THR's 20 New Stars to Watch. Plus Ezra Miller.

by Nathaniel R

Remember when the release of Vanity Fair's "Hollywood Issue" used to be so exciting for its semi-frequent attempts to predict who would be the next big things? You could spot future superstars as well as divine which actors, great future or not, had hustling agents that managed to snag them covers with little actual work to back that up. The Hollywood Reporter is trying their hand at something similar with their new issue, which has four cover stars, two of whom (Awkwafina, Ezra Miller) aren't listed within the "NextGen" list presumably because they've already "arrived"? We don't know. The other two cover stars (Letitia Wright, Noah Centineo) are represented on the list after the jump...

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C O N S I D E R - Actors of 2018, First Half of Year

With the year half over, it's time to look back on the first six months of the year and what treasures they brought us. Here are the 18 performances by male actors that we liked the most thus far this year. It should probably suffice to say that this list was much easier to come up with then the forthcoming female list since the competition wasn't as fierce. (Four key films I missed that might have played into these categories were The Rider, Lean on Pete, You Were Never Really Here, and Paddington 2)

5 LEADING ACTORS
(Jan 1st through June 30th releases)

Daniel Giménez Cacho as "Don Diego de Zama" in Zama
Though I didn't much care for this film, Giménez Cacho, the talented Mexican/Spanish star (of Blancanieves and Cronos fame... and the unseen narrator of all time Mexican classic Y Tu Mama Tambien) delivers as the frustrated sickly officer of the Spanish crown longing for a transfer that may never come.

Alden Ehrenreich as "Han Solo" in Solo
Mimicry is overrated. It's better to get the spirit of a thing than to duplicate the tics. He manages the former though the script fights against it, refashioning Han as a hero at the beginning. 

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