Actors

For actor Edward Norton, a passion for urban planning runs in the family. His grandfather, James Rouse, was an idealistic developer and planner who designed Faneuil Hall in Boston and the Baltimore Inner Harbor.

Actor Reese Witherspoon became famous in her 20s after starring in films like Election and Legally Blonde, but by the time she entered her 30s, the film landscape had shifted. DVD sales had shrunk and smaller, female-centered movies were in short supply. It was nearly impossible to find good leading roles for women.

Dafoe has played villains, soldiers, van Gogh and Jesus. He's earned four Oscar nominations and appeared in more than 100 films — including, most recently, Motherless Brooklyn and The Lighthouse.

Judd Apatow was a teenager when he first "met" comic Garry Shandling in a phone interview for his high school radio show. Years later, their paths intersected again when Shandling, who was hosting the Grammy Awards, hired Apatow to write jokes for him.

It wasn't until Kathryn Hahn was in her late 30s and 40s that she finally began landing the roles she craved, playing complex women in TV series like Transparent and Parks and Recreation, and movies like Bad Moms and Private Life. Hahn notes that most of these roles have been with female directors and producers.

After appearing in nearly 800 TV episodes and 100 films, the noted character actor received his first Emmy nomination for his role as a handler to a hitman in the HBO series Barry.

Sarah Jessica Parker has spent much of her acting career exploring what it means to be in a relationship — and to be single. In the HBO series Sex and the City, which ran from 1998 until 2004, she played Carrie Bradshaw, a single writer chronicling her experiences with the Manhattan dating scene. Now, in the HBO comedy series, Divorce, she stars as Frances, a mother of two navigating the dissolution of her marriage.

Hader co-created and stars as a hitman who enrolls in acting classes in the dark comedy series. In the second season, Barry struggled to express himself as an actor — while keeping his past a secret.

The classically-trained British actor plays a ruthless hedge-fund manager on Billions, which recently ended its fourth season. Lewis describes his character as "the embodiment of the American dream."

Phoebe Waller-Bridge writes female characters who are flawed, reckless and unpredictable. "As an audience, all we ever want really is to be surprised by things," she says. The actor and writer just finished an off-Broadway run of her one-woman show Fleabag, just as the second season of the TV show is dropping on Amazon.