The Big Picture - The Movie Star Ranking: 35 Under 35 | The Big Picture

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

With no new movies on the horizon, we have resorted to ridiculous rankings. First up, a completely unscientific but emotionally charged rundown of the 35 best, most exciting movie stars under the age of 35 working today in Hollywood. How did we choose them? Did your internet boyfriend make the cut? Is playing a superhero a prerequisite for this list? Tune in to find out. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelley, and welcome to The Ringer Podcast Network. We hope The Ringer can provide you entertainment and companionship during this time. So as always, feel free to check out TheRinger.com, where we're still covering the latest in sports, pop culture, tech, and media, and The Ringer's YouTube channel can provide endless amounts of entertainment. You can find that at YouTube.com slash TheRinger. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins.

And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about movie stars. Amanda, we care about movie stars more than most people in 2020. And so in an effort to combat boredom and to continue this podcast in a meaningful and aggressive fashion, we're going to talk about them on this episode. So today we're going to talk about the 35 greatest movie stars under 35 years of age. And we've ranked all of these stars. I would not say that we have complete consensus between you and I,

but we got to a pretty good place. How are you feeling about the place we got to? I feel good. I thought it was a civil process, which is surprising. I think it was more civil, probably, than the conversation that you're about to listen to would indicate. There are a couple things that we did to provoke people. We're list makers, you know, list making is an art and entertaining people is an art. And we tried really hard to make something that we thought was true and reflected our beliefs and values. And that would also be interesting. So, you know, keep that in mind as you listen, know that you're being, I don't want to say manipulated, but you are a bit. But yeah, I feel good about it.

How do you feel? Yeah, I feel pretty good too. I'm not trying to provoke people. I'm just trying to show them what's inside of my mind. And sometimes what's in my mind are provocations, frankly. Why do you think we're talking about movie stars? Why do we still care about them? And what do they mean to movies in 2020, given the state of the conversation we've been having

about them for the last 0, 2, 3, 7, 9, 12 years? Yeah, I was going to say that's like eight different questions. The first part, why are we talking about movie stars is because we like them. And I think that you and I and many people who still watch movies respond to a presence and there is some sort of X factor quality. You see it on screen and there's someone that you don't want to look away from. And they make the experience of watching a movie come alive. You know, if cinema is personal, as we have been taught, then they are really bringing that personal connection or something that no one else has. And it's very exciting to see that, especially in a time when we are not spending as much in-person time with people as we normally do.

And if you're looking for connection, I really do feel like a true movie star can make everyone feel like you're in the room with them or that you're seeing something special that you can't get from anybody else. I agree. I think that the idea here is not 35 best actors or actresses under 35. It's 35 movie stars. And sometimes movie stars are incredible actors. Denzel Washington is an incredible actor. Meryl Streep is an incredible actor. You know, James Dean was an incredible actor and a great movie star that, you know, a square can be a rhombus, but a rhombus can't be a square. You know, it's that sort of formulation. Maybe it's actually the other way around. I think it is the other way around. This is why they don't let me do geometry on this podcast. I was going to say, have you been helping children with their

homework? That's really good. Don't let me help your children with their homework because I don't know what I'm doing. The only thing I know how to do is talk about movies on podcasts. So we chose all of these people. The list was really long. I think we came up with a list of over 70 people who would fit the bill here. And I think what a movie star is now has changed just a little bit. We were having a debate about our number one pick, which we won't spoil here, obviously. And a key distinction for me historically has been, can a person open a movie in a movie theater on their own? Would you say, I'll go to this movie just because Adam Sandler is in it, or I'll go to it just because Marilyn Monroe is in it.

And I don't know if anybody on this list really qualifies anymore, which is kind of scary, kind of fascinating that there isn't somebody who at a mass market level could independently open something. Do you think that that is essentially like a formulation that has gone forever when it comes to figuring out who gets to be a famous movie star. I do think the question of whether someone can open a movie is outdated. And I don't I think that is just because of what kinds of movies are made now. Instead of minting movie stars, we meant franchises now. And so it's more likely that people are going to go see Batman or Captain Marvel than they are to see Julia Roberts or Tom Hanks.

And I think also the calculus of going to see a movie in a movie theater has changed dramatically, and that was even before recent events. So I think it's an unfair pressure to put on any one actor or actress. And I don't think that this list does not correlate to the people who have been in the most successful movies in a box office sense. There are many people who we did not put on this list who have been in some of the biggest movies of the past 10 or 20 years. So I think that part of it is just you and I don't want to define things in financial terms right now because we want to have a little wiggle room to be like, oh, we really like that person. But I do think also the way that you and I in the 90s grew up connecting to really big movie stars and going to see whatever the new Tom Hanks or Denzel or

Julia Roberts movie was, it's just not how people decide to go see movies. It's very true. Two things. One, you cited this at the end of our last episode, but going through the names here, this really is an exercise in feeling incredibly old and in some cases totally unaccomplished because neither you nor I would qualify for this list. Were we able to be movie stars, which is not ideal. It's not exactly what you want is to be over 34. I just want to say that you decided that I couldn't qualify for this because it could have been 35 and under. That's all I'm saying. That's true. So let's start talking about the rules and the parameters of how we decided to do this.

You have to be under the age of 35. If you are 35 in one day, you are not eligible for this list. And there is a big, big loser, aside from you, Amanda, on this list. And that is Keira Knightley. Keira Knightley was born on which day? She was born on March 26th, 1985. So we would like to wish a big, big picture happy birthday to Keira Knightley,

who has definitely never heard this podcast, even though I have watched all of her movies at least like 20 times. And we wish you well. Kira, 35, has been a really interesting age for me thus far. But, you know, welcome to the club. It's a great bracket to be in. And we're sorry that you can't be on this list. It's very sad for her.

She missed the cut by literally one day, which is fascinating and makes me think this was a great idea for a podcast. A few other parameters. English-speaking actors only is something that we limited this list to. That's not to say that the international performers around the world are not incredibly gifted movie stars. But with the rare exception of two picks that you and I made independently to kind of buttress this list, Amanda, we're sticking to actors who speak English in the majority of their performances. And then we did kind of a

fake math problem to take things back to mathematics. I think what we're looking at essentially is 50% of what a performer has accomplished thus far, 25% of what they have, we know they have coming next in their filmography, and then 25% of that slightly more ephemeral what we think they could be. Now, if you, Amanda, said I actually want it to be 33%, 33%, 33%, that would be fine. I think there's just like using those three things as a guidepost for making our decision is the pathway. Yeah. Please don't try to actually do the math on this because we definitely did it. There are like no equations that correlate to our findings

on this list. It was just a guide. There are Oscar winners on this list. There are, but also as you said, there are stars of the biggest tentpole movie franchises of the last 30 years who did not make this list. So, you know, we're playing a little fast and loose here. I hope you understand. You know, in addition to Keira Knightley, here are a few other people who just missed the cut. I'll name some 35 and 36 and 37 year old actors and actresses so people don't have to tweet their names at us like we forgot them because I can assure

you we did not forget them. Here they are. 35 year olds, Scarlett Johansson, Issa Rae, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Claire Foy, your beloved Claire Foy, Garrett Hedlund, John David Washington, 36 year olds. Let me tell you, there are a lot of 36 year olds on this list. Adam Driver, Donald Glover, Chris Hemsworth, Andrew Garfield, Jonah Hill, Henry Cavill, Steven Yeun, Jesse Eisenberg, Mila Kunis, Tessa Thompson, Vicky Krapes, Olivia Wilde, Felicity Jones, Rebecca Ferguson, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and the big pictures MVP, Greta Gerwig, not eligible. Some 37 year olds who you may be

surprised to learn are 37, just like me, Lupita Nyong'o, Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway, Anna Paquin, Elizabeth Moss, Gemma Chan, Seth Rogen, Riz Ahmed, Ali Wong, Brian Tyree Henry, and Kiki Dunst. So with apologies to all of those people for being just as washed as you and I are, we should probably talk about the tough cuts that we had. So just help the listener understand the debate that we had and what process we used to say this person isn't worthy or I want to take them off in favor of someone else. Well, to be fair, I don't think we took anyone off. We put together a list of names and it was just kind of we wrote down and I spent a lot of time on Wikipedia, learned a lot about the various ages of of my sort of my not peers my age peers that's the only way in which

they're my peers um then I think you and I just kind of I guess it was close to a draft though it wasn't that high stakes we each picked the 10 10 people on the list that we just really wanted to see on this list and I can only speak for myself, but I was thinking a little, I was thinking in terms of that equation of what have they already done? And then also what can I see them doing? Not just projects that they have lined up or like the evidence of their taste thus far, but that, that quality of, I think this person is like going to be someone, you know. And you and I have slightly different tastes when it comes to that. So my 10 and your 10 made some sense. There was kind of an obvious 10 that we mostly stuck to. And then we kind of traded back and forth on the last five, I would say.

Yeah. There was some bargaining going on in the final five. We made a full list, and then we swapped some people out, moved some people in. We had some tough cuts. Here are some people who got cut. Emma Watson. I'm very sorry. You got cut. Margaret Qualley.

I think there are great things ahead for her. She got cut. Daniel Radcliffe, probably the most successful person that we're going to talk about today, didn't make the cut. I'm very sorry for Daniel, who is taken to making very weird straight-to-video films of late. Radcliffe, probably the most successful person that we're going to talk about today, didn't make the cut. I'm very sorry for Daniel, who is taken to making very weird straight-to-video films of late. Elle Fanning, big favorite of yours, hard cut for us. Pete Davidson, who you noted, I think wisely, that he is still best known for TV and stand-up comedy,

but is also about to be the star of the next Judd Apatow movie and in a DC comic book movie next year. So maybe if we did this list again next year, a couple of these people might get filled in. Blake Lively. We didn't even discuss her in the negotiation. I kind of like Blake Lively. I think she's a great honorable mention. She is a little bit, originally, people still best know her for Gossip Girl and then for, like, her Instagrams. And for, like, I think she did the very... And The Town, of course. That's true. I mean, she's been in a lot of movies. She was in a movie that was in theaters this year.

But I think that she is just... Honorable mention is just right for her. That's where I am with it. Okay. A few more tough cuts. Awkwafina obviously had a great debut in The Farewell. We'll see where she takes her career. Zoe Kravitz, who actually as the star of High Fidelity,

now all of a sudden seems like a TV star to me and maybe not a movie star. Mackenzie Davis was a very hard one for me personally. I think if Terminator Dark Fate had been a little bit more successful, maybe we could have made the case there. Anna Kendrick, which I think some people will take issue with because she has been in a huge franchise in Pitch Perfect. She's been in some musicals. She's been in some pretty high profile Academy Award nominated projects. But if you look at the last five years of Anna Kendrick's career, it's not so great.

