Michael Biehn

Biehn studied drama in college before moving into television guest roles in the mid-1970s, building a modest career playing soldiers and troubled young men in a string of forgettable productions before James Cameron gave him his breakthrough.

Cameron's go-to soldier, the desperate time-travelling protector of 1984 and the shell-shocked corporal of 1986, he was cast as Kyle Reese only after Cameron's first choices for the role fell through. The low budget of the original Terminator meant Biehn did much of his own stunt work, including a scene in which he was genuinely set on fire.

His anguished performance in Aliens as the traumatized Corporal Hicks helped ground that film's much larger-scale action in real emotional stakes, and the Cameron collaboration remains the defining stretch of his acting career.