born in Roxbury, Connecticut, and is the daughter of playwright Arthur Miller and Austrian-born photographer Inge Morath. She has a brother, Daniel, who was born in 1966 with Down Syndrome and was placed in an institution shortly after his birth. Her father was a secular Jew, and her mother was from a Christian background. She was educated at Choate Rosemary Hall and Yale University, where she studied art. She initially pursued an acting career, landing parts in the television movie The Murder of Mary Phagan and the feature films Regarding Henry (1991) and Consenting Adults (1992).

In 1995, she went behind the camera, writing and directing her first film, Angela. The film was critically well-received, but did not garner significant attention or audiences.

Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis (born 29 April 1957) is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot (1989) and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood (2007) won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors' Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter. His role as Bill "The Butcher" Cutting in Gangs of New York (2002) earned him the BAFTA Award and a Screen Actors' Guild Award.

Day-Lewis, who grew up in London, is the son of actress Jill Balcon and the Anglo-Irish Poet Laureate, Cecil Day-Lewis. Despite his training in the classical presentational acting style at the Bristol Old Vic, he is a method actor, known for his constant devotion to and research of his roles. Often, he will remain completely in character for the duration of the shooting schedule of his films, even to the point of adversely affecting his health. He is known as one of the most selective actors in the film industry, having starred in only five films since 1997, with as many as five years between roles.

Vincent Gallo is an American film director and actor. Though he has had minor roles in mainstream films such as Goodfellas, he is most associated with independent movies, including Buffalo '66, which he wrote, directed, did the music for and starred in; The Brown Bunny, which he also wrote, directed, produced, starred in and photographed; Arizona Dream; The Funeral; and Palookaville. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Gallo was a painter in the New York City art scene showing with famed art dealer Annina Nosei, performed in a rap duo and was part of the first hip hop television broadcast Graffiti Rock, and played in an industrial band called Bohack which released an album title It Took Several Wives. In the early 2000s, he released several solo recordings on WARP records. Gallo is known for his outspoken views and generally sarcastic nature, once stating: "I stopped painting in 1990 at the peak of my success just to deny people my beautiful paintings; and I did it out of spite."

Gallo was awarded the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor at the 67th Venice International Film Festival for his performance as a wordless escaping Muslim prisoner in Jerzy Skolimowski's Essential Killing. His own feature film Promises Written In Water, which he wrote, directed, produced and starred in, also screened In Competition at the festival. In spring 2012 Gallo took part in the three month exposition of Whitney Biennial.

Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is also one of the co-founders of DreamWorks movie studio.

Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Three of Spielberg's films—Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993)—achieved box office records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide. Forbes puts Spielberg's wealth at $3.0 billion.

Sally Margaret Field (born November 6, 1946) is an American actress, singer, producer, director, and screenwriter. In each decade of her career, she has been known for major roles in American TV/film culture, including: in the 1960s, for Gidget (1965–66) or Sister Bertrille on The Flying Nun (1967–70); in the 1970s, for Sybil (1976), Smokey and the Bandit (1977) and Norma Rae (1979); in the 1980s, for Absence of Malice (1981), Places in the Heart (1984) and Steel Magnolias (1989); in the 1990s, for Not Without My Daughter (1991), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Forrest Gump (1994) and Eye for an Eye (1996); and in the 2000s, on the TV shows ER and Brothers & Sisters (2006–11). She has also performed in numerous other roles.

Field won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a leading role on two occasions, Norma Rae (1979) and Places in the Heart (1984). Field's professional achievements also include winning three Emmy Awards: for her role in the TV film Sybil (1976); her guest-starring role on ER in 2000; and for her starring role as Nora Holden Walker on ABC's series Brothers & Sisters in 2007. She has also won two Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actress. She also won the Best Female Performance Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, for Norma Rae (1979).