She's making a lot of mediocre stuff. So we decided to nix her. Yeah, she's been in a lot of, it's been a lot of tough choices or things that didn't pan out in the last few years. And also she is in a Trolls World Tour. And if we're going to have to do an episode about trolls, whatever, then we're not going to do it here. That was my judgment. I think that's a fair judgment. Alicia Vikander, we left off the list. Zoe Deitch, we left off the list. Kelvin Harrison Jr., who people may remember from Looser Waves, if they saw those movies, I think he has a bright future, but not quite there. Armie Hammer, who, what's going on with Armie Hammer? Has he done anything in the last 18

months? Is he off Twitter now? He's mostly off Twitter and mostly off Instagram, though every once in a while he pops up. He's in Death on the Nile, the new Death on the Nile coming out this fall. So I'm looking forward to that. But yeah, I mean, he's just not where he was after Call Me By Your Name. We also cut Hailee Steinfeld, which we may live to regret. She's obviously been, she was the star of True Grit and she was the star of Bumblebee last year. She's now Emily Dickinson on a TV show. So I think there's a tricky thing here where some people are leaning more into television and that may be just as successful a route for them.

Likewise, Betty Gilpin, who most people know from TV, but was the star of The Hunt, which we just talked about earlier this week, who I love and who Bill Simmons loves too, if you heard him on the show. But we'll just need to see what other movies she makes. She's mostly been playing that like girlfriend role in movies like Stuber and the very bad remake of The Grudge that I watched this week, where she has one of the most nothing roles of recent memory. So those are the really tough cuts. Anybody else that I forgot about here on your cuts list that you want to shout out?

I'm sure there is, but I can't think of them right now. I'm sure that there are already 10 people that everyone's just outraged about. And I get it. And I hope you guys enjoy making your own list. And you should feel free to do that. But we're doing our best here. Okay. I'm going to give you a chance to shine now because we're going to talk briefly about our international picks. These are foreign language performers that we love. We're just going to do one each. Amanda, who's your pick? Yes, I'd like to talk about Adele Hanel, who is the star of Portrait of a Lady on Fire,

which I am pleased to announce is now streaming on Hulu for everyone to watch. And if you don't have Hulu, it's going to be a larger on demand, I believe next month. And please watch it so we can talk about it. I have been wanting to talk about the ending of this film for months with all of you. It is an astonishing movie.

I still think about it. I mean, Adele Hanel is a very famous French movie star who I think with Portrait of a Lady may start working, having a broader reach. I believe she signed with CAA at the end of of last year um so and I just I think she's extraordinary if you want to talk about people that you cannot take your eyes off of and again I'm going to try to keep this professional but just the most arresting presence that I have ever seen uh in a movie in some time and you know she's obviously she's done a ton of work um with Celine Sciamma and with a lot of other

French filmmakers. She has two upcoming movies that I think were also released at Cannes in 2019 with Portrait of a Lady on Fire. She had three movies, which gives you a sense of

what a big deal she is in France. But, yeah, that's my girl. Watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire. It's a great pick. She's an incredible performer. And I agree, like already reached a kind of level of fame she famously walked out of the cesar awards when roman polanski's film won just a few months ago and created a kind of a firestorm on on film

twitter at least about that action and she has like she kind of has a sense of how to be famous which is a part of this equation here. You know, you kind of need to know how to flex your muscles, flex your reach in a way. My pick is Choi Woo-sik, who people will recall as the son from Parasite, who is a great South Korean actor.

He's only 29 years old. He's also appeared in probably two of the other best known South Korean movies of the last five to 10 years. Oak Joe, which was also a Bong Joon-ho film that Netflix released a handful of years ago. And Train to Busan, which is a zombie thriller set on a train that after Chris Ryan and I did our best horror movies of the decade list, people got really mad that we didn't put Train to Busan on the list. And you know what?

That's fair because that's an amazing movie. I think it's on Netflix now. If it's not, you can definitely find it on Shudder. And Choi Woo-sik plays one of the main characters in that movie as well. He's also in a movie coming out on Netflix in just a couple of weeks called Time to Hunt. And I feel like this is not the last

we're going to see of him. And he's like, you know, he may be the logical heir to Song Kang-ho, you know, Bong Joon-ho's longtime collaborator and movie star. So those are our international picks. There's one other group of people that we're not listing here. And we're really, we're vamping here before we get ahead of our own list. But we didn't include anybody under the age of 21 years old. So we made a little kids list. You want to read the kids list? How do you feel about this group of people, Amanda?

I feel good about it, except you're missing my favorite guy because you filled this list out after I left the document. And I just don't know what the deal is with that. No, I'm putting him back on. You think this is just you alone? We can put him at number seven. That's fine. But, you know,

as Wesley told us, Archie Yates had a great supporting performance, a supporting performance, and so he will be number seven on our kids list. Thank you very much. Not a movie star,

but fair enough. Okay, fine. Here are some kids very much. Not a movie star, but fair enough. Um, okay, fine. Here are some kids we love, uh, Thomas and Mackenzie, who of course co-starred with Archie Yates in Jojo rabbit and was the star of a handful of,

um, independent films in the years prior. And I think has kind of been earmarked for fame. It feels a little bit like when Jennifer Lawrence got earmarked after winter's bone and people were like her we're gonna put her and stuff i think we're gonna hear a lot from her our girl julia butters i julia we may never hear from julia butters again or she's gonna be julia roberts there's really like those are the only two paths i feel like for her like if she gets one more shot it's over like she's gonna be a superstar but she's also still i think just like nine years old so who the hell knows what can happen to a person when they're nine years old? I think she's a little older than

nine. I don't think like 11-year-olds like it when you call them nine, just so you know. Is she like 36? Did she not qualify for the other reason? I mean, but she does have it. She has a mature presence. I just have to tell you, I enjoyed all of her award season campaigning. But man, her hair, whoever was doing her hair, I'm a grown woman that was looking at Julia Butters being like, how do I do that? What can I take away from this child? So yes, I agree with you. I think we might hear from her again.

What can I take away from this child is one of the creepiest things we'll ever hear on this show. I meant in a hair sense. A hair sense. Otherwise, I hope she has a lovely and fulfilling childhood. We also put Noah Jupe on the list, who people probably saw in Honey Boy, who is a great young actor. He was also in A Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part 2. I put Finn Wolfhard down here.

I don't know if I feel great about this, but he has been in a lot of successful things, including Stranger Things. He was in the Goldfinch last year. He's been in the It movies. You know, he's like, he's doing a lot. He's trying hard, which I respect. I'm not sure that I love watching him. You like Finn Wolfhard? I can't say that I respond to it. I never went on the full Stranger Things journey.

I did the first season and I was like, okay, good, I'm great. I hope it works out for these kids and the alternate universe or whatever. I'm told it didn't, but you can't pull me down that rabbit hole right now. So I just, he really seems like all the studios and everyone in Hollywood has decided like, this is the Stranger Things kid that we're just going to we're going to put in a lot of things. And he has an audience. And so, you know, I hope that that works out for him and that he finds the movies where he can actually be something other than the Stranger Kids thing. I agree with you. I think we probably should put Jacob Tremblay on the list, too, because he's he's did Jacob Tremblay get nominated for an Oscar?

I feel like he did for Room. I don't remember if he... I think he did. He was definitely there. He was at the Oscars a lot, and they did a lot with him. I don't remember whether it included a nomination. He was not nominated for an Academy

Award, sadly for him, but he supported a performance that won an Academy Award, which maybe we'll talk about later in this episode uh he he's also the star of good boys which was the biggest comedy hit of 2019 so shout out to jacob trembley and then you know regarding stranger things millie bobby brown i think we probably have to mention her she also is as famous as a kind of cultural figure if you've ever listened to for realsies um zo Simmons's podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network, you know how important she is.

If you've ever talked to my 16-year-old sister, you know how important she is. She has kind of penetrated the consciousness in a way that very few young performers get to. She's got kind of like Jodie Foster vibes where she's totally, she seems very mature and almost like scarily in command of her own life and persona

in a way that most young actors don't. So anybody else? Anybody else on the kids list besides Archie that you want to throw in there? No, I think we're just going to let Archie have his moment. Okay. Shout out to Archie. Should we do the list?

Let's do it. We're going to go from 35 to 1. Amanda, we'll alternate readings. So I'll read a name, then you read read a name and then we can debate where necessary. We'll try to keep this happy and moving quickly. But frankly, we may fall down a couple of rabbit holes because this shit is way too important. Us number 35.

I'm going to start with Amanda and it's a big time troll job on our part. And he just made the cut. But that major goofball Ansel Elgort is number 35. Now. Yes, he is. I know what you're thinking. Ansel Elgort is number 35. Now, I know what you're thinking. Ansel Elgort is a big star.

He was the star of The Fault in Our Stars, perhaps the signature weepy of the last 10 years. He was the star of Baby Driver, a pretty beloved Edgar Wright action comedy. He was the star of The Goldfinch, a movie that is not good, but is very high profile. And he's going to be in West Side Story, which might be the most anticipated kind of prestige film of 2020.

He plays the lead role and it's directed by Steven Spielberg. His greatest performance, in my opinion, Amanda, is when he challenged Chris Ryan to pick up basketball game on Twitter and promised that he would dunk on him. Maybe the single greatest thing

that happened, I think, in 2013. I wish we could go back to that moment right now. But I don't think he's a very good actor at all. Yeah, I think he's not an actor actor. I mean, at some point, we're going to have to get into semantics of what's acting and what is just being. I thought that he was very charming in The Fault of Our Stars, a movie that worked on me, an adult woman, like incredibly well. And you kind of get his teen idol appeal. That's one thing that's interesting about him. I think he's great as a teen idol. So Fault in Our Stars works and West Side Story might work. But buying him as like a grown man,

I don't know. He has that kind of like loose nabbage team charm that may not translate forever. Yeah, I agree with you. He's 35. That's respectable. Okay, he's number 35. He's only 30 years old. Yes, he's 30 years old, but he is number 35. And maybe we should read the ages of each of these folks just to confirm that we have done our best

to clarify what those ages are but as per hollywood tradition all of these people are lying about their ages so we can also keep that in as a you know a notable fact i'm not going to identify who i think is lying i'm just going to say that everybody lies about their age in hollywood i think that's a good point we should also note that we're just using Wikipedia information about their birthdays, which, you know, is group edited. And I'd like to shout out the people at Wikipedia who do a lot of hard work. But again, it's not like we texted all of these people and got their birth certificates. So I need to correct you there, Amanda. I put in a FOIA request on every single person that we looked into here. And so I've been able to confirm to the best of my abilities, the names, ages, dates, and social security numbers of all these figures.

Okay, great. Congratulations. Who's number 34? Number 34 is O'Shea Jackson, who you may know from Straight Outta Compton, Den of Thieves, just a scene-stealing performance in Long Shot. And he was also in Just Mercy. And he is one of the few comedians on this list or comedian flexible. I mean, I don't think his performance in Just Mercy I thought was actually very moving and was not at all funny. But there aren't many comedies on this list or a lot of people who are in studio comedies, and that might just be because they don't make studio comedies anymore. But he is extremely funny while also being able to handle larger, more dramatic roles.

And also, I suppose, action in the case of Den of Thieves. Yeah, he's an interesting one. I don't think that he qualifies quite for that. I'll see the movie because of him quite yet but i think he has shown like a very um a very ringer sensibility in terms of the projects that he picks and he's obviously ice cube's son and that's how he got an opportunity to play ice cube and straight out of compton um but he's just got like an ease on on camera you know he like he hangs very comfortably with seth rogan in long shot and kind of steals the movie from him and charlie's theron at certain on camera. You know, he hangs very comfortably with Seth Rogen in Longshot

and kind of steals the movie from him and Charlize Theron at certain times. So I'm a big fan of his and I really, I like the idea of what he could be as an actor long term. Number 33 is Jessie Buckley, who is a queen.

