Hollywood Handymen

Terrence Howard is making his Broadway debut in a revival of Tennessee Williams' classic, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Howard, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, plays the male lead in the play: a character named Brick. An appropriate name for Howard, who not only earned his keep as a carpenter before his acting career took off but who still keeps himself busy with carpentry and stone work. "I’ve been renovating my 250-year-old carriage house in Philadelphia," Howard says.

He just completed building a 1,400-foot long stone wall—three feet thick and five feet high—around the property, and he loved the manual labor nearly as much as acting. "Every man should work with his hands," he says. "It makes you happy."