Michael Peña

Adept at essaying a broad array of roles, Michael Peña launched his career with guest appearances on such series as NYPD Blue, Homicide: Life on the Street, and ER, as well as longer stints on Felicity and The Shield. Though his big-screen work officially stretches back several years prior to Million Dollar Baby (2004), that Clint Eastwood-directed Best Picture winner represented Peña's first major Hollywood credit. His involvement only amounted to a small part, but he re-teamed with Baby scripter Paul Haggis for higher (supporting) billing in the latter's Crash (2005) -- also a Best Picture Winner, and this one a searing, acerbic indictment of inner-city racism.

Peña scored one of his first leads under the aegis of director Oliver Stone, co-starring opposite Nicolas Cage in the taut, suspenseful thriller World Trade Center (2006) -- a docudrama about the two New York City Port Authority rescue workers trapped beneath the rubble of the fifth building when the towers fell. Peña followed it up with a turn as a genial, resourceful FBI agent who assists a government-conned scapegoat (Mark Wahlberg) in Antoine Fuqua's conspiracy thriller Shooter (2007), and essayed a key supporting role in director Robert Redford's ensemble drama Lions for Lambs, opposite Redford, Meryl Streep, and Tom Cruise.

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide