Golden Globe Award winner and Academy Award® nominee KATE HUDSON (Caroline) made her studio film debut in 200 Cigarettes, co-starring with Ben Affleck, Courtney Love, Christina Ricci, Jay Mohr, Dave Chappelle, Martha Plimpton, Paul Rudd and Gaby Hoffman. Directed by Risa Bramon Garcia, Kate’s performance in the comedy—set in New York’s East Village on New Years Eve, 1981—was singled out by critics across the boards.

Next, Kate co-starred with Christina Ricci, Casey Affleck and Brendan Sexton III in Morgan J. Freeman’s Desert Blue, centered around a toxic chemical scare in a remote tourist trap in California. She co-starred in Warner Bros.’ Gossip, a psychological drama about the deadly power of rumors set on a college campus, featuring James Marsden, Norman Reedus and Joshua Jackson.

Kate’s performance in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous won the hearts of critics and moviegoers around the world and her performance earned her a Golden Globe Award, an Academy Award® nomination as Best Supporting Actress and a BAFTA nomination, amongst numerous other honors and recognition, including the Broadcast Film Critics’ Award for Breakthrough Performance. The Golden Globe Award winner for Best Movie (Musical or Comedy) about the world of 1970’s rock has won rave reviews for the film and it’s gifted cast, including Billy Crudup, Frances McDormand, Patrick Fugit, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Lee, Anna Paquin and Fairuza Balk. Almost Famous appeared on over 115 Top 10 lists for the year, including over 30 critics and organizations, which named it the best picture of the year.

Critics were unanimous in their praise of Kate’s touching portrayal of “Band Aid” Penny Lane: “Her work is delicate, authentic and accomplished…” (Los Angeles Times); “A phenomenal debut…” (Wall Street Journal); “Hudson signals with her radiant turn here that she’s ready for major stardom…” (People Magazine); and “A nuanced, star-making performance…” (New York Post).

Kate played Richard Gere’s daughter in Robert Altman’s Dr. T and the Women, part of an all-star cast, including Richard Gere, Helen Hunt, Laura Dern and Liv Tyler. She was seen next in About Adam, playing an unlucky-in-love singer/waitress who falls for a charming young man who mesmerizes her entire family. Co-starring Stuart Townsend and Frances O’Connor, the Miramax romantic comedy was written and directed by Gerard Stembridge. Kate also appeared in the period epic The Four Feathers, which she filmed in London opposite Heath Ledger and Wes Bentley for director Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth).

Kate starred opposite Matthew McConaughey in the hit romantic comedy How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, which surpassed $100 million at the domestic box office. She starred in Alex & Emma for director Rob Reiner, opposite Luke Wilson, and was part of the all-star ensemble cast in Merchant-Ivory’s contemporary comedy Le Divorce, appearing with such international co-stars as Naomi Watts, Glenn Close, Stockard Channing, Sam Waterston, Leslie Caron and Stephen Fry.

Most recently, she starred in the title role of Garry Marshall’s Raising Helen for Disney.

Since her debut in 200 Cigarettes, Kate has been featured in People Magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People in the World” issue twice and on numerous magazine covers, including two Vanity Fairs (the celebrated Hollywood Issue, as part of the magazine’s Class of 1999, as well as a solo cover in October, 2000), Vogue, Rolling Stone, Harper’s Bazaar, Jane, Interview, InStyle, Cosmopolitan and many others around the world.

As a teenager, Kate participated in the prestigious Williamstown Theatre Festival in Pennsylvania.

GENA ROWLANDS (Violet) is recognized as an actress of rare accomplishment and talent. She is also one of the entertainment industry’s starts who is constantly in demand in theater, film and television.

She recently starred in the highly successful film The Notebook, a New Line Cinema production directed by Nick Cassavetes. She was an Emmy Award winner (2003) as Best Supporting Actress in a Mini-Series for HBO’s Hysterical Blindness. A recent Emmy nominee for Showtime’s Wild Iris, she has also starred in The Incredible Mrs. Richie for New Line and Charms for the Easy Life for Showtime.