Rosalyn, I'm sorry. I can't just give you money. That's what you're suggesting, which I'm sure it wasn't. No, it was. I can't do that. I don't know. I'm not being funny,

but I just kind of thought with all the wee smelly candles burning everywhere and bottled water and all that, you know, you wouldn't miss it. I'll be old and grey before I save the money, whereas you could just drink

out of the tap. She is a 30-year-old Irish actress who got her start on a reality singing competition in Europe. She is the star of a couple of movies, Beast and last year's Wild Rose. She was also one of the stars of Chernobyl on HBO. She also had an incredibly weird role in Doolittle in which she largely slept through the whole film.

I love Jessie Buckley. I think she is like a major triple threat as far as young actors go. Her next part is an adaptation of one of my favorite novels of the last 10 years. I'm thinking of Ending Things, which is going to be on Netflix, directed by Charlie Kaufman.

Very also similar, kind of similar to O'Shea Jackson. I get the impression she can do a lot of different kinds of things. Can do light comedy, could do a romantic comedy, can certainly do drama, can do musical, can do thriller. Like she's got all the tools. I don't know that she's yet like famous in any meaningful way. Like I think certainly people who listen to this show might have some awareness of her because I've been yelling about her since I saw Wild Rose last April. But I'm just I'm a huge fan. I think she's like very appealing and interesting to look at. Yeah, I feel like Wild Rose is a really all time.

Who is that performance? And you go and you seek out everything that Jessie Buckley has done. Doolittle, I can't say that it's a who is that performance? Well, you can actually because you can't see her under the covers. Yeah, or hear her voice or anything. But I'm a huge fan. All right. Number 32 is Henry Golding, who is 33 years old and is notably the star of Crazy Rich Asians, which was kind of a big deal and was also in a simple favor Last Christmas, a movie that Sean Fennessey walked out of, but which I will have you know, made over $100 million internationally and was also in The Gentleman. And he's kind of, in terms of just becoming an

overnight star, especially for men, it's kind of one of the more recent examples i can think of it because before crazy rotations i believe that he hosted like a travel show and then was in crazy rotations and a simple favor like kind of within a couple months of each other and was suddenly everywhere yeah he had a similar like back like television presenter background, like no acting experience. And I think he's comported himself pretty well. This is one of the few people on the list that you chose that I was like, ah, are we sure he's good? I think he's definitely handsome and he's definitely like has that holds your gaze quality.

But I can't say that I've really enjoyed like much of what he's done at all so far in movies i think he's perfectly adequate in crazy rich asians which of course i know is a huge hit yeah okay have you re-watched like the proposal scene in crazy rotations recently don't answer that because i know that you haven't but it's actually incredibly charming and it's very hard those moments in a rom-com that final scene when you gotta you know spill it all are like very difficult to do and he nails it he's like in the airplane and helping everybody put their baggage up while also like speaking to her across the seats and like is charming and effusive and i was like oh okay like you have something i you know i don't know if he's going to be like Olivier, but I think he certainly has that X factor

and he's been pretty successful. I can assure you he will not be Olivier. There is just 0% chance that he will be Olivier. He's pretty good. I mean, one of the things that we tried to take into account through all this is kind of like what is coming up for these people. So while Den of Thieves 2 is also not going to be Citizen Kane, it is a movie

that I'm anticipating. I'm not super anticipating Snake Eyes, which is the third G.I. Joe movie that is being made starring Henry Golding as Snake Eyes. Near as I could tell, that's the only other project he has on the horizon in the aftermath of Last Christmas and the Gentleman. You know, it's not ideal. You're a big G.I. Joe head though, Amanda. What do you think about it? It's fine. No, I won't see it.

I'll never see that. He'll be in something else. I follow him on Instagram. He's just like a brand ambassador for everything now, which is not being a movie star, except that's how you then get cast in movies because people are like, oh, he's famous on Instagram. I believe in henry golding

uh okay number 31 anya taylor joy who i almost forgot about as we were making this list which is silly of me since we just spent time talking about earlier this week on the show because she's the star of emma she's also been the star of the witch and split and glass and a bunch of other genre movies. She's a very young actor and a very good actor and has a kind of similar entrancing quality where it's a little bit mysterious. It's a little bit hard to know what's going on in her mind. I think that's part of what makes her performance in The Witch so effective. She brings a different energy to Emma. I would say the haughtiness that she brought to Emma was pretty impressive. She brings a different energy to Emma. I would say the haughtiness that she brought to Emma was pretty impressive. She's going to be in a couple of big

movies this year, which I mentioned also on Tuesday's show, The New Mutants and Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho. And I think might be the youngest person on our list here and already has had a chance to do some of the biggest parts for a young actress in Hollywood. I don't know if she'll ever get to be the kind of person who you absolutely see a movie because she is the star of it, but she has sort of like grabbed the baton on a certain kind of like, almost like Jamie Lee Curtis-esque, like high level genre part that I think is pretty notable. And basically somebody like that comes around every five or 10 years and she seems to be pursuing that aggressively.

Yeah. And like I said, I have not seen the witch or split because I'm a wimp, but I am very familiar with her just from a, she has a lot of outside coverage. She's in a lot of magazines. It seems like she has been designated as kind of one of the next big things which happens to actors and and to actresses from time to time and does often boost their ability to be in projects so she very much seems to me like someone who's going to take off in the next few years and and is already to an extent who's number 30 number 30 is dev patel who is 29 years old which i was surprised by i mean know. I guess it's just that he's been in our lives for so long. He obviously was in Slumdog Millionaire and also people who watched British Skins, you know what's up. And then was also in Lion. Do you remember

Lion? I do. It was Oscar nominated for some reason really kind of harvey weinstein's last stand yeah um i mostly remember that uh chris ryan would talk about lion in the um dj collard voice remember because when dj collard was like doing his house tours and he'd be like lion anyway dev patel is also i don't know if you know this but it's like something of an internet boyfriend um For sure. Which is, there are a couple people on this list that are internet boyfriends or internet girlfriends. And that is both like a very powerful online phenomenon and something that I'm never quite sure how it translates to the real world in terms of, it maybe helps get a role. But I don't know how much it helps like people actually

to go see a movie, though that could also be changing, especially in our new world. So I, you know, he is, I can't believe that he's only 29. But it seems like he's been, he's just been playing like the young affable guy in movies for what? 15 years now, almost. Yeah. I mean, going probably back to 06,

I feel like is when skins was going on and he's, um, you know, he's, it's may surprise you or anybody listening to hear this, but he was really the inspiration to me for this episode because I knew that he had the personal history of David Copperfield, the new Armando Iannucci movie coming out later this year, and The Green Knight, which is a new A24 movie that has a very

kind of like familiar seeming A24 anticipation going on around it. It's David Lowery's new movie. It looks very cool. It looks like a modernization of an old school story type in this case, like a King Arthur style story. And I just started like looking at his career and learned that he was only 29 years old. And I was like, wow, this guy has had kind of an amazing career for such a young person. And while he might not be as beloved as some of the people that will be in our top 10, he's just made like kind of an amazing career for himself. And he now is at the center of these movies. He is at the center of an Iannucci movie. He's at the center of an A24 movie. And there's going to be when Green Knight comes around, assuming that it comes around this summer, there's going to be like a little bit of a

Dev Patel moment because of this, which I think is exciting. And I'm just a big fan of what he does. I've also given myself an elegant transition to number 29. Speaking of A24, Lucas Hedges. Now, Lucas Hedges, if you thought Dev Patel was young, Lucas Hedges is 23 years old, which is just staggering to me. He's, of course, been one of the stars of Manchester by the Sea, Lady Bird. He was one of the stars of Waves last year. And then coming up later this year, he has Let Them All Talk, which is Steven Soderbergh's next movie. Lucas hedges has like been so successful and so reliable that he's almost like a cliche of himself at this point and he has such a familiar archetype in terms of what kind of movies he pursues he's always like a very sensitive and troubled boy who needs to have

some sort of emotional catharsis to get past whatever is troubling him. But I don't want to talk about that like it's easy to do. It's fucking hard to do. And he really works on me in movies. And he is also very much a different sort of internet boyfriend. What do you think of Lucas Hedges? I think he's also incredibly talented. And I think I am one of the people who has made a couple unkind remarks, not about Lucas Hedges, but the kinds of movies in which Lucas Hedges reliably appears and then carries the movie on his shoulders because he can do that. And you do at some point learn to just like have an emotional response to him being on this screen. So that's it. I think he's great at it. And I would love to for him to get to try some different types of things if he wants to. I don't know.

He's only 23, so he's got some time. I thought he made an interesting bid for false masculinity in Honey Boy. You know, he tried to be a little bit tougher than he actually is, which was okay as an experiment. I think actually he clearly has a lane and might be best to just stay in that lane. I don't want to underestimate him though. Him in Manchester by the Sea is one of the great revelations of the last 10 years and him going toe-to-toe with Casey Affleck while Casey Affleck was doing that performance is really memorable to me. And I really like him a lot. Who's 28? 28 is the queen, Carey Mulligan, who is 34.

And let's wish an early happy birthday to Carey Mulligan, who the internet tells us will be turning 35 in May 28. Just really a club of people that I want to be a part of. Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and myself. Obviously, Carey Mulligan was broke out in an education, which is just a wonderful film, by the way, if you haven't rewatched it recently. I had forgotten that she was in The Great Gatsby until you put it on this spreadsheet. But yes, she was Daisy in the Baz Luhrmann Great Gatsby, which was really just a movie about a Lana Del Rey song, but that's okay. And then

she was in Wildlife, which was Paul Dano's debut. And as a movie, Sean, I know that you love very much and I did as well. And I think she's absolutely tremendous in it. So seek that out if you haven't. She is also, this is a TV show, not a movie, but was in a great kind of a brief spy or detective show called Collateral a few years ago, a British show that I recommend. I believe it's on Netflix. And it's just kind of like preternatural is the word that comes to mind. She just has such a sense of she's very in control and and i think has been since a very young age and you just know that you're in the presence of like a really great actor like a meryl streep kind of actor it's just kind of like this is going to be good when she shows up on the screen um she's in

a movie that was supposed to come out um in april this year that i saw at sundance called promising young woman which was written and directed by emald Fennell, which is an interesting movie. And it's a big swing, I think, both in terms of the type of performance that Carey Mulligan is giving. And also, I think it's, without spoiling anything, kind of a revenge fantasy in a post-Me Too world. So it's meant to be talked about. And I hope that we'll get to talk about it at some point. But it was not the type of role that Carey Mulligan usually takes, which is cool. And I hope she just keeps making them. The other thing I forgot is that she's married to one of the Mumford and Sons, which is just like a great personal anecdote about Carey Mulligan. And they seem to be doing great. And I just always think it's really funny. But that's also part of being a movie star is that you got to have weird trivia about yourself. And she was a pen pal with the Mumford and Sons as a child. And then they got married. So tell me a better movie star story. There you go. That's pretty good. I think it's hard to not at least

respect Carrie Mulligan. I really like her. And I think wildlife kind of reset my expectations for what kind of actor she was going to be. She's like, it's a little similar to her performance in Inside Llewyn Davis, where she kind of digs into a kind of caustic, callous, kind of angry persona that I think actually fits her really well. And you'd never think that the young woman who was in an education would have that in her quiver, but she's such a good actor. And even if she's a little bit of like, I don't know, the Mumford and Sons thing, I can't say I can co-sign that specifically, but I'm glad that she has love in her life. I think they're happy. I mean, that was just also remember the days when

that was just like the gossip update you get that like Carey Mulligan, an indie actress is dating the guy from Mumford and Sons. That was a simpler time. Were we ever so young, Amanda? No, I guess so. Oh, let's go to number 27. Number 27 is, you know, he may be 27 on this list, but he's number one in the ringer's heart. It's Glenn Powell. So you've had your chart done. Oh, yeah. Fascinating.

