Hollywood’s new It Girl. An Irish lad who stealthily stole all your favorite films. A morphine-addicted hacker (and TV’s biggest breakout star), a wise-cracking aspiring Ghostbuster, and the next Will Smith. Here’s a look at all the actors you’re poised to see a whole lot of in 2016.
Photo illustration by The Daily Beast
Before making her debut as a lead in an American TV series on ABC’s Quantico this past fall, Priyanka Chopra was already one of the most famous people in the world--even if many people in the U.S. had never heard her name. The Indian actress is a former Miss World, has starred in over 50 films, and boasts a music career that would make Taylor Swift jealous. So eager was ABC to work with her, given all that success, that they gave her all 26 scripts they had in development for her to sift through and choose from. The series she landed on—the soapy thriller Quantico—is one of the few new series of 2015 to be making a ratings splash, with Chopra in the lead as the main draw. ABC has a pretty solid track record turning leads of its hit dramas into household names—see: Jennifer Garner, Evangeline Lilly, Ellen Pompeo, Kerry Washington, and Viola Davis, to name a few. So remember Priyanka Chopra’s.
Mark Blinch/Reuters
Do we need another Spider-Man reboot? No! Absolutely not. But will it catapult Tom Holland into another stratosphere of fame? It’s as inevitable as a cinema year filled with superhero reboots. Prior to being hired as Hollywood’s next web-slinger, the 19-year-old Brit has been steadily solidifying a standing in Hollywood with stellar work in the tsunami drama The Impossible and supporting roles in the award-winning miniseries Wolf Hall and Ron Howard’s recent Moby Dick-esque epic In the Heart of the Sea. While yet another Spider-Man origin story seems a bit tired, there’s reason to be excited for it: with Holland, finally an actor under the age of 20 will be playing the teenage superhero.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty
With roles in the Jack Reacher, A Good Day to Die Hard, Terminator Genisys, and the Divergent series, Jai Courtney and his agents have really wanted the brawny Australian to break out as Hollywood’s next great action star. While none of those films made as much of an impression as those involved probably hoped, expect Courtney to finally break out in a big way in 2016 with his role in the surefire hit Suicide Squad. The dark supervillain blockbuster has been on the must-see list for comic-book nerds and action flick obsessives since it began casting, and should finally prove a worthy showcase for Courtney’s shoot-em-up bonafides.
Amid all the talk about which young Harry Potter actors have enjoyed the most fruitful post-Hogwarts film careers, the most successful of them all, Domhnall Gleeson (the noble Bill Weasley in the franchise), is often overlooked. In 2015, Gleeson was the secret weapon in a quartet of the year’s most important movies: Ex Machina, Brooklyn, The Revenant, and a movie you might have heard of called Star Wars: The Force Awakens. A run like that quickly skyrockets an actor to in-demand Hollywood status. And it isn’t about time we’ve had another red-headed A-lister to swoon over?
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
After winning a nationwide casting call to play the lead role of Dorothy in NBC’s mega-event live broadcast of The Wiz, 19-year-old Shanice Williams didn’t just ease on down the road—she shot down it like a solar flare. The unknown ingenue held her own against seasoned performers Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, and Glee’s Amber Riley, earning rave reviews from critics for her poised and confident professional acting debut. It’s a star-is-born performance to rival original Wiz star Stephanie Mills’s. Williams has said her dream is to be on Broadway. At this point, only the most brainless of rialto producers have put off calling.
Jeff Riedel/NBC
Though she’s the daughter of Law and Order icon Sam Waterston, Katherine Waterston has proven there’s no nepotism involved in her Hollywood rise with astonishing scene-stealing turns in Boardwalk Empire, Inherent Vice, and, especially, her delicate work as the mother of Steve Jobs’s daughter in Aaron Sorkin’s Oscar-courting biopic. Her impressive run is paying off in 2016 with lead roles in the adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and, as was recently announced, Alien: Covenant.
Danny Moloshok/Reuters
With strong work last year in the powerful indie Dear White People and the even more powerful Best Picture nominee Selma, Tessa Thompson announced herself as a talent to watch. She made good on that promise with her fierce, tender work elevating the “love interest” role in Creed, a key to the film’s critical and box-office success. In 2016, she’ll be a series regular on the hotly anticipated HBO drama Westworld, joining a cast that includes Ed Harris, Anthony Hopkins, James Marsden, and Thandie Newton. After a few years of seeing her star rising, 2016 will be the year that it’s arrived.