Prior to this, Gena received an Emmy nomination for her starring role in CBS’ The Color of Love: Jacey’s Story, and starred in The Weekend, a film for Strand Releasing, as well as Hallmark’s Hall of Fame’s Grace & Glorie and The Mighty, Playing by Heart, Hope Floats and Paulie.

The recipient of a Doctorate of Performing Arts from the American Film Institute and tributes from American Cinematheque and Sundance Film Festival’s Piper-Heidseick Award, she has received several other film festival awards, the most recent being one from the Montreal International Festival, October 2002.

Past film credits include a number of films directed by and/or co-starring her late husband, John Cassavetes: A Child Is Waiting, Faces, A Woman Under the Influence (Golden Globe Award as Best Actress, Academy Award® nomination as Best Actress, National Board of Review Award, San Sebastian Film Festival Award), Gloria (Academy Award® nomination as Best Actress, Golden Globe nomination, co-winner of the Golden Lion—the Venice Film Festival Best Actress Award), Opening Night (Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear Award as Best Actress) and Love Streams (Taormina Film Festival Gold Award, Best Actress). Among her many other films are Lonely Are the Brave (now a minor classic), Woody Allen’s Another Woman and The Tempest.

Gena’s notable television credits include Thursday’s Child, A Question of Love, Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter (with Bette Davis), An Early Frost (Golden Globe and Emmy nominations as Best Actress), The Betty Ford Story (Emmy Award as Best Actress in a Mini-Series and Golden Globe as Best Actress), Face of a Stranger (Emmy Award as Best Actress) and Crazy in Love (Golden Globe nomination, Best Actress).

Her stage debut was on Broadway in The Middle of the Night, opposite Edward G. Robinson. After some years, she returned to the stage in Cassavetes’ Love Streams, The Third Day Comes and Woman of Mystery. She appeared with Ben Gazzara in A.R. Gurney’s Love Letters in three sold-out month-long engagements. Later she starred in The Substance of Fire at the Mark Taper Forum.

Gena was born in Cambria, Wisconsin on June 19. She attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and was seen by Cassavetes then at the beginning of his notable career. They were married shortly after. He died in February, 1989. They had three children: Nicolas, actor/writer/director; Alexandra; and Zoe.

For Nicholas, who is pursuing a successful career as writer/director, she starred in Unhook the Stars and made a cameo appearance in She’s So Lovely.

An actor noted for his ability to access what is behind the often complicated facades of the characters he plays, PETER SARSGAARD (Luke) will add to his burgeoning reputation with roles in several projects due for release over the next year.

He most recently completed production on Jarhead, Sam Mendes’ adaptation of Anthony Swofford’s best-selling Gulf War memoir. Sarsgaard plays Troy, an air marshal who befriends and mentors writer Swoff. Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx co-star. Jarhead is currently slated for a November 11, 2005 release by Universal Pictures.

Sarsgaard’s forthcoming projects also include the psychological thriller The Dying Gaul for writer/director Craig Lucas, starring Patricia Clarkson and Campbell Scott. Sarsgaard plays a fledgling screenwriter involved in a complex three-pronged relationship with a studio executive and his beautiful wife. The Dying Gaul premiered in the Dramatic Competition section of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

Sarsgaard also recently completed the Disney/Imagine Entertainment-produced thriller Flightplan, co-starring Jodie Foster. Directed by Robert Schwentke, the film follows an FBI agent who tries to help a woman find the daughter who has mysteriously disappeared during flight. Disney will release Flightplan on September 23, 2005.

Sarsgaard last co-starred to much critical acclaim in the biopic Kinsey. Written and directed by Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters), and starring Liam Neeson as the legendary sex researcher Alfred Kinsey and Laura Linney as his wife Clara, Sarsgaard plays Kinsey’s young protégé and earned both a Critics’ Choice Award nomination and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for his supporting role.