I'm a Leo. Uh-oh. Yeah, I know. I'm a little full of myself, but I'm very loyal, confident. Right. The chart says I'm overly confident but the truth is i wouldn't easily len powell is a 31 year old actor who if you have not familiarized yourself i would hope you would do so soon he's had supporting parts in everybody wants some the

great kind of already sort of forgotten richard linklater college baseball movie and hidden figures where he plays an astronaut, which is kind of like teeing up heartthrob gig number one. And he was the star of Set It Up, one of the most beloved Netflix movies ever made, opposite Zoe Deitch. And you might see him in a little movie called Top Gun Maverick if it ever comes out, because he's one of the stars of that movie.

He's also somebody that we profiled on the site that pretty much like everybody I know that works at the company thinks is rad and like is our idea of a cool fun movie star in 2020 and even if he is not yet like the center of the movie universe i think we feel a little bit better that he's getting the kind of parts that he's getting now yeah i think fun is a really important word that you used he i mean he he has charisma just like in excess. It's crazy. But he is also so clearly glad to be here and really likes being in the movies that he is in and wants to be enjoying things, which is something that that's a sensibility

that we at The Ringer really have. We'd like to watch movies because they're fun. And I think he feels the same way. He's notably a fan of the rewatchables and has campaigned to beyond the rewatchables so that's that's just our guy and that sense of camaraderie kind of is is is part of his appeal i agree um he's also got a motor mouth quality that like jack lemon had that vince young vince vaughn had that like a certain kind of actor who communicates like a little bit of anxiousness a lot of intelligence but also doesn't make them any less like charismatic or handsome for lack of a better word like it's a pretty rare energy that like this kind of white dude has that he it's like I

think if it were 20 years ago, he would have had a more a quicker pathway to fame than he has had having to kind of like climb the ladder of the streaming movie minds, you know? Yeah, he's not quite a smart ass because it's like it's good natured. It's someone that again, you want to be around, but he is very quippy. Yeah. So let's go to number 26. I've got Yahya Abdul-Mateen II here, who many of you will be familiar with and many of you will not be familiar with.

He's a 33-year-old actor who you might remember from the opening scenes of Us, or you might remember exposing himself in full in blue paint in Watchmen earlier in 2019. He was also the bad guy in Aquaman. He's done plenty of high profile supporting work thus far. I think almost more than anybody on this list that we've made, he has the most in front of him that we know about. So in June, he's going to be the star of the Candyman remake that Jordan Peele is adapting. He's also going to be one of the stars of The Trial of the Chicago 7, which is Aaron Sorkin's new movie. I think he's playing Bobby Seale in that movie. And he's also the star of Matrix 4. So you've got horror movie,

prestige Oscar movie, tentpole big budget. If you could chart the path for a young actor, those are almost exactly the three steps you'd want to take to climb the ladder and on top of the fact that he's just he's clearly a very good actor enormously appealing he just like he's sort of like big and imposing and not your kind of like typical five foot seven movie star like he has a really strong presence on screen um i remember him best from the netflix series the get down which was this like really bad baz luhrmann show that netflix dropped like 100 million dollars on i think in 2015 or 2016 but he played a character named cadillac and he was unbelievable and i it was i had never seen him before. And I loved his

performance as kind of like the seductive villain of the show. And when I saw him, I was like, whoever that is, that's a person. And sometimes I do that and I'm completely wrong. But in this case, I had a really strong feeling about him. So I'm glad that he's getting a lot of opportunity. And even though he's mostly starred in movies that Amanda, you don't necessarily love or care about, I do think that the ones he's going to be in soon are going to be big for you. Yeah, he just seems like the guy who's going to be the next guy. And it's interesting. It's almost like it's been decided, like everyone in Hollywood got in a room and it was like, okay, now we will just put all our chips in on this person and we will schedule everything simultaneously, which happens from time to time that someone is just kind of anointed.

And it's very clearly him, even though I have only seen us because I skipped out on Watchmen. Though I heard good things and I'm happy for everyone who enjoyed it. So, yeah, that's an exciting one. This is one where it's just almost we put more emphasis on things to come, but it just is so clearly going to happen that you couldn't skip it. Who's next? Number 25, who also happens to be 25 years of age, which is a nice little thing that we did for ourselves, is Haley Lou Richardson, who was most recently, or not most recently,

but who was recently in Support the Girls and also columbus which is a halo richardson for me was another person of you recommended columbus and i sought it out on demand like a you know a few months later and was like this is the most talented person i've ever seen on a screen and it really was just her performance in columbus just uh out. And then fast forward a few months, I saw Support the Girls and I was like, oh, who is that person? And I Google it and it turns out to be Haley Lou Richardson, who I had previously Googled for the same thing again. She just has a real, like an effervescence and kind of just scene stealing joy almost

that, almost, in support of the girls, at least. Columbus is a slightly different performance. But she, yeah, you kind of can't forget her. And that goes a long way. She's probably one of the more indie-specific people that we put on this list, I would say. Sean, I know you feel very strongly about her. I think the way that you described her is exactly right. She's just a sunbeam.

She had a supporting part in a pretty big role in Edge of Seventeen, too. And we didn't put Haley Steinfeld on the list, but we did put Haley Lou Richardson on. She's just, you know, it makes you sound like a really weird 1940s Hollywood executive to be like, the kids got it. but she just got it. And she's only done mostly small parts, and the parts that she has coming up this year, she's doing a slightly more serious movie called Unpregnant, and then she's in Coconata,

the director of Columbus's second film after Yang, which is a kind of like a grounded science fiction movie starring John Cho, which I think is going to be, or excuse me, starring Colin Farrell. John Cho is the star of Columbus, which I think is going to be also like a slightly more elevated Green Knight-ish event movie as A24 movies go. So, you know, just like with Yahya Abdul-Mateen, we might be getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, but just like pure love for this actress and what i think she's capable of and i think that like i keep trying to put my thing like lick my finger and point it in the air and be like

who will be julia roberts and that's like an unfair thing to ask of anybody but she is the archetypal thing i think of when i when we do this exercise and she's a rare person on this list who i'm just like how would you how could you watch her in a movie and not like her? Like, that's really the test is how the, getting the most people to like what you do in a movie

is basically what makes you the biggest star possible. And she's just got the, she's got some good energy. We'll see where her career goes. Number 24 is Janelle Monae, who is also in the 34 year old club, turns 35 later this year.

And she, you know, has been in some pretty big and important movies. But even though she's being best known for being a musical artist, she also was the performer at the opening of the Academy Awards this year, which was a strange performance. It wasn't bad. It was a bit odd to see Mitzamar spotlighted so aggressively in the opening of the Academy Awards. But she gives, I think, an authentically great performance in Moonlight and then a pretty good performance in Hidden Figures. And she's going to be in a couple of movies coming out later this year. I think you saw The Glorias at Sundance. I did see The Glorias at Sundance.

What I can say is that Janelle Monáe plays Dorothy Pittman Hughes, who is a feminist and activist and co-founded Ms. Magazine with Gloria Steinem. And that Janelle Monae is like definitely in that movie as Dorothy Pittman Hughes. Uh, the Gloria's we'll, we'll talk more about. Listen, respect to Gloria Steinem, who's very important and respect to, uh, Dorothy Pittman Hughes, who is also a very important. But yeah, I wouldn't say it's going to be the most important of Janelle Monae performances ever. How about that? I think that makes sense. The big test for her is going to be Antebellum, which was a movie that was supposed to come out in April. That was a kind of a glossy horror movie from Lionsgate that got pushed back due to coronavirus. And we'll see what happens with

that. That's the first movie where she is really like in the center of the frame the whole time and driving the story um early word on it was that it was pretty good so hopefully we'll get a chance to see that movie soon what's uh what's 23 23 is a big ringer favorite and i feel like maybe 23 is a little low but that's okay it's it's mileser. Miles Teller, we love you. Miles Teller, we have loved you for how long since Whiplash? Almost a decade? Yeah, I guess Whiplash is like 2013. But I feel like he's even been in stuff we've liked since before that. You know, he's really, remember he was in Rabbit Hole like many years ago with Nicole Kidman? Yeah. And was obviously also in the spectacular now

and the uh never-ending what was it too old to die young is that what the the Amazon series that Chris Ryan and my husband just like wouldn't stop watching I feel like they're still watching it he famously did not get the role of Han Solo in Solo. What's that face you're making? No, that was just a shame that he didn't get it. He would have killed it. Yeah, I agree. He would have been really good.

That could have all gone differently. But anyway, it's okay because our friend Miles Teller, yours and mine, will also hopefully at some point when we get to see it be in Top Gun Maverick. And I feel great about that for him. You know, you just reminded me that we didn't even have a conversation about Alden Ehrenreich for this for this podcast, who is only 30 years old. That's just, yeah, you know why? Yeah, damn, damn shame.

We also didn't discuss Lily Collins, who I thought of because Alden Ehrenreich starred with her in Rules Don't Apply. Those are two people who, when Rules Don't Apply came out, I was like, well, these will be the next two biggest stars of all time. And that was not accurate. Oh, well, much love to those guys.

Let's go to number 22, one of your faves, Dakota Johnson. She's a 30-year-old actress who is the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, which, my word, could you imagine the genes? She's obviously best known for the Fifty Shades of Grey movies and for A Bigger Splash and Suspiria. It's like slightly more high-tone stuff that she's done. And she is now, I think, best known for her architectural digest tour of her home. Let me just say to the listeners of The Big Picture, if you have 10 minutes and you want to feel something, then I really recommend the recent YouTube tour that Dakota Johnson

gave to Architectural Digest of her home. It is an extraordinary document. I have to say I walked away as a huge, huge fan of Dakota Johnson. I was on the fence for a while there. I'm quite enamored. Your mileage may vary and that's okay. But I will say even in that 10 minutes on YouTube, she just really holds the camera. She has a specific vibe and it is a little reminiscent of Melanie Griffith and then just

even a little bit daffier and you don't know what she's going to say and you kind of don't know what she's going to do. And I think that that is a certain, that's the interesting part of her performances. I agree. There is a little bit unclear. You can't really tell how smart or aware her character is of her surroundings, which actually helps you a lot when you're the star of a movie. She's been the star of a great many movies now, given her age. And she has this kind of like babe in the woods quality

that I think really helps her out in a lot of these movies. Let's shift to 21. Who's 21? So 21 is, I think, someone we're going to get a lot of flack for putting him this... I think people will think he should be higher. His name is Shia LaBeouf. We almost forgot about him. Yeah, we did, which is really rude to Shia LaBeouf, who is a tremendous actor and who is another person who has just been with us for a very long time. I think one of the things is that he didn't scan to us as under 35 just because we have known about Shia LaBeouf for so many years.