Danny Moloshok/Reuters
Nearly 20 years ago exactly, a star of charming TV comedy was cast in a major blockbuster about an alien attack and became one of film’s biggest action stars ever. That comedy was The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, that film was Independence Day, and that superstar is Will Smith. Jessie Usher, who will star in next year’s big Independence Day sequel, is poised to follow that same trajectory. Usher is best known for his role in the underrated Starz comedy Survivor’s Remorse, and will play the son of Smith’s Independence Day character in Independence Day: Resurgence. His box-office future beyond his alien ass-kicking blockbuster debut? Very promising.
Michael Loccisano/Getty
The curse of the breakout star is the pressure. How do you possibly follow up the kind of success that Alicia Vikander had in 2015? Between The Danish Girl and Ex-Machina, Vikander gave two of the most arresting, nuanced performances of the year—with a Golden Globe nod for each of the films and at least one Oscar nomination all-but-assured to show for it. The year 2016 will see her ascend confidently to leading lady status, with a plum role opposite Matt Damon in his return to the Jason Bourne franchise and opposite Michael Fassbender and Rachel Weisz in the Derek Cianfrance’s buzzy The Light Between Oceans.
Luke MacGregor/Reuters
It’s rare when a Broadway show’s buzz is loud enough to break through the New York-centric media so that mainstream America is aware of it too. It’s almost unheard of for that buzz to be so loud that people not just in New York, but everywhere, are tired of hearing about it. The obsession over Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop musical about founding father Alexander Hamilton (really!), is almost unrivaled. The show is sold out until just about the next millennium, its original cast album made the highest chart debut since 1963, and Hamilton-inspired memes have flooded social media. As for its stars Leslie Odom Jr., Jonathan Groff, Phillipa Soo, Renee Elise Goldberry, and recent MacArthur Genius Miranda, when their contracts are up they’ll be the most in-demand performers in show business--on Broadway or otherwise.
via Instagram
What happens when you star in the record-smashing, movie event of the century, a film that is poised to become the highest-grossing of all time? Well, you become very, very famous. That’s big news for Oscar Isaac, Gwendoline Christie, and Adam Driver, three actors who have already made names for themselves outside of the galaxy far, far away but whose face- and name-recognition just reached another level. As for relative unknowns John Boyega and Daisy Ridley? The star-making force is strong with these ones.
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney
Super-cute Romanian-born actor Sebastian Stan already has a the kind of super-handsome face you won’t forget. You’ve seen it in Gossip Girl, the USA miniseries Political Animals, this year’s blockbuster hit The Martian, and especially in his role as Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier in the Captain America films. Stan will continue to make you swoon in 2016 with another turn as Bucky Barnes in Captain America: Civil War, and even more excitingly, in Jim Carrey’s promising pilot for I’m Dying Up Here, a Showtime series about stand-up comedy in the 1970s. With Melissa Leo, Ari Graynor, and Clark Duke also on board, I’m Dying Up Here already has status as one of the most interestingly casted pilots of next year.
Gus Ruelas/Reuters
With 409 scripted TV series airing in 2015, it takes a lot to get noticed. It’s a small miracle that any unknown star can break through that crowd, but, then again, few first-time TV stars are as unique, quirky, fun, silly, irreverent, talented, and confidently weird as Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’s Rachel Bloom. Her CW TV musical comedy isn’t the biggest ratings hit of the year, but it’s beloved by critics who are determined to turn Bloom into the next big star. She’s already earned Golden Globe and Critics Choice nominations, plus a full-season pickup for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. More, she’s earned something that may be even more valuable: tangible excitement to see what she has up her sleeve next.
Smallz & Raskind/The CW
It’s an inevitability, and it’s been a long time coming: the biggest stars of the Internet are poised to rank among the biggest stars in entertainment in 2016. Leading the charge is YouTube phenom Tyler Oakley, who has turned his free-talking, adorkable confessional videos--often as simple as a recap of what he did that day or a quickfire Q&A with questions from his 20 million or so fans--into a cross-platform megabrand. In 2015 alone, Oakley saw his YouTube channel approach 8 million subscribers; he released his first book, Binge; sold out a global arena tour inspired by his videos; starred in a documentary, Snervous, about...himself; and had an audience with Barack Obama. In 2016, expect that kind of success to level Oakley up from Internet star your kids are obsessed with to mainstream celeb we’re all about to take very seriously.