In 2004, Sarsgaard co-starred in Zach Braff’s independent hit Garden State. Written, directed and co-starring Braff, the Fox Searchlight release follows the travails of a young man who returns home for his mother’s funeral after being estranged from his family for a decade. Sarsgaard plays Mark, a friend of Braff’s character, who helps the confused young man find himself during the chaotic visit. Also starring Natalie Portman, the film was an audience favorite at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.

Sarsgaard received an official stamp of critical approval for his portrayal of New Republic editor Charles Lane in Billy Ray’s Shattered Glass. For his performance, Sarsgaard garnered awards from the Boston, San Francisco, St. Louis, Toronto and National Society of Film Critics, as well as Golden Globe and Spirit Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.

He is perhaps best known for his role as Teena Brandon’s friend, then tormenter and rapist, in Kimberly Pierce’s Boys Don’t Cry. Starring opposite Hilary Swank and Chloë Sevigny, Sarsgaard received critical praise for his searing portrayal of the violent ex-con ill-equipped to deal with a startling discovery.

Other roles include Kathryn Bigelow’s submarine thriller K-19: The Widomaker, opposite Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson; D.J. Caruso’s The Salton Sea, opposite Val Kilmer; Empire, opposite John Leguizamo; and Wayne Wang’s controversial The Center of the World, opposite Molly Parker. Sarsgaard first gained notice as Leonardo DiCaprio’s rival and John Malkovich’s son in The Man in the Iron Mask. He also appeared in Larry Clark’s Another Day in Paradise and Tim Robbins’ Dead Man Walking, with Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon.

On the small screen, Sarsgaard starred in Showtime’s acclaimed feature Freak City, produced by Michael Stipe and Sandy Stern’s Single Cell Pictures.

A member of Douglas Carter Beane’s New York-based theater company, The Drama Department, Sarsgaard appeared last year in their off-Broadway production of Kingdom of the Earth, opposite Cynthia Nixon and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. He was also seen on stage in 2003 in the Signature Theatre Company’s acclaimed revival of Lanford Wilson’s Burn This.

Sarsgaard attended the Actors’ Studio Program at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, after which he was cast in Horton Foote’s Laura Dennis at the Signature Theatre Company off-Broadway.

Destined to become one of the most talented young actresses of her generation, JOY BRYANT (Jill) has made an impressive transition from the runway to the big-screen. In 2002, she achieved her breakthrough performance in Denzel Washington’s Antwone Fisher, which garnered praise from critics and the attention of the public.

In addition to completing The Skeleton Key, Bryant recently wrapped the independent film London, directed by Hunter Richards. The ensemble cast includes Jessica Biel, Jason Statham and Chris Evans. Following London, she will begin production on Jim Sheridan’s highly anticipated film Locked and Loaded, loosely based on the life of rapper 50 Cent, who will also appear in the film.

In 2004, Bryant appeared in the El Camino Pictures’ adventure/drama Haven; the film, which co-starred Bill Paxton and Orlando Bloom, centers on the story of two businessmen that flee to the Cayman Islands to avoid federal prosecution. Haven screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2004. In the same year, Bryant appeared in Three Way Split; directed by Scott Ziehl, the film is a sexy noir-thriller based on Gil Brewer’s 1963 pulp novel Wild to Possess, about murder, kidnapping, blackmail and sexual deception. Bryant co-starred in the Hyperion Pictures independent feature alongside Gina Gershon, Dwight Yoakam, Ali Larter and Desmond Harrington. In 2004, Bryant also appeared with Nia Long and David Alan Grier in director Mario Van Peebles’ Badasssss! The film, purchased by Sony Pictures Classics, received rave reviews at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.

In December 2003, Bryant co-starred with Jessica Alba and Mekhi Phifer in Universal Pictures’ and director Bille Woodruff’s music-driven coming-of-age drama Honey. Bryant portrayed the best friend of an inner-city woman (Alba) who fulfills her dream of becoming a successful video choreographer until she is confronted with unexpected setbacks.

