Every year, around this time, a Hot Young Thing epidemic sweeps the movie industry. In 2024, it’s been particularly infectious. This year, the fresh faces in studio movies have been eclipsed by the urgent, committed work of new actors in the indie world. Maybe that’s a product of the 2022 actor’s strike, which, owing to SAG-AFTRA rules, meant that the projects here were some of the only ones permitted to shoot. The arthouse indies persevered; stars like these were born in the process.
There are seven in particular that caught our attention, conjuring a collection of knockout performances. Some, still teenagers, were plucked from obscurity by canny casting directors, like Mia Tharia, the star of the freakish sister story September Says, and Nykiya Adams, who went into school one day and emerged as Andrea Arnold’s new lead in Bird. Two have worked together, having toiled away in quieter parts of the industry for a while: Isaac Powell, a prolific stage actor who’s rubbed shoulders with legends; Ruaridh Mollica having torn up Scottish TV. Both appear in Sam Mendes’ satirical series The Franchise; Mollica also leads Sebastian, a knotty and evocative drama about a writer delving into the world of gay sex work.
Then there’s the ones who find themselves in the thick of the Oscar race, watching the movies they made ascend into the upper echelons of arthouse cinema. Northern powerhouse Emma Laird makes a punchy appearance in the very long and very great The Brutalist. In Nickel Boys, Ethan Herisse spends as much time behind the camera as he does in front of it — the inspired adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel is quite literally shot from the perspective of its two leads. Then there’s Tuwaine Barrett, whose quiet, mesmerising performance opposite the Oscar-tipped Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths elevates everyone around him.
They all have some stories to tell. Read them below and gloat to your friends when you say you stanned them first.
Credits
Writers: Anahit Behrooz, Kambole Campbell, Douglas Greenwood, Iana Murray and Hannah Strong
Photography: Jackson Bowley
With thanks to: Huxley