Frazer Harrison/Getty
Of all the little-seen indie films that merit your seeking out and watching this past year--and there are many--few boast starring turns as revelatory and thrilling as Bel Powley’s in Diary of a Teenage Girl. The 23-year-old is an unusual, brave, mysterious, and confident breath of fresh air in an already inventive and unique film. As the titular teenage girl coming into her own amidst an ill-advised, though undeterrable sexual relationship with her mom’s boyfriend, she’s kindles brooding angst with unconcealable vulnerability to spark a fiery breakthrough performance that’s already made her one of the most in-demand indie actresses in the business, with five films already on the docket for 2016.
DVT/Star Max
One of the most pleasant movie surprises of last year was Kingsman: The Secret Service, a Harry Potter-meets-James Bond spy thriller that was slick, intelligent, and boasted a breakout lead performance from little-known Brit Taron Egerton. The actor will capitalize on the film’s success in 2016 with the title role in what should be one of the more intriguing biopics that will be released next year: Eddie the Eagle, the hysterical story of Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards, the first British ski jumper to compete at the Olympics. Egerton will also star in the sexy-sounding Billionaire Boys Club with Kevin Spacey and Emma Roberts, he’ll play everyone’s favorite noble thief in Robin Hood: Origins, and he’ll reprise his role in the Kingsman sequel in 2016.
Stephen Lovekin/Getty
Never underestimate the power of a critically hailed freshman drama to propel its lead actor’s career. (See: James Gandolfini, Damien Lewis, Bryan Cranston, and, especially, Jon Hamm.) Like Hamm, Malek had been building up a solid, if a bit anonymous, resume before being cast in USA’s Mr. Robot, a series that has found itself topping countless end-of-the-year Top 10 lists. The 34-year-old actor is easily the biggest TV breakout star of 2015, with Golden Globe, Critics Choice, and SAG Award nominations to show for it. Expect his face to be everywhere when Mr. Robot returns next year for season two--and for Malek to be at the top of every director’s list when casting their next franchise that needs a captivating, off-center, red-hot male lead.
Maarten de Boer/Getty
Forty years in, Saturday Night Live still ranks as the greatest launching pad for the next class of comedy superstars. That includes Leslie Jones, who has routinely been a standout on the show since graduating from writer to on-camera performer in 2014. (For all her excellent character work, it certainly speaks to her distinct comic point of view that her “Weekend Update” appearances as a heightened version of “Leslie Jones” is where she shines most.) Next year, her rising profile will rocket-launch when she stars in the all-female Ghostbusters reboot alongside Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Melissa McCarthy. A role in the Zach Galfianakis/Owen Wilson/Kristen Wiig comedy Masterminds to supplant her Ghostbusters showcase only makes more obvious: Who you gonna call? Leslie.
Mary Ellen Matthews/NBC, via Getty
Few actors make their film debuts with as much confidence, starpower, and ensuing praise as O’Shea Jackson Jr., who raked in accolades for his stellar turn as Ice Cube in the hit NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton. Jackson and his Compton cast are all nominated for Best Ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and though he hasn’t settled on his next project, a breakout performance like his doesn’t go ignored. Expect Jackson’s 2016 docket to fill up very soon.
Danny Moloshok/Reuters
The classically stunning Swedish native made her coming-out stateside with her Golden Globe-nominated work in the Starz miniseries The White Queen last year, before kicking all kinds of ass as the best part of the stellar Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation over the summer. Coming out of nowhere to steal a big-budget blockbuster right from under Tom Cruise's nose gets a girl noticed. She’s in talks to join Michael Fassbender in the adaptation of the thriller novel The Snowman, and was at one point being courted as the female lead in the next Alien film. A studio scramble to land her in next year’s biggest films also had her passing on the female lead in Gambit in order to star opposite Emily Blunt in The Girl on the Train, based on the best-selling book and easily one of the most anticipated movies of 2016.
ÃÂÃÂÃÂé Leonhard Foeger / Reuters