But he is, in fact, 33 years of age. He has obviously been in the transformers movies um he was recently in honey boy and also the peanut butter falcon and is i think just a technically tremendously gifted actor and obviously has had a lot of off-screen narrative that both complicates and i think you know he draws on for some of his performances he he does excel at really um complicated or angry angry characters and can give them a lot of layers and I there is their movie stars often bring everything that they have to the screen and that's certainly what Shia LaBeouf does and And he's very talented at it. So, you know, what does he have next, Sean?

So I'm glad you asked, Amanda. There is only one real credit on the docket right now for Shia. And that is a movie that he completed shooting in 2018. That is one of the great mysteries of Hollywood right now. A lot of people who work in Hollywood have actually seen this movie already,

but no one is ready to put it out. It's called The Tax Collector. It was written and directed by David Ayer, who people may know from Suicide Squad and Fury and some very intense Los Angeles gangster movies. And apparently this is a true story based on a person that David Ayer knew growing up who was a very intense and potentially violent tax collector in the local community. And apparently this movie is completely batshit. I've not seen it. If the producers of this movie are listening, I would love to see it. I am fascinated by this idea. But apparently it is so brutal that it is very hard to put out into the world. And it is theoretically his next movie. It could end up being a movie that we never see.

I love the idea of movies that we never see. I'm fascinated by that kind of mythology around a product project. But this is really, I mean, in 18, when Shia was working on honey boy and working on peanut butter Falcon, this was like the aggro thing project that he had going on. And I don't know,

maybe we'll see it. Maybe we won't. Let's go to number 20. I feel really weird about number 20. I think let's just foreground it. Number 20 is a 30-year-old actress who has an Oscar on her mantle and who is the star of two of the biggest movies ever made. She's the star of Captain Marvel and Avengers Endgame. And she was won an Oscar just a handful of years ago for her performance in Room. Her name is Brie Larson. I don't want to be rude, but I don't think either of us like her very much as an actor. I was like, we cannot put Brie Larson on this list and I would be fine with it. My note was like, I think that we're really overrating Oscars here. And even though we do a show about how important the Oscars are all the time, that's fine. They gave her the best

actress Oscar like they like to do to 24 year old blonde women from time to time. And I don't really think that it signifies that much. Okay. But she has obviously been in a lot of movies that a lot of people have either seen or talked about or awarded awards to. So here she is. Next, she'll appear in Captain Marvel 2. Let's go to the next person who's 19. Number 19 is Beanie Feldstein, the star of Booksmart and Lady Bird, who is 26 years old and who is just, you want to talk about sunbeams, that's Beanie feldstein in a nutshell and i thought what she did in book smart of you know being number one so recognizable to me amanda dobbins as a type a person who just wants to learn how to have fun but to be both uh not aggressive but that really uh intense

uptight personality and still have that inner warmth and that that sunshine or that you wanted to root for that person and ultimately be near that person uh is a is a special gift and she really you know has has that i just want to hang out with that person bottled so she is going to be in the humans which i just can't read you the cast of the humans because i thought that this was this was quite something so the humans the humans is based on a um one act play by steven carom and it's about a thanksgiving a family at thanksgiving so it's like a a bottle episode or like a bottle movie of like a family fighting with each other so it is uh jane how to shell as some as dear to blake i don't know who that is i'm guessing the mother richard jenkins

beanie feldstein amy schumer stephen yoon and june squibb pretty good yeah i know a couple people working on this movie and apparently it's really good so i'm really looking forward to it i'm really excited about beanie in it um she's great she's uh i had the same reaction that you did after we saw book smart i don't think book smart like aged as well as i wanted it to when i revisited it but her performance aged great she's just a star and i'm looking forward to what she does in the future we can also forecast in 2040 she'll be appearing in richard linklater's merrily we roll along the adaptation of the steven sonheim musical which they will take 20 years to make so um maybe we can do this list again for best uh 55 under 55 for merrily we roll along uh number 18 um this is

this is tough this i think we're gonna get some heat we're gonna get some heat on this number number 18 is uh is michael b jordan and michael b jordan's a 33 year old actor who's the star of creed and black panther he's one of the biggest movie stars in the world he is one of the few people who can get a movie like just mercy made in 2020 he is seems like a great guy uh his performance in the wire and in Friday Night Lights, I think are like some of the signature kid performances, child actor performances

in television history. I think that there's like an unspoken thing that is starting to happen amongst people. And some people on the ringer staff raised it during the release of Black Panther that was like, are we sure Michael B. Jordan is a good actor? Amanda, you're pointing at yourself right now.

I had that reaction to Black Panther. I would describe his acting style in Black Panther as all caps acting, where if just every single thing he said was in caps lock. And that is one style of acting, but I don't know that it conveys the nuance and the emotion that I'm looking for in a performance, even in a superhero performance. You know, I will say I defended it at the time and I'll defend it now. The thing I liked about his performance as Killmonger is if you read comic books, that's actually how comic books sound. Comic books, every utterance is an exclamation. Everything is a sort of sermon on the mount. There's something grand about the dialogue in comic books.

Now, you may not like comic books for that exact reason, but I thought he was staying true to the spirit of that. I personally have a much harder time when you apply that acting style to Just Mercy, which actually needs to be a bit more subtle to be effective. Not all the time, not in the courtroom scenes, but in a lot of

the smaller more intimate moments of that movie i just felt like he was capital a acting as you say and i don't know it's just like distracting it just didn't it felt very inauthentic i just thought he was a little bit miscast in just mercy which i think you and i have talked about the the jamie foxx and the rob morgan um'Shea Jackson parts of Just Mercy, which are on Death Row, are just incredibly affecting. And they're parts and scenes that I've thought about a lot since I saw it. And it's very important that Michael B. Jordan can get that movie made. Him as a lawyer, I don't really think that he was super comfortable in it. I remember a scene of him carrying a briefcase. And I was just like just like oh you just don't look like a briefcase is the is the type of bag

for you you don't look very comfortable with that um so yeah you know i agree i creed is also on this list and creed is creed one is one of the best movie going experiences i've had in the last 10 years so and i and i think he's tremendous in that. Creed 2 didn't work as well. Is that his fault? I don't totally think so. But we are a couple years away now from like the peak of his success. Yeah, I think he's got to stick to,

he's got to stick to Coogler. That's important. If he sticks to Coogler, he'll be okay. Number 17 is a person whose name I have said with respect and joy many times on this podcast, and I'm still not 100% on the pronunciation. So Taryn, I'm really sorry if I'm getting this wrong. It is Taryn Edgerton, who is 30 years old. And Taryn has obviously been in the Kingsman series and Robin Hood. And most important to me, he played Elton John in Rocketman last year and then campaigned

really aggressively for an Oscar for Rocketman and it got it to a Golden Globe. So you got to hand it to Taron for that. Okay. My man won a Golden Globe because people like him and want to be around him. And that is part of being a movie star. Yeah. I think he's a good movie star and not a good actor, but that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. I think speaking of capital A acting, the Rocketman performance is like a little strong for me. And I wish that movie was a little bit better. He, I think, is wisely leaning into the musical aspect of his talents. It sounds like he's going to be in a remake of Little Shop of Horrors. Really one of my favorite shows. I love Little shop of horrors so um i look forward to that uh i don't know he's he's he's good he's fine he's obviously a very handsome fellow he's obviously very famous now which is a big part of this um he's got uh elton on speed dial so there's no downside there um you need a couple of people who want it you know like i think you and i are drawn to movie stars and to actors who are a little reclusive or you know we don't like to see people trying or anyone too thirsty but you do need a

couple of people who are grandstanding you need a couple of people who can fill a room and and taryn edgerton is certainly that i agree with you um speaking of filling a room this is an actor who does it in a different kind of a way i'm talking talking about Jesse Plemons, who might be the best actor on this list. Pity I was going to invite you over for a dinner I'm hosting. I've purchased four lamb shanks. I've been simmering in a broth of red wine and rosemary. That sounds so yummy, though. Damn it.

It was actually Debbie's recipe. I like to think she left behind her recipe cards as a gesture of goodwill, but it was most likely an unintentional oversight. He's certainly the least typically movie star-y. He reminds me a lot more of a movie star you might find in the 70s than one you might find in the 2020s he's only 31 years old he's also was a star of friday night lights he also was uh a star of breaking bad he also was in the master his signature performance might be game night which is one of the funniest performances the last 10 years he's fucking amazing in game night i love love him so much. And he's also well-known

for being married to Kirsten Dunst, a personal favorite of ours. And he's also going to be along with Jesse Buckley in I'm Thinking of Ending Things, the Charlie Kaufman movie I mentioned, and a few other movies in the coming year.

I wanted him to be this high because I think he has the best taste of anybody on the list. I think he took a very, very small part in the Irishman just to be in the Irishman. And he doesn't need to have his ego served. He just wants to make good stuff. I think he met Kirsten Dunst in season two of Fargo

in which he played like the second or third lead. By then, he was kind of a big enough name that he could have pursued his very own CBS procedural if he really wanted it. But the fact that he is willing to do things like one season of Fargo is why I think he has a chance to have one of those like John C. Reilly, Paul Giamatti kind of careers where it's like at some point they're just 45 years old and they're the star of a movie and you're like, yeah, I will watch that John C. Reilly movie, even if it's not a $200 million blockbuster. In a way, John C. Reilly is a movie star. And I feel like Plemons is basically on that trajectory

right now. I love Jesse Plemons. My world was rocked when I learned that he was 31 years old. And I think a little bit of that is because obviously I watched him in Friday Night Lights and grown up with him. But also because for a while, he's been like a really high caliber, 25-year-old that guy. And 25-year-olds aren't normally that guys. You have to be 50 and have spent your whole life popping up in the character roles in a lot of different movies. And he was able to do that really quickly. And then I think does have so much talent and charisma as well. It's not like the, you know, Glenn Powell charisma,

but there is really something of wanting to be near him that is going to propel him from that guy to actual movie star. And I just also, anyone who Kirsten Dunst wants to be around is number one in my heart. That's the only endorsement you need as far as I'm concerned.

Let's go to the top 15. Now, we'll probably move a little bit more quickly through these names because they're going to be more familiar. They're a little bit more predictable. There's not as much debate around them until maybe we get into the final handful of names here. But number 15 is one that if we had done this exercise five years ago, might have been at the very top of the list. And today she finds herself at 15. Who are we talking about, Amanda?

