ALESSANDRO NIVOLA

Some guys have all the luck. Take Alessandro Nivola, for example. Good looking, well educated - and now he's making a name for himself in the film business as well, most recently taking his place alongside Sam Neill and those nasty dinosaurs in Jurassic Park III.

Nivola (above) was born on June 28, 1972, in Boston, Massachusetts, to an academic father and a mother whose family was part and parcel of the Boston social scene. Throughout his childhood, Nivola would spend his school holidays at drama camp, eventually landing himself an internship at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre thanks to his enthusiasm.

He studied at the Tony Philips Exeter Academy and then moved on to Yale University, all the while working with regional theatre groups. Nivola graduated to professional acting with the Yale Repertory Theatre in the early 1990s and then made his on-screen debut in the made-for-TV The Ring in 1996.

His first taste of the high life came when John Woo cast him as the sinister brother of Nicolas Cage in 1997's Face/Off. Nivola then headed across the Atlantic and picked up roles in British productions I Want You (1998) and Mansfield Park (1998) - employing an accent that was so convincing it had many thinking he was British. Perhaps that's why Kenneth Branagh cast him in the musical version of Love's Labour's Lost (2000).

But Jurassic Park III found him back States-side - and it looks like things will just keep getting better for Nivola.