Forget Nicole Kidman and her seal claps, Warren Beatty and his envelope gaffe, or Kieran Culkin and Robert Downey Jr. with their acceptance roasts speeches. The true fun of award season will always be the theater kids who are still actually kids.
Think Quvenzhané Wallis. Jacob Tremblay. Anna Paquin. Haley Joel Osment. Brooklynn Kimberly Prince. The young actors whose breakout roles come in Oscar-worthy movies have their careers made as much by the constant drumbeat of red carpet interviews as by their work onscreen.
This year, television already gave us Adolescence star Owen Cooper. The now-16-year-old made Emmy history as the youngest-ever male actor to win a Primetime Emmy Award. (He’s set up to break a similar record with his nomination for January’s Golden Globes). And Sophia Lillis, 23, already known for starring in the 2017 movie It and other works, appears in two very different high-profile fall series: HBO’s absurdist comedy The Chair Company and Peacock’s abduction thriller All Her Fault.
With the film award season in full swing, it’s time to look at some of the industry’s young(er) stars to watch:
Ella Anderson
Age: 20
Role: Rachel Cartwright, Song Sung Blue
Where You May Have Also Seen Her: Nickelodeon’s Henry Danger and its subsidiaries
There are technically two young adult supporting characters in writer-director Craig Brewer’s film, about a Milwaukee-based Neil Diamond tribute band known as Lightning and Thunder. Twenty-six-year-old King Princess plays Angelina, the daughter of Hugh Jackman’s Mike/Lightning, and Ella Anderson, the 20-year-old who plays the daughter of Kate Hudson’s Claire/Thunder. But the amount of subplot focused on Rachel, plus Brewer’s habit of closing in on Anderson’s reaction in crowd scenes, suggests this kid may be going places (or at least someone wants her to).
An honorable mention also goes to Hudson Hensley, age 13, who plays the youngest member of this film’s blended family. He exudes such Jonathan Lipnicki-in-Jerry Maguire energy that someone should ask him how much a human head weighs.
What the Reviews Say: “King Princess brings a touching fragility as Lightning’s daughter, while Ella Anderson brings a burning resilience as Thunder’s.” — Kristy Puchko, Mashable.
Everett Blunck
Age: 15
Role: Ben, The Plague
Where You May Have Also Seen Him: Nicholas Colia’s coming-of-age comedy Griffin in Summer
One of several aughts babies on this list who are also in the running for this year’s Critics Choice Award for Best Young Actor or Actress, Blunck is our way into this Lord of the Flies-on-steroids psychological thriller, which manages to cover everything from bullying and the young male psyche to germophobia.
Blunck and co-star Kayo Martin, also 15, are also both nominated in this year’s New York Film Critics Online’s Breakthrough Artist category.
What the Reviews Say: “Everett Blunck is marvelous as the newly bullied kid infected by a symbolic and mysterious plague” — Tomris Laffly, Elle.
Miles Caton
Age: 20
Role: Samuel “Sammie” Moore, Sinners
Where You May Have Also Seen Him: This was Caton’s feature film debut. He’s more known for his music, after his cover of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” went viral in 2017 (when he was 12).
The preacherboy cousin to Michael B. Jordan’s more nefarious twins Smoke and Stack, Sammie is too good and pure in this world to be taken by a bunch of vampires. But this means he is also cursed to live the rest of his life with this story.
What the Reviews Say: “[Wunmi] Mosaku is a revelation as Annie, while [Delroy] Lindo steals the show as Slim — but Caton’s Sammie is the true one to watch.” — Lyvie Scott, Inverse.
Cary Christopher
Age: 10
Role: Alex Lilly, Weapons
Where You May Have Also Seen Him: Recurring role on Days of Our Lives; occasional episodic pop-ups on procedurals.
Blessed are the meek. In Weapons, Christopher’s Alex is the only member of his third-grade class to not spontaneously wake up and walk out of his home at 2:17 am one night. To find out the why, where, and how of his classmates’ case, audiences must simultaneously trust Alex’s quiet innocence and also be kinda suspicious of it.
What the Reviews Say: “Cary Christopher, as Alex, is just phenomenal. His performance even moved me to tears during a quiet but powerful moment of reconciliation.” — Josh Korngut, Dread Central.
Shannon Mahina Gorman
Age: 11
Role: Mia Kawasaki, Rental Family
Where You May Have Also Seen Her: This is her film debut.
The cute, if precocious, little girl in need of a father figure who is paired with Brendan Fraser’s fish-out-of-water actor looking for work in Tokyo? Get the tissues.
