Jeremy Lee Renner (born January 7, 1971) is an American actor, film producer and musician. Renner appeared largely in independent films throughout the 2000's such as Dahmer (2002) and Neo Ned (2005). He also offered supporting acting work in bigger films, S.W.A.T. and 28 Weeks Later (2007). He eventually came to prominence for his critically acclaimed performance in The Hurt Locker (2009) which garnered him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He then turned out another praised performance for his role in The Town for which he received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This subsequent recognition gave him the opportunity to star alongside some of Hollywood's biggest talent in blockbusters such as Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) and The Avengers (2012) which broke records grossing more than a billion dollars internationally.

Renner was born in Modesto, California, the first child of Valerie and Lee Renner, who managed a bowling alley. His parents married as teenagers and divorced when he was ten. He has five younger siblings, He graduated from Fred C. Beyer High School and attended Modesto Junior College. Renner is of German and Irish descent.

Captain America is a fictional character, a superhero who appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 (cover-dated March 1941), from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. As of 2007, an estimated 210 million copies of "Captain America" comic books had been sold in 75 countries. For nearly all of the character's publication history, Captain America was the alter ego of Steve Rogers, a frail young man who was enhanced to the peak of human perfection by an experimental serum in order to aid the United States war effort. Captain America wears a costume that bears an American flag motif, and is armed with an indestructible shield that can be thrown as a weapon.

An intentionally patriotic creation who was often depicted fighting the Axis powers of World War II, Captain America was Timely Comics' most popular character during the wartime period. After the war ended, the character's popularity waned and he disappeared by the 1950s aside from an ill-fated revival in 1953. Captain America was reintroduced during the Silver Age of comics when he was revived from suspended animation by the superhero team the Avengers in The Avengers #4 (March 1964). Since then, Captain America has often led the team, as well as starring in his own series.

Thomas William "Tom" Hiddleston (born 9 February 1981) is an English film, television, radio, and stage actor. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and he rose to prominence through a number of TV roles and more recently major film roles. He played Loki in the 2011 Marvel Studios film Thor, Captain Nicholls in Steven Spielberg's World War I film War Horse (2011), and also Freddie Page in the British drama The Deep Blue Sea, alongside Rachel Weisz. He played author F. Scott Fitzgerald in the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris (2011). He returned to his role as Loki in The Avengers (2012) and is set to reprise the character again for Thor 2 (2013).

Hiddleston was born in Westminster, London, to parents Diana Patricia (née Servaes), a former stage manager and arts administrator, and James Norman Hiddleston, a scientist in physical chemistry who was the managing director of a pharmaceutical company. His father is from Greenock, Scotland and his mother from Suffolk, England. He is the middle child with two sisters, Sarah (oldest), a journalist in India, and Emma (youngest), is also an actor. He was raised in Wimbledon, in his early years, and later in Oxford. When Hiddleston was 13, he boarded at Eton College, at the same time that his parents were going through a divorce. "I think I started acting because I found being away at school while my parents were divorcing really distressing." He went on to act at The Dragon School in Oxford, then continued on to the University of Cambridge, where he earned a double first. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 2005.