Bryant was featured as the female lead in the 2002 critically acclaimed film Antwone Fisher, the directorial debut of Denzel Washington. Bryant portrayed the love interest of the film’s title character, played by Derek Luke, who helps Fisher confront his painful troubled past. The Fox Searchlight Picture, written by Antwone Fisher, is loosely based on his life experiences.

Bryant made her onscreen debut in the MTV original production of Carmen: A Hip Hopera, opposite Beyonce Knowles and Mekhi Phifer, followed by a small role in the Warner Bros.’ comedy Showtime, which starred Eddie Murphy and Robert DeNiro.

While enrolled as a full-time student at Yale University, Bryant was discovered by a modeling scout from Next Models Management. For several years, Bryant pursued a career as a fashion model in Paris and subsequently signed an exclusive contract with Tommy Hilfiger. Bryant continues to model between films as a cover subject for Victoria’s Secret and in a number of prestigious print campaigns, such as the Fall 2003 GAP ads.

Born and raised in the South Bronx, Bryant attended Westminster High School in Connecticut on a full scholarship. She is an avid supporter of the Fieldston Enrichment Program under the umbrella of A Better Chance Public School Program, an organization that reaches out to minority talent to enrich their academic opportunities.

Bryant spends her time between Los Angeles and New York with her beloved pit bull named Nana.

Born in 1940, the son of Arnold Herbert (an Anglican vicar) and Phyllis Massey (an engineer and amateur actress), JOHN HURT (Ben) attended schools in Kent and Lincoln. He was a stage hand with the Lincoln Repertory and studied Art at St. Martin’s School, London before winning a scholarship to RADA.

John Hurt is one of Britain’s best known, critically acclaimed and most versatile actors. He made his West End debut in 1962 and went on to take the 1963 Critics’ Award for Most Promising Actor in Harold Pinter’s The Dwarfs. For the stage, John has also appeared in Pinter’s The Caretaker, O’Casey’s Shadow of a Gunman, Stoppard’s Travesties (for the RSC) and Turgenev’s A Month in the Country. The year 2000 saw his greatly acclaimed performance in Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape in London’s West End.

John’s impressive body of television work commenced in 1961 and has included such notable roles as Caligula in I, Claudius, Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment and, most memorably, as Quentin Crisp in the autobiographical The Naked Civil Servant (for which he received a Best Actor Emmy and a BAFTA Best Television Actor Award), which led Crisp to opine that “John Hurt is my representative here on Earth.”

It was his defining film roles as Max in Midnight Express (1978) and as John Merrick in The Elephant Man (1980) that thrust him into the international spotlight with Oscar® nominations for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor, respectively. His other film work includes a trio of roles in 1984 which rewarded him with the Evening Standard Award for Best Actor for that year: 1984, The Hit and Champions. His many films include A Man For All Seasons, The Field, Scandal, Rob Roy and John Boorman’s Two Nudes Bathing (the latter for which he received a Cable Ace Award in 1995), and an acclaimed performance in Richard Kwietniowski’s Love and Death on Long Island. John was also seen as Dr. Iannis in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, directed in John Madden.

In 1999 John filmed Beckett’s Krapps Last Tape, directed by Atom Egoyan, and Tabloid TV, directed by David Blair in 2000. 2001 was spent filming Miranda, directed by Mark Munden; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, directed by Chris Columbus; and Owning Mahony, directed by Richard Kwietniowski.

In 2002, John won the Variety Club Award for Outstanding Performance in a Stage Play (alongside Penelope Wilton) for their performance in Brian Friel’s Afterplay. This was followed by the film Hellboy, directed by Guillermo del Toro for Revolution Studios, and The Alan Clark Diaries for the BBC, which received great critical acclaim. More recently, John filmed Shooting Dogs, directed by Michael Caton-Jones, and The Proposition, directed by John Hilcote.