We are talking about Kristen Stewart. I honestly can't believe that you allowed her to be as low as 15, but I thought that you displayed real maturity. And since Kristen Stewart is 29 years old, she is an extremely talented successful and famous individual obviously she was in twilight obviously that was just like a huge huge huge box office success and like bizarre phenomenon she was obviously in a very public uh paparazzi whole thing really with robert pattinson and and then that devolved she She was in Panic Room when she was pretty young. She was in Adventureland, which I know is one of your favorite movies. And obviously she's been in a couple of great Olivia Isaias movies and has tried a lot of

different things. And unfortunately, the things that she has tried in the last five years just have not really worked. And I think I'm still the only person in this podcast who has seen Charlie's Angels. And I can tell you that she was very funny and she really tried her best and she still has presence. But yeah, we can't, at some point we can't give credit for just liking the person.

Yeah, it's sad for me. I've been a huge fan of hers for a long time. I think she's like authentically cool and weird and has interesting taste and has managed to be a mainstream famous person while also showing that you don't have to play like the exact like Instagram game of being a famous person.

I just can't really support like very many of the movies that she's made over the last five years. And, you know, personal shopper, one of the essayist movies that you're talking about is probably the last great movie that she made. And she is in a movie called happiest season, which, um, the actress clay Duvall,

it's her directorial debut. That's coming out later this year from Sony. And it's one of the more hotly tipped Oscar movies, um, that I've heard about thus far, as far as like dramas go. So she might be back as soon as november of this year but you know i i'll still check for her in just about anything except for

charlie's angels uh i just you know i think it'd be crazy for us to not put her any higher than this somebody who has skyrocketed in front of her in the last six months is number 14, Cynthia Erivo, who is a 33-year-old major EGOT threat, who you may recognize from Widows or Bad Times at the El Royale, but more specifically, probably from Harriet or The Outsider, if you were watching that HBO series, or from singing at the Oscars and absolutely crushing it. Cynthia Erivo is clearly one of the most talented living humans and a great actress and singer and movie performer and television performer. And she's going to be in a bunch of bigger stuff coming later this year, including if it ever gets finished, Chaos Walking, which is a Doug

Lyman movie that we talked about on the Rewatchables Edge of Tomorrow episode that is perhaps the most cursed production in recent movie history and a movie called Needle in a Time Stack. And then she's also playing Aretha Franklin in season three of Genius, the TV show. Have you ever seen any of Genius, that TV show, which was about like Albert Einstein and Picasso in the first two seasons? I never watched it. I remember that kind of the show about quote,

hot Einstein was sort of a running internet joke at the time that it came out. But I was so befuddled by that that I never actually sought it out. But people like it and it's apparently quite well made. Yeah, I've heard great thingsuddled by that that I never actually sought it out. But people like it and it's apparently quite well made. Yeah, I've heard great things about it. I've just never watched it. Maybe I'll check it out for Cynthia Erivo purposes and I'm sure we'll be seeing plenty more of her in the future. Number 13 is near and dear to your heart. Yes, and number 13 is just

making it in on the age tip as well. She's 34, turns 35 in a month. I just really, I didn't realize that I was so drawn to my literal age peers, but I am. She's also just making it in under the wire in terms of we are not really going to be accounting for extremely recent events when we're talking about this. Aren't we? I guess we are. Number 13 is Gal Gadot, who is obviously Wonder Woman, which is a movie that I loved. And she was also before being Wonder Woman, which is a really big deal, was in a few of the Fast Five movies. And she also obviously was the reason that a lot of celebrities this week or last week

decided to sing Imagine together via Zoom in what was kind of the most instantly and roundly mocked piece of coronavirus media yet released, at least while meaning coronavirus media. But, you know, it takes a certain star power to A, get so many celebrities to be willing to sing Imagine on Zoom and to B, have it be noticed that quickly and to be mocked that quickly. So congratulations to Gal Gadot, who is number 13 and who will at some point again be Wonder Woman for Wonder Woman 1984 and will also be in Death on the Nile, which is an important movie to me. Let me just say for the record that the version of Imagine that she shared on her social media accounts was a disgrace and should be roundly mocked until the end of time. You are like the three millionth person to say that.

Okay, well, I'm happy to be in good company. Number 12. Number 12 is Zendaya.aya zendaya who is not even yet totally a movie star she has been in movies i think she may she's probably best known for being a disney personality and then also for being the star of euphoria on hbo the very controversial drama series from sam levinson that came out last year. That's coming back for a second season this year, but she's also Mary Jane in the active Spider-Man franchise and is really good in the second movie in Spider-Man far from home. Like I, they actually give her stuff to do in that movie and they indicate that they're going to give her even more to do in the third movie. She was also

in the greatest showman, which I don't think you and I have ever had a conversation about, which is a movie that I don't think is very good at all. But I did enjoy Zendaya in it. And then you also had something that you wanted to cite in terms of her career. She was in Zendaya is Michi, which does everyone remember? It was maybe just a year ago, but there was a movie called Smallfoot. And Smallfoot, it was not about trolls, but it was about animals. But I don't really know what Smallfoot is about is the point of this story.

But I do remember the viral video that was made about these character posters. And it includes the lines Zendaya is Michi. And it's very funny. And if you have a minute and you want to laugh uh seek it out it also made sure that I will always know exactly how to pronounce Zendaya so thank you yeah and also notable Zendaya is going to be in Dune so along with everybody else in Hollywood but she plays a pretty significant part in the movie apparently so if you're not yet familiar with her very sort of like um um, rye performance style,

her almost like almost affect lists in a way she has like a very unique screen presence that is very uncommon for a former child actor. Usually the child actors are the like are try hards and over remote. And she has something that is like so reserved and singular that I find her just like kind of mesmerizing and like almost the perfect avatar for how we perceive people in her generation. You know what I mean? She has like tapped into a,

a kind of like mild discontent, a, a loose sense of distrust or for, or for the, for the forces around her. Like she just seems like very representative of a group of people. And I think that's part of the reason

why she has become so successful. She's both representative to us old people and also the people of her generation do like her and connect to her. It's not like she's just playing for the really old people. She is, she's of her generation. I can't wait to talk about number 11.

This is so exciting for me. Fire away. All right. Number 11 is 31 years of age. And she is in the category of, we have seen a bit more of her big ticket stuff, but it's the next big thing category for sure. And that woman is Ana de Armas, who was in War Dogs and in Blade Runner 2049, but who was obviously kind of broke out with Knives Out. And then with some recent paparazzi

and Instagram photos that we will talk about in a second. The main thing is that she's going to be in Blonde, which is the Andrew Dominic movie based on it. The Joyce Carol Oates book about Marilyn Monroe, which I'm about 250 pages in. And it's very dense. It's very dense. My goal is to finish it before the movie comes out. I mean, it's beautiful, but it's really good.

You know, I can't say that it's the lightest of reading from either a style perspective or just from, you know, Marilyn. It's the early days of Marilyn Monroe, who grew up in with a difficult childhood during the Great Depression. So it's maybe not what I want to read before I go to bed every night right now, but it's very good. And Ana de Armas will be playing Marilyn Monroe in that, which is like kind of a big deal. She was also going to or is going to be in No Time to Die, which was supposed to be out next week, I think, but was obviously the first delayed movie as a result of the world that we live in and will now hopefully be released in November. And then, as we have discussed previously on this podcast, she is going to be in a movie called Deepwater, directed by Adrienne Line and co-starring Ben Affleck. And ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to report that Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas are now dating as a result of filming Deepwater together. And it has been one of the most extraordinary gossip paparazzi runs that I have ever seen.

And we can talk about it because they are participating in it. Ana de Armas posted some photographs on her Instagram, one photograph of her on the beach, and then four blurry and unbelievably poor quality photographs taken by Ben Affleck on a old timey camera that he probably bought

at Urban Outfitters that she posted on her Instagram. And then Ben Affleck's Instagram posted asking for photo credit. So they are in a public relationship and they want you to know that they are dating. And I can't look away. I have to tell you, I can't. It's astonishing to me. We went from Ben Affleck and the way back, like on a Friday to Ben Affleck on the beach in Costa Rica with Ana de Armas on a Tuesday. It's incredible. I mean, is there a better living person than Ben Affleck?

Is there a truer Lord in our time than to pivot from the sad basketball coach drama that is a deep reflection of his own struggles with addiction directly into a relationship with one of the hottest people on earth. He is an amazing genius. Yeah, listen, shout out to Ben Affleck, who we are rooting for. But this is about Ana de Armas. And I just want to say respect to Ana de Armas because she is a participant in this. She's a part of this. It is bold. It is visionary. It's a little bit of a chaos agent situation, which I like. You don't want all of your movie stars to be goody goodies

and just boring all of the time. I'm loving what I'm seeing. It makes me way more interested to see every single movie that she's in. I can't wrap my head around it. Guys, they're just like going to Starbucks every day, even now. They're like self-quarantining together. And I hope that they are practicing social distancing and I hope that everyone is following regulations to the best of their abilities and being safe, including Ana de Armas and Ben Affleck. But it's a choice. I'm very happy for them. We should also note that Ana de Armas is also a really good actress and was the centerpiece of Knives Out. And I think has a pretty cool career in front of her

assuming her chaos agency doesn't totally overtake those aspirations. Let's go to number 10. Number 10 is Lakeith Stanfield. Good to see another brother around here. Yes, of course it is something wrong there you are is lakeith stanfield the most reliable actor in hollywood now he might be um i don't know how we got to this point i never would have guessed it if you would have asked me five years ago who's going to become the most dependable and flexible act young actor that we have uh i'm still 28 years old he's obviously darius in atlanta giving now we know is like one of the more fascinating performances

given that he's given a bunch of different kinds of performances since darius but darius is like now like a legendary tv character in my mind um you know people saw him in short term 12 he had a small but significant part in Selma. And then he was the star of Sorry to Bother You, had a huge role in Get Out. He was one of the stars of Uncut Gems. He was one of the stars of Knives Out. And then he just starred in the photograph.

I mean, he's in the middle of like a very hot run. And I don't think I, I think I just perceived him to be a pure oddball the first couple of times I saw him him and even some of the choices he made initially, like, sorry to bother you. I thought were the choices of somebody who was trying to kind of push the

boundaries, but not as interested in kind of mainstreaming his appeal. But I mean, if you look at knives out in the photograph and what he's doing in those movies, those are much more for lack of a better word, square and direct performances. And like,

they're kind of romantic and they're kind of leading man ish. And they're also kind of like unf word, square and direct performances. And like, they're kind of romantic and they're kind of leading mannish. And they're also kind of like unfussy. You know, his work in Knives Out is overwhelmed by people like Ana de Armas, people like Chris Evans, people like Jamie Lee Curtis, who are all kind of going for it and chewing the scenery. And he is really the metronome of that movie and keeps it even. And I didn't think that that's something he would have been able to do a couple of years ago. And I just, I that that's something he would have been able to do a couple of years ago. And I just, I love all the choices he's making and I love the career he's probably going to have. Yeah. I think like we as Simpleton journalists probably confused his Atlanta

performance and also some of the interviews that he was giving around that time, which, um, you know, were not standard interviews with his actual personality. And that's obviously not the case. I think this is just such a example and in good choices and movie star as a strategy and making sure you're like a part of a lot of different types of movies, but also working with directors and kind of just being in the right places a lot of the time. And that's quite a run that, that you just read. And I think sets him up because now he is reliable and people are like, oh, he was good in that. We know that if he's in our movie, it will have a certain level of success or people will respond

to it. And that's a pretty difficult place to get to as an actor, especially as a young actor, but he's absolutely there. I agree. Let's go to number nine, a controversial person in my personal taste. Yes, I will be presenting this one. Number nine is a 29 years old and her name is Jennifer Lawrence, an Oscar winning actress who has been in Winter's Bone, The Hunger Games, Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle, and Mother! I'm familiar with jennifer yeah jennifer lawrence has not uh been working a lot the last couple years she took some time off she got married apparently her wedding was really fun um i just read about it in the tabloids i didn't go but she's an interesting one of i think what five years ago she would have been number one on this list hands down even you who

have feelings about that some of the movies that she's been in um would have had to agree that she is just like the absolute movie star and i can't say that anything really specific happened i mean i guess she was also you know she was in silver linings playbook and american hustle and then she was in a third David O. Russell movie, Joy, which probably wasn't as successful as the other two. And Mother was definitely an experiment, but is not exactly like the Hunger Games in terms of reaching audiences. And so there were a couple of years where her choices weren't maybe hitting the heights that they were.

