Liev Schreiber in Living Color

In last year's Kate and Leopold, Liev Schreiber played a scientist whose time-traveling device plucked Hugh Jackman from the 19th century to woo a modern-day Meg Ryan. Of course, this quirky 34-year-old actor is used to living in a time warp. When he was a kid, his old-fashioned mom would permit him to watch only black-and-white movies!

Says Schreiber: "I'm not sure if my mother didn't allow me to see color films because she had something culturally against [them] or [because] the only theater in our neighborhood — [where tickets cost] a dollar — didn't show any movies that were made after 1950.

"She tried to take me to things like Aleksandr Nevsky and Citizen Kane," he adds, "and I would always fall asleep."

Schreiber — who currently co-stars with Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears — did learn to respect the top-notch acting displayed in those golden oldies. He even credits Charlie Chaplin among his early influences, though he's far more interested in modern movies. "[Black-and-white films] went straight out of the window when I saw Star Wars," he says. "I was just blown away. I was furious at my mother for years!"