tMF | The Movie-Fanatic

tMF's Top 30 Hottest Young Actors list is filled with familiar names - but their familiarity is not limited to being 'celebrities', a term often referred to those who hug the limelight and being hunted by the papz and having their photos all over the tabloids. These guys have been recognized for their exceptional acting skills - something that other ( older) actors could only achieve after many years in the biz.We have the likes of Zac Efron, Michael Angarano and Kieran Culkin, to name just three.

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There are also some unfamiliar names - perhaps to some of you, that is! But don't let that prevent you from discovering them and finding out for yourself how good they are. Slumdog Millionaire's Dev Patel, rising British stars Aaron Johnson, Nicholas Hoult and Tom Sturridge. To cite such 'acclaim', here's part of the review of The Telegraph for Slumdog Millionaire and Patel:

The film wouldn't be half as moving were it not for Dev Patel. He's a little hesitant and muted at first, but refines a melancholic heroism that soon becomes very winning.We feel like whooping as his character rides on top of railway carriages, escapes from Dickensian villains about to blind young children in order to boost their begging potential, risks everything to win the love of his beloved Latika (Freida Pinto).

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#30 - Dev Patel: First-time @the Top50 hitlist is the amazing and talented lead star of Danny Boyle's award-winning Slumdog Millionaire, Dev Patel. With a notable appearance in the teen drama Skins, Patel went on to star in Boyle's Oscar winning movie. In school, Dev has already made up his mind about what he wanted to be - an actor.

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Buzzine recently featured Patel in an interview, giving insights into the casting, excerpts follows:

Patel, who plays lead character Jamal, went on to explain how Boyle's daughter was watching the British show Skins when her father returned from a round of casting in India. When Boyle told his young child he could not find a male lead, she sheepishly pointed to Patel's character on the tube. The humbled director nodded his head and urged a casting agent to inform Patel he was interested in having him come in for an audition. When invited to his first-ever audition, Patel remembers taking his mother with him -- "because she is my lucky charm."

"There were all these good-looking dudes with designer clothing," he said. "I was sitting there and said, ‘Shit, mom, this isn't going to be good.'"

Moments later, when he met Boyle at the audition, Patel instantly connected with the famed British director. "He has passion for what he does. He just engages you when he talks to you."

Here is a video clip taken from Slumdog Millionaire, which shows one of Patel's acting highlights - playing the game!

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Says Patel on playing the lead and the pressure of having to carry the movie:

It was crazy, cause how I got into "Skins" was cause my mom found an open audition and I'd just done school plays in front of parents prior to that. It was because I was so energetic in school. I was the class joker. I'd done the school play when I was 10, and I won the best actor of the year award in school. Everyone went up to my mom at the end of the play and said wow does he go to drama school? And my moms like "nope!" And I remember doing the rehearsal for that play and I took on every role, and everyone wanted to be in my group, I played the director and I played this character and that character and everyone loved being in my group. I knew from that day on I wanted to do it, but then its an industry where you don't know how to get into it, it's that thing of dreams. So when I got "Skins," I was so excited that I didn't know what I was doing. The first day on set, were sitting on the grass and where having a spliff, like this group of kids...

Patel will next be seen in M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender," the Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Films live-actioner based on a Nick TV series. He will be replacing Jesse McCartney in the role of Zuko, a member of the Fire Nation.

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# 29 - Patrick Fugit: Being labeled "The Next Big Thing" in Hollywood when you're still a teenager is hard to live up to. Just ask Salt Lake native Patrick Fugit. He received rave reviews for his performance in "Almost Famous" as an aspiring young music journalist. But it was his co-star Kate Hudson who went on to movie stardom. And other co-stars, like Jason Lee and Philip Seymour Hoffman, went on to bigger things.But after "Almost Famous," it took Fugit five years to find another major role that he felt was as good.

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I remember thinking at the time, 'Wow. What am I going to do now?' and 'I hope this isn't as good as it's going to get,' " Fugit said at the Sundance Film Festival. "Unfortunately, it was, for awhile.

The 22-year-old actor has been seen in a handful of supporting roles since then, most notably "White Oleander," in which he appeared opposite Michelle Pfeiffer and Alison Lohman. But he's rejected several projects that would have given him a lead role. That is until "Wristcutters: A Love Story" came along.

I wanted to find something that was different, not just the dumb comedies and other things that were being offered to me," Fugit said during an interview in the Volkswagen Lounge on Park City's Main Street. [ read more ]

Watch the trailer of this cool indie film below:

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More insights from V Mag:

With his friends in Salt Lake City, where he still resides, Fugit formed the band Mushman, a name he got from the 1971 motorcycling doc On Any Sunday. He plays guitar, although the 24-year-old laughs at the suggestion that music could be his way of paying rent. Since Almost Famous Fugit has blossomed as a movie talent and as a man-if looks could kill he'd be presiding over a morgue. His choice of movie parts has been particularly fascinating, since he's avoided big-budget studio work entirely in favor of roles that have mattered to him. Offbeat and quirky stuff like The Good Life and Saved are his bag. That's if you can drag him away from his instrument.