And then she did take some time away, which is obviously her right and seems smart from being a human being perspective. But I do think it's a case where she's just not in the mix as much as she was even five years ago. I think she just made a couple of movies that even she with her own unique brand of charisma couldn't save. She couldn't save X-Men Apocalypse. She couldn't save. She couldn't save X-Men Apocalypse. She couldn't save Passengers.

I think Mother is like an amazing experiment and her dating Darren Aronofsky and then making that movie is fascinating, but like it wasn't a success. Red Sparrow wasn't a success. And Dark Phoenix is one of the worst movies of the last 10 years. And those are the movies that she's made. Much like Kristen Stewart,

she just hasn't made a very memorable movie save mother which a lot of people haven't seen she does have a movie coming out probably later this year maybe not till 2021 depending on how this all shakes out called you know the tentative title is red white and water uh which is directed by a woman named lila nugabower who is a very very well respected young broad Broadway director who has worked with Andy Baker quite a bit, the playwright. And, you know, it's a it's an A24 movie. It's a Scott Rudin movie. It's like kind of got all the pieces. Brian Tyree Henry is in it. You know, it's similar to the movie The Humans we were talking about, which comes from the same group

of people like it has all of the feel of a like getting back to your roots a hard one serious performance in a drama that kind of got her on the map in the first place with winter's bone if she's gonna do that and like not do i'm just jennifer lawrence in every movie which is something that started to grate on me after a while or really very quickly um I know what you're going to say. That is being a movie star. I know. Well, I was just going to say, says the guy who's the next, who's asking who the next Julia Roberts is.

I know. I know. Maybe it's just her version of being Julia Roberts. I just, I could, I never connected to it. I just couldn't get into it. I've been rude about her in the past. I choose to not be rude in the future. I just, by the time we got to Joy, I was like, well, this is, the emperor has no clothes. You know what I mean? Uh, maybe she can change that. Let's go to number eight. Number

eight is Tom Holland. Uh, Tom Holland seems like such a sweet kid and maybe we're overrating him because he just seems like such a nice boy. Uh, he's 23 years old. He's Spider-Man. He's Spider-Man. He is the voice in Onward. He's been in the biggest Marvel movies, and he is at a great tipping point that not many of the people on this list are, which is that he is emerging from mainstream friendly movie stardom and now taking on difficult, challenging roles in the near future in an attempt to broaden his palette and maybe gain a little bit more credibility as an actor. First, he's going to be in a movie called The Devil All the Time, which is an Antonio Campos Netflix movie. If you have seen any Antonio Campos films, you know that he does not make soft, cuddly or superheroic movies. And then he's going to be

in Cherry, which is directed by the Russo brothers who made Avengers Infinity War and Endgame. But if you know anything about the novel Cherry, you know that this is going to be a super gnarly movie uh it was written by nico walker a couple years ago i read it last year it's essentially about a guy who comes back from the war in iraq and um becomes addicted to opioids and it is a gnarly fucking novel it's a cool novel it's a fun novel it's super easy read but it is uh it's going to ask beautiful tom holland to do some very complex things that may change his fans relationship to him um what do you think about tom holland i mean i think he's adorable i'm just always like oh that kid i'm so glad to see him

there there is an interesting thing and there have been a couple people on this list i'm thinking of deb patel in particular who um starred as teen stars and they're playing teen roles and you definitely identify with tom holland as spider-man as a teen and then do you manage to make the transition to to to being a grown-up actor or to playing adult roles but i think that is still to be seen for tom holland and you know anytime you talk about like well his fans like, I think of your sister Grace watching Cherry. And Grace will let us know.

So we'll find out. We'll see. We'll see. Let's go to number seven, which on the one hand feels perilously too low. But on the other hand, I don't know what to do about it.

Who's number seven? Number seven is Saoirse Ronan, who is one of the great actors working right now, in my opinion. And she's also 25 years old and has been nominated for an Oscar four times, which is nuts. Which is nuts. So one of those nominations is for Atonement, in which she can't be more than 12 years old. Maybe she's younger. She could be much younger. And that is, that's another thing that's pretty hard. We were talking about, I was just talking about teens growing up into adults, but you don't

often see true child stars then also segue into really successful and like accomplished and varied adult careers. But Saoirse Ronan has just kind of kept working the entire time uh obviously she was in Hana and the Grand Budapest Hotel Brooklyn Lady Bird Little Women a lot of my favorite movies and coming up she's one of many people who is going to be in the French Dispatch what's do we have any word on the French Dispatch yet still July 26th as, as far as I know. That's supposed to be the greatest week of movie content for this show all year when we get Tenet and the French Dispatch in succession. But at this point, who knows if that's still going to be the case? Yeah. I guess I agree that seven is low for Saoirse Ronan, who, as I said, is said is just again it just seems like someone who was born

with the ability to be like a really fine accomplished actor that there is something both like technically uh proficient about her but also she can put on any emotion and she can relate to you and she can relate to the other people on screen i think she her kind of working relationship with timothy chalamet is really interesting um and they have like now a couple films where you can invest in their charisma over time and that's a really exciting thing and something that doesn't happen that much in movies anymore, especially for young people. I guess she's at number seven because she does stick to, I mean, non-franchise films

and everyone else here has one major box office. I mean, Little Women made a lot of money, but it's not Avengers or whatever. And that makes a difference. Yeah, she is, to me, this is a compliment. She's Kate Winslet without a difference. Yeah, she is to me. This is a compliment. She's Kate Winslet without a Titanic. She is an amazing actress who is consistently recognized from a very young age who can be the center of a movie.

But most of the time that movie is not going to be a super hit. Now, Lady Bird and Little Women were both very successful by the standards of mainstream dramas in 2019, 2017 when those films came out but there's just like a little like cultural ephemera missing you know she doesn't have the superstar boyfriend that puts her in the tabloids which is not a judgment on her it just like diminishes ever so slightly from her her fame index i guess for lack of a better word if this were just an actor's list she might be number one um she's certainly proven to be like just tremendously uh able to carry not just great films but bad films

like that's another thing is like you kind of got to be able to do well with like your mediocre costume drama and she can really hold those together as well she's really great um i feel bad but also i think it's the right place for her let's go to number six okay yeah number six is uh is rob pattinson uh rob pattinson would not have been this high if he did not have a project coming out called the batman now obviously people know robert pattinson from the twilight films and from their relationship with Kristen Stewart that you talked about, Amanda. He's been in some very cool movies over the last five to seven years as he attempts to extricate the Edward part of his persona to seem like a slightly more sophisticated actor and human. I'm also pleased to announce that

when The Lighthouse goes on Amazon Prime, the big picture will be dedicating an episode to The Lighthouse. That'll be the week of April 16th. Please tune in. Might have to be a solo pod based on the face that Amanda is giving me right now as I say that. But Pattinson's doing The Batman and that's going to be the biggest movie of 2021. If it's not, Matt Reeves and Warner Brothers screwed it up. So I think with that level of anticipation coming in, it's just, you know, in addition to proving himself to be kind of an interesting actor

and a celebrity gossip magnet, he has decided to kind of get back in the ring with big time movie making. Can I be a chaos agent myself right now? Sure. I think we fucked up up i think he's too low um here's why it's it's very hard to do what you just said he did which is obviously he was in twilight and was like a teen heartthrob sensation and i think that absolutely i think it obviously crushed both robert pattinson and kristen seward and credit to them as human beings for figuring their way out of that because a lot of people with that level of attention and success in such a specific way aren't able to do that.

But then I feel like he's become kind of like the actor's actor or the director's actor in the last five years and the work that he has done and the projects that he's chosen. I mean working with James Gray and Claire Denis and thefties and he is like really seeking out cool things and it's very hard to go from twilight which is like the corniest shit in the world i read them all so you can't say anything to me it's still really corny to to being you know mr lighthouse and and someone who we think of as like so cool and indie and then to be like okay and now i will be batman like that is just a tremendous career reinvention and like people are not able to pull that off we don't yet know if he has fully pulled it off i mean i guess that's true but i there's someone who's at number two, and I think we should have flipped number two and number six.

But it's okay. This is like a living document, and also dissent is good for a podcast. Anyway, I think Robert Pattinson, good job. We're fans. You know what? You might be right. Let's keep going, and we'll figure out if we feel that way.

Top five. Okay. Number five. Who is it no it's florence pio yes no glory what you're being mean stop it stop it i have been second to joe my whole life and everything and i will not be the person you settle for just because you cannot have her i won't i won't do it i won't not when i've spent my entire life loving you yes it is this yes it is this is the the florence pew hive right here you're in it

if you're listening to this podcast for this long congratulations you we will send you a membership card yeah talk about just having it and just a presence and i think you have compared her to a fire hydrant before is that the correct thing but just kind of she she turns it on and then it's like florence pew fills up the entire screen and an amazing thing about her she can do that in movies whether it's like Midsommar or Little Women or The Outlooking. She was in, is that the Chris Pine movie where she was, that was the Netflix movie? And she is the queen and everything else in it is boring. But she's just being like, be safe and do what's right. And you're like, oh, I want to watch a movie about this person instead. She can do it on Instagram stories, which to me are not always

the test of a movie star, but in terms of presence and just being able to grab someone and be like, now you will watch everything that I do. And she's also going to be in Black Widow. She's also got one of the best Instagrams in the world. She's been cooking her ass off during the quarantine. I would encourage you to check that out. She's in a high profile relationship that I will not be commenting on on this podcast. And I love her. I think she's like a phenomenal actress.

She's like already a good famous person. She's dependable for just hilarious interviews. She does all the ephemeral stuff, plus has great taste and makes good stuff. And now it's going to be in a Marvel movie. So it's. So it's total tic-tac-toe for her. Maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, but we've ably covered her career thus far, so I don't feel too bad about it. Yeah. Number four is Daniel Kaluuya. Daniel Kaluuya, obviously best known as the star of Get Out.