What the Reviews Say: “Gorman, in her film debut, is a real firecracker” — Pete Hammond, Deadline.
Chase Infiniti
Age: 25
Role: Willa Ferguson/Charlene Calhoun, One Battle After Another
Where You May Have Also Seen Her: Apple TV’s series adaptation of Presumed Innocent; a lot of magazine covers.
One of the most talked about performers of this award season, Infiniti sells it as an innocent teen who suddenly must go from high school dances to firing machine guns in writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s black comedy. She manages to come across as both the embodiment of her parents’ revolutionary genes and as a small-town girl who listened to her dad and definitely didn’t get a cellphone.
Also, a note for cranky publicists and social media commenters with trigger-happy fingers: We know that Infiniti is the same age as Marty Supreme’s Odessa A’zion. But it seems gross to put the latter in a list of actors playing children when she plays the adult love interest.
What the Reviews Say: “Infiniti is a charismatic screen presence, but Willa is an empty shell” — Nick Schager, the Daily Beast.
Jacobi Jupe
Age: 12
Role: Hamnet, Hamnet
Where You May Have Also Seen Him: Michael Darling in the Disney+ moviePeter Pan & Wendy; the younger version of Tom Jones in PBS’ 2023 adaptation of the Henry Fielding novel. He will soon be seen in writer-director Mike Flanagan’s new take on The Exorcist.
To die in childhood but live immortal as your playwright father’s most famous protagonist? Jupe is so cherubic and vivacious as the titular only son of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley) that his demise can come as a surprise to even those who know the story.
Also, extra meta points to director/co-screenwriter Chloé Zhao for casting Jupe’s older brother Noah as the star of the alleged first stage adaptation of Hamlet.
What the Reviews Say: “Jupe quickly runs circles around costars twice his age. While Buckley and Mescal muddle through a dense script aiming for authenticity, Jupe lives it, delivering every line with a seasoned actor’s veracity.” — Coleman Spilde, Salon.com.
Abou Sangaré
Age: 24
Role: Souleymane, Souleymane’s Story
Where You May Have Also Seen Him: Also a trained mechanic, this is his first film role.
Another nominee for NYFCO’s breakthrough artist award, both Sangaré and this film — which is directed and co-written by Boris Lojkine and is about a young Guinean immigrant seeking asylum in Paris — have been lauded by critics and festival goers. It was a darling of last year’s Cannes Film Festival and this year’s César Awards and, as of this writing, is 100 percent Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
What the Reviews Say: “Sangaré wears on his face the woes of an entire European demographic that is far too often reduced to a headline, a statistic or a policy document.” — Hilary A White, Sunday Independent.
Scarlett Spears
Age: 8
Role: Young Glinda, Wicked: For Good
Where You May Have Also Seen Her: The Paramount+/Nickelodeon film Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado; General Hospital
Who doesn’t like rainbows? Even if they can’t make them magically appear? As the younger version of G[a]linda (Ariana Grande), Spears’ limited screen time establishes that the “good” witch’s one true power is popularity.
What the Reviews Say: “Scarlett Spears plays the young Galinda in a perfect bit of casting” — Christy Lemire, RogerEbert.com.
Delaney Quinn
Age: 11
Role: Daughter, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Where You May Have Also Seen Her: Not much, but she’ll be in the upcoming horror comedy Buddy.
As the fragile daughter of Rose Byrne’s drowning Linda, Quinn’s face isn’t seen until the very end of the film. Audiences only have her voice and actions (and her mother’s reactions) to understand her.
What the Reviews Say: “We don’t see the child’s face until the movie’s end (she’s played by Delaney Quinn); we know her only as a whiny, demanding off-screen presence who seems to be slurping every drop of her mother’s emotional and physical energy.” — Stephanie Zacharek, Time.
Nina Ye
Age: 9
Role: I-Jing, Left-Handed Girl
Where You May Have Also Seen Her: Taiwanese commercials. Will soon star in a Taiwanese TV show and movie.
Another nominee for CCA’s best young actor or actress honor, Ye was “discovered” after a commercial casting director recommended her to director and co-writer Shih-Ching Tsou. The Daily Beast’s Jordan Hoffman describes Ye as “the cutest girl in the world,” but she also has a fierceness and old soul/young body vibe to her that sells this as an adult movie told from a child’s point of view.
What the Reviews Say: “The looks on the faces of her mother and college-age sister suggest a more complicated reality, but the joy of this film is seeing so much of it through I-Jing’s unjaded eyes.” — Jada Yuan, The Washington Post.
