THE TRENCH COAT Cap by PERRY ELLIS, $28; trench coat by THEORY, $595; shirt by DKNY, $125; jeans by DIESEL, $230; boots by CHARLES TYRWHITT, $265

AGE 32
HOMETOWN Oakland, California

Taking Sir Laurence Olivier's advice to heart, Rockmond Dunbar is a lover of all things. "You have to love each and every different character in order to just be free and be real within each and every project," he says. Where some actors shy away from challenging roles that might adversely affect their careers, Dunbar fears not. In 2000, he played both family man Kenny Chadway on Showtime's Soul Food: The Series and a sexually ambiguous music producer who kisses another man in Punks, Patrick-Ian Polk's depiction of the gay, black experience. "I'm not some guy off the street who's like, 'Yo, I want to be famous.' I have trained, I have studied; this is my craft, this is how I chose to make my living."     

The Oakland-born thespian's devotion to truthful representations has paid off. When casting Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005), director Shane Black and producer Joel Silver directly offered the role of Mr. Fire to Dunbar, a first for him. On the hit Fox series Prison Break, he's finding it easy to love C-Note, the subversive inmate he plays. "My mother was in the Black Panther party, so to even give off the dissemblance of authority, I got that hands down."

WHERE YOU CAN SEE HIM NEXT: Upcoming episodes of Prison Break.