And on the one hand, I think this might be a little bit premature, but on the other hand, I think he is a person who the future of his career is most fascinating to me out of anybody on the list. Because when he showed up in Widows, well, let me say this. When I saw Get Out, I thought he was going to be more like a Tom Hanks. And then when I saw Widows, I was like, oh, he's like John Malkovich. And then I saw Queen and Slim and I was like, oh, is he like Don Cheadle? I can't figure out which kind of movie star he's going to be. And I love that. I love that he is so flexible and has very unique taste and tries to is trying to make

movies that are meaningful and mainstream, which is pretty rare. People probably first saw him, I think, on an episode of Black Mirror in the States. And he's, you know, he's just got one of those faces in the states uh and he's you know he's just got one of those faces who when he's on screen you kind of can't look away he has a very um like a tractor beam quality when he's on camera even though he's a largely like serious actor and not really much of a famous person he doesn't have kind of any of that ephemeral stuff i think frankly a lot of americans would be shocked to learn that he is not american um he's gotten most famous for playing Americans. And he's going to be appearing in what is known as the Untitled Franhampton Project, which is coming out later this summer,

I think from Warner Brothers. And that's the only thing that he has on the slate right now. But he's a person who, in just like a very short burst, has become, for me, like a must watch. He is on a short list of people who I'm like, I just want to know what he's doing. Even if the movie isn't good, I want to know what he's doing. And in Queen and Slim, which I thought was pretty unsuccessful, he's really great in it. Yeah. Queen and Slim is the peak example of you just can't look away from him. And I think what he can do is both carry a movie like Queen and Slim, where as long as he's on the screen, you want to know what happened to that character. You're invested in that character.

And you really, you live and die by the emotions of that character. Or are you going to steal a movie? I mean, that's those scenes in Widows. It's just like you sit up straight and it's both like, you know, who is that? Or, oh, I didn't know that person could do that. And also I'm a little rattled by what I just watched on screen. He is, he just has a real, he packs a real punch. You, he can be on screen for 10 minutes and, and you will remember it. Let's talk about number two now, because we'll talk about number one and number three together. Okay. Who's number two? Number two is, uh, Timothy Chalamet, who is 24 years old and who I am a tremendous fan of and who I think in terms of, in, in terms of presence think in terms of in terms of presence and

in terms of the ability of someone just you put a camera on someone and then a large group of people millions of people many of them probably younger men and women who are interested in men start to feel a flutter and he doesn't really have to do anything and that that's just star quality and i'm much older than timothy chalamet and i can tell you that i still feel it um but he is just he both has like he has both teen idol presence and larger screen presence i think that that is something you can't teach and you can't develop. You either have it or you don't. And he more than any other actor of this generation really has it. To me, he's the Leo of his generation for sure. And the other aspect of

being the Leo is that he is very talented as an actor and picks really great projects. Yeah, he's going to be in the French Dispatch as well. And he's going to be in Dune, which could be his Titanic-style breakthrough like Leo had. Great actor, great taste. Probably the pinnacle of internet boyfriend right now, would you say? Yeah, number one internet boyfriend, for sure. I did have a celebrity sighting of Timothee Chalamet. I did see him in the wild. And that was probably like the fastest. I texted a few people and the fastest text message responses I've ever gotten from very many people. I'm just being like, where? What? What's he doing? But, you know, people are invested in Timothee Chalamet and I'm among them. So I think, but let's talk a little bit about why I thought we screwed up.

And I have just talked about how much I love Timothee Chalamet. And I think he's incredibly talented. And I like pretty much every movie that he's been in. But we were talking about Saoirse Ronan in terms of she's one of the great accomplished actors, but she hasn't been in a major franchise. And he has not yet. He does have Dune on the way. And I know that's supposed to be a franchise.

But to me, Pattinson has already kind of done what we expect Chalamet to do. And I also kind of think there's a neat symmetry in having Saoirse Ronan and Timothy Chalamet right next to each other. They have both parallel careers and similar careers um so I'm okay with him at number two and again I there is that star quality and like we're also right now at the at the real heat of that star quality and you can't underestimate that in terms of both what it contributes to a movie and what it contributes to people wanting to see a movie and talking about a movie. So I think I can defend Timothee Chalamet at number two.

And I think he's wonderful. I just wanted to open the discussion. I think you made a great case. And honestly, I would change it if you wanted to. If you said that we need to flip-flop them and Pattinson needs to go into number two and Chalamet needs to go to number six, I'd be fine with it. I think you're probably right. And I think for whatever reason, I was just like, Chalamet is number two as soon as we started this, and I don't even know why I landed there.

But maybe that actually is the best case for him that I just couldn't think anything else. Like, there is something pretty primal about his appeal to a lot of people. And I think at some point, that is what a movie star is. I mean, I don't know how many different ways I can find to say like X Factor or ineffable quality on this podcast.

And thank you to everyone for enduring it. But at some point, that's what we're talking about. And he is the embodiment of it. So in that sense, I'm okay with number two. I just wanted to have the discussion. I'm glad we did have the discussion. That's what this podcast is all about. Two people sharing their feelings about famous people that they're never going to meet. Let's go to number one and number three. I think if left to our own devices, you would choose the person who's at number three right now is number one. And I would choose the person who's at number one at number one.

Now, maybe that's rude of me to have overruled. But number three, we've got Margot Robbie. And then number one, we've got Emma Stone. Now, Emma Stone and Margot Robbie have both had extraordinary careers. They've both been recognized by the Academy. They are both still very young. Margot Robbie is 29. Emma Stone is 31. They're both white ladies.

They're both pretty flexible actors who can do serious drama, who can do light comedy, who have worked with incredible filmmakers like Martin Scorsese or Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu. I think that Emma Stone just feels like the person with the longer CV and also the only person to me who I'm like, I have to see what movie she's in. But for whatever reason, I am clouding the bad movies that she's made out in a way that I can't with Margot Robbie. So for Emma Stone, I'm not thinking about Aloha. I'm not thinking about whatever junkie movies she's made in the past. I'm not even thinking about Cruella,

which is the next movie she's making, which is like a 101 Dalmatians prequel, I think, that Disney is putting out next year. I'm just thinking about Superbad and Birdman and The Favorite and the movies that she has made that I love. And for whatever reason, I just can't do that with Margot Robbie. And I also think Margot Robbie has been fortunate to be in movies that she is not the center of the frame on that has lifted her appeal, her resume, whatever you want to call it. Now, maybe I shouldn't be judging her for that, but what do you think? So my initial response to Emma Stone at number one, which is I received this document and you had Emma Stone at number one. I think Emma Stone is extraordinarily talented.

I really like her and I like seeing her in things. And there is that you just want to be around that person quality to her while also thinking, you know, she has, there's an intelligence to her performance and she does have a little bit of the old screwball quippy aspect to both her persona and the roles that she plays. But I just, I, I kind of thought it was like a little old. I think maybe even three or four years ago, I could have supported this, but I think she's just been doing different types of projects. I mean, I loved the favorite. She's a supporting character in the favorite, you know, to the extent that it's, that's really a chamber piece and they're all three um going at it together but

she you know she did maniac which was a tv show that i did not finish because i don't finish tv shows i just think she hasn't really been at the center of the movie frame in the last few years and you know your response to me was i think she's one of the only people who can open a movie but i don't really think anyone can open a movie anymore and i don't think people are going to go see cruella because it's emma stone as cruella they're going to see it because they have children and it says cruella in the title which is you know she shouldn't be held responsible for that i think that's true of every single person on the list, but I think she's the type of movie star from like five or 10 years ago. And Margot Robbie, meanwhile, neither you nor I liked Birds of Prey. We didn't think it was successful. And it was not relatively

successful at the box office compared to all of those movies, But she is in giant franchises. She is in a lot of movies that are reliably critically acclaimed and nominated for Oscars and that we think are good in some cases. And she also produces a lot. And she is kind of in control of what she's doing. And she just seems more at the center of the moment for me right now in terms of how to be a movie star. I think that's true on the one hand, but if you look at the movies that she's actually produced, it's not exactly what you want. She produced I, Tonya, which is of course incredible. And that obviously springboarded her from the woman who was the hot girlfriend in Wolf of Wall Street into something much bigger than that and much more respected and an Oscar-nominated actor. But she also produced a movie called Terminal,

which I wrote about in 2018 and is absolutely one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I mean, no disrespect to her, it's just bad. She produced a movie called Dreamland, which no one saw. She produced Promising Young Woman, which you have some complex feelings about, which we'll wait till that movie comes out to talk about them.

And she produced Birds of Prey. And I just don't think Birds of Prey works. And I think it's cool that she found Kathy Ann and that she found Christina Hodgson. And she created this

film franchise for women, which I think is great. I think there are some things about that movie that are really strong and entertaining. But for the most part, it just seemed like

what it actually needed was a better producer. And like, you know, that And if we're going to laud her for that, I think we actually probably should note that she could be demerited for that. Now, we're talking about the tiniest of mitigated difference between Emma Stone and Margot Robbie. They're both immensely successful, great actors who are rich and beautiful and have the world at their feet. I just like Emma Stone more. That's really what it boils down to, I guess. It's not that I like Margot Robbie more. I like them both. I think they're great. I mean, in terms of people I like on this list, it would be a very different list filled mostly with the

34-year-olds who are about to be 35. And then I would also be on this list and we would have a lovely club. I just, I was trying to be academic and pick who I thought was the most representative movie star. And I think Emma Stone is a very successful movie star. And obviously she like actually did win an Oscar for La La Land, which is a movie that I liked. So I guess that tips the scales, but it just, I don't know. Like if we did this in a year when she's the star of Cruella, I don't know if that'll feel like the most central part of the movie discourse. Well, what I would like for people to do who are listening to this podcast is to cancel us.

Please cancel us for choosing Emma Stone's greatness over the greatness of other people on this list. Amanda, I am certain that we have forgotten at least one person because I remembered people up until the very last minute before we recorded. If we have forgotten anybody, let me tell you right now at AK Dobbins, she would love to hear from you. She is compiling all of your tweets and she'll be responding individually she just loves to get feedback on the show especially when um we've gotten something wrong so please communicate to

her uh you can communicate to me too and um i will probably rudely quote tweet it if you make a good point uh amanda this was pretty fun it's certainly gone on a long time uh next week i i think you know under normal circumstances what we would do is the best movies of the year at the quarter turn, you know, three months in. Now, we did get a bunch of movies. And frankly, all of those movies that have been released are virtually all available now to watch at home. So I was thinking maybe we should do the three-month Oscars. What do you think? It might be the only Oscars we get. That's great. Let's do it. Is Portrait of a Lady on Fire eligible for the three-month Oscars? For our purposes, it certainly is. Yes. Listen, everybody,

please watch it this weekend. There's only so much longer that I can do this podcast without spoiling it, okay? And I think that I deserve an Oscar for not spoiling it thus far. But I need you guys to go on this journey with me. So if you're going to do this portrait of a lady on fire, let's go watch it. Let's, let's be a part of a film community together. Okay, great. Thank you. Let me just, before I close this out, you said you deserve an Oscar for not spoiling portrait of a lady on fire. Okay. Uh, well, this has been a very useful conversation, Amanda. Thank you. Thanks to Bobby Wagner. I hope everybody out there is staying safe, practicing extreme social distancing and that they're doing well and we'll see you next week