John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta (born February 18, 1954) is an American actor, film producer, dancer, and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, appearing on the television series "Welcome Back, Kotter" (1975–1979) and starring in the box office successes "Saturday Night Fever" (1977) and "Grease" (1978). His acting career declined through the 1980s, but enjoyed a resurgence in the 1990s with his role in "Pulp Fiction" (1994), and he has since starred in films such as "Get Shorty", "Broken Arrow", "Face/Off", "Swordfish", "Be Cool", "Wild Hogs", "Hairspray", and "The Taking of Pelham 123".
Gary Oldman
In 1991, Oldman starred in his first US blockbuster, playing Lee Harvey Oswald in Oliver Stone's "JFK". According to Oldman, very little was written about Oswald in the script. Stone gave him several plane tickets, a list of contacts and told him to do his own research. Oldman met with Oswald's wife, Marina, and her two daughters to prepare for the role. The following year, he starred as Count Dracula in Francis Ford Coppola's romance-horror "Bram Stoker's Dracula". A commercially successful film adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, it was a box office success worldwide. Oldman's performance was recognised as the best male performance of 1992 by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, which awarded Oldman its Best Actor award. Oldman later became a popular portrayer of villains: He played violent pimp Drexl Spivey in the Tony Scott-directed, Quentin Tarantino-written "True Romance" (1993), a role which MSN Movies described as "one of cinema's most memorable villains"; a sadistic prison warden in "Murder in the First" (1995); futuristic corporate tyrant Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg in "The Fifth Element" (1997); and Dr. Zachary Smith/Spider Smith in the commercially successful but critically panned "Lost in Space" (1998). He was considered for two roles in Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" (1994), but neither were realised. Tarantino contemplated Oldman as gangster Jules Winnfield (played by Samuel L. Jackson), while TriStar executives recommended him for drug dealer Lance (portrayed by Eric Stoltz).