The Future of Hollywood Leading Men and Women

Article by Todd Plucknett

Posted - 10/4/10

 This is something that I have wanted to write for a long time, but I just never got around to it. Recently, though, I have been reminded about it in several different ways. The release of The Social Network and The Town, the new season of House, countless commercials for the Letters to Juliet DVD, all while I am making my way through seasons 3 and 4 of Six Feet Under combined to drive me to actually sit down and put my lingering thoughts on paper. Each one of those elements featured one of the dozen or so performers that I will be spotlighting in my look at the future of the leading men and women in Hollywood.

First of all, I need to address some obvious omissions from this list. I will be looking at two movies that I think combine to show a diverse and accurate estimation of who could be some of the big stars and character actors in a decade or so. These people are mostly under-the-radar, criminally underrated, or simply people that the typical moviegoer will recognize but not know their name. So, when I omit the obvious choices of Dakota Fanning, Kristen Stewart, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Cera, and Daniel Radcliffe, other than the fact that they are not in these two movies, they are already some of the richest and most famous movie megastars in the world. I would rather look at ones that are relatively unknown or not recognized as being the huge talents that they are.

So which movies am I spotlighting? Nick Cassavetes’s Alpha Dog and Ken Kwapis’s The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Why? Well, these are two ensemble pieces that have a wide array of young talent involved (ages ranging from 12 to 30 at the time of release), most of whom are not mentioned when speaking about the best young talent in the industry. Actually, most of these actors had little or no credits before their film, and they have transformed into some of the most exciting young actors. Each one of them got their own scenes to shine. Also, the two films are ridiculously underrated. They basically got buried in mediocre reviews and in their narrow proposed target audience. Perhaps this will get some people to give these films a shot.