Long Pick Lists for Join Field

Hi -- me again

Let's say I've got a table called Films and a table called Actors and
I want to build an index of Appearances using a 'join field' of that
name.

When I add a film record via the Films layout I want to use a portal
to the Appearances table to create the various apearances records.

In the Appearances portal I have the foreign key field that links the
join field records to the appropriate Actors record primary key. I
have the field set to a pop-up menu making use of a Value list based
on the primary key field from the Actors table -- and have an "Actors
Name" field specified as the field to be displayed in the menu so the
user sees the Actor names, not meaningless ID#'s.

My two questions are:

1) How do I make this interface more user-friendly given the very
large number of actor names that will be included on the pop-up menu?
WHen I try using a drop-down list that allows typing your way down the
list, that works ok, bu then the field displays the IDE# , not the
name.

I'm guess thing there must be a better way to approach this?

2) What is the best way to allow users to add new Actor names "on the
fly" as they work? Is there a way of doing it in this same portal, or
must I build an interface for an "Add new Actor to List" process --
perhaps in a separate window?

Any pointers / suggestions very appreciated.

Albert