Actors

In his latest movie, Traitor, Don Cheadle plays a CIA operative who goes undercover to work with a terrorist group — but then becomes a suspected terrorist himself.

Veteran actor rules the screen this summer, appearing in five features between June and August. Among his roles: a mystic in The Love Guru, a corrupt C.I.A. mastermind in War, Inc., and a stoned shrink in The Wackness.

The Pineapple Express star often portrays less successful members of society — but he's hardly one of them. The actor and screenwriter has four Hollywood projects out this summer.

Twitchy undertaker, cubicle fiend, sassy convenience-store clerk — Rainn Wilson has long gravitated toward eccentric characters. But is The Office actor attempting the leap to sex symbol through his titular role in The Rocker? Given the hair-metal coif and the still-goofy humor, probably not.

The team behind the car-racing comedy Talladega Nights is taking another lap. Director Adam McKay and actors Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly talk about their new film, Step Brothers, and the laughs they had making it.

It's taken actor Jason Bateman a while to achieve real big-screen presence, but now the former child actor seems to be inescapable. In the past year, Bateman has appeared in Juno, The Kingdom, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Now, he's co-starring alongside Will Smith in the movie Hancock, which opens tomorrow. In Hancock, Bateman plays a PR executive who is rescued by a cocky superhero who leaves destruction in his wake.

Taking a break from the family-friendly Shrek series, the comic actor stars in the bawdy summer comedy The Love Guru. It's an irreverent — some say too irreverent — romp about a self-help specialist from the subcontinent.

Rapper, producer, fashion designer, restaurateur, grass-roots organizer and Broadway actor? Sean "Diddy" Combs might be the hardest-working man in hip-hop. He talks to Terry Gross about his career — and the "characters" behind his ever-changing names.

Before Boogie Nights, before Far From Heaven, before Short Cuts, she appeared as identical half-sisters — one of them evil — on the soap opera As the World Turns. She won a Daytime Emmy in 1988; for her film work, she's earned four Oscar nominations.

Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a martial arts instructor in the new David Mamet film, Redbelt. Before starring in movies, Ejiofor was a prominent stage actor in England. Since then, he's appeared in Dirty Pretty Things, Children of Men and American Gangster.