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# 28 - Michael Angarano: My favorite scene in Lords of Dogtown is when the Z-Boys (Hirsch, Stacey Peralta, et al) visited Sid (played with such sensitivity by Michael Angarano). It was such a heartfelt performance you can't help but feel for the young man who has cancer and is about to die.

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Says Angarano about his character:

A somewhat awkward and eager-to-please rich kid. Sid will do anything to hang out with the Z-Boys. Whatever he lacks in skating ability Sid easily makes up for in heart, good humor and occasionally, cash.

It's not surprising to note that Angarano has made it a habit to play his characters with just that- heart. The past 2 years has been quite a ride for Angarano in terms of his career as an actor. Four outstanding features will further consolidate Angarano as one of today's most talented young actors- 2 of which are outstanding films in their own rights: Black Irish, in which he plays 15-year-old Cole McKay and Man in the Chair which centers around a 17-year-old kid who flirts with the law, underachieves at school, and is at odds with his loving mother and his constantly indifferent and derisive stepfather.

A major role in the Jet Li- Jackie Chan starrer, The Forbidden Kingdom and part of the ensemble cast in Noah's Ark: The New Beginning are two of Angarano's most recent films.

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# 27 - Kevin Zegers: Jo Walker sums up the young Canadian actor in this wonderful and insightful introduction:

Kevin Zegers is good-looking. That wholesome, all-American, Tom Cruise kind of good-looking normally found only in Tommy Hilfiger adverts and made-for-TV Hallmark movies. Except that he's not American. He doesn't want to be Tom Cruise. And the role that saved his career was anything but family-friendly.

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Clocking up more than 50 film and TV roles since the tender age of six, Zegers - a native of Ontario, Canada - found himself all acted out at age 20. Unemployed and uninspired, he was just about to call it quits when along came a little flick called Transamerica. Playing a bisexual hustler to Felicity "Desperate Housewives" Huffman's pre-op transsexual was a watershed moment, Zegers says.

That role made people realize that Zegers has a lot more to offer than just playing teeny-bopper roles. He won the 2006 Cannes Film Festival Chopard Award, which is given to promising young actors for that breakthrough role.

After Transamerica, Kevin's career got stronger and stronger, with a number of roles putting the actor in the spotlight. The Jane Austen Book Club, Normal, and The Stone Angel, are among his most recent movies. But it was in Kari Skogland's Fifty Dead Men Walking that Zegers once again shines. Kevin was asked whether he finds his role in Fifty Dead Men Walking difficult, since he's a Canadian playing an Irishman in the IRA:

For me, I try to take the jobs that people wouldn't necessarily expect of me, or want me to do, or think are even a good idea. Initially, when this was written, what was needed was a chubby, angry kid from Belfast. But I'd worked with Kari Skogland [the director] before and she believed I was capable of dong that. So, it was definitely an engaging process that felt like a challenge every day.

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# 26 - Kieran Culkin: His disappearance after his critically acclaimed performance in 2002's Igby Goes Down had moviegoers asking questions. But it seems the reason why he went on semi-hiatus is the pressure.

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Says the actor:

A bunch of projects came up in my face, and I felt a tremendous amount of pressure. I didn't make a decision. I ignored everybody, stopped reading scripts . . . It was probably a little freakout on my part from getting attention all of a sudden. That's not necessarily what I want, ever. The goal for me in this business is to work on things I want to work on, and be as successful as I can, without achieving any sort of attention or fame. That would be the best. That would be ideal.

Wrote Michael Martin on his Interview profile for Culkin:

The thing that's striking about Kieran Culkin in person is his indistinctiveness: He's smaller, more diffuse, and more everyguy than the sharp and damaged characters on which he's made his name. In blue jeans and jacket he's unrecognizable on an East Village street; in conversation he's as funny and loquacious as a corner bartender. Turns out that's by design, and probably therapeutic: As ascion of one of Hollywood's largest and most controversial stage families, he started film acting at the age of 7, and ever since has endured tabloid noise about his father's mismanagement of his older brother Macaulay's runaway stardom from the Home Alone films-a pop-culture juggernaut that threatened to typecast the entire family by default.

But Kieran definitively overcame his surname's baggage with 2002's Igby Goes Down, where he held his own against Susan Sarandon as a morose upper-class teen bedeviled by his crazy family. He won widespread praise and a Golden Globe nomination. Then he disappeared, doing a play in London and hiding out in his downtown Manhattan apartment. Seven years later, he's back, with Lymelife, a pointed and intense story of two disintegrating Long Island families in the late '70s set against the first wave of national hysteria about Lyme disease. [ read more ]

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# 25 - Nicholas Hoult: While he seems to be just your typical boy-next-door, Nicholas Hoult demonstrates maturity beyond his age - he's decent, respectful and shows a deep understanding of his work in the entertainment industry. He also knows how to play the game - he's not shy but is reserved to the extent that you'll never find him behaving arrogantly or being too sure of himself. But he does know he looks good and that he has loads of fans!

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How's that for starters? So where is he going now? Aside from Skins, he said that both film and television appeal to him. It's a matter of the script, the storyline and having the chance to be directed by someone respected in the industry. On his personal choices of films, here's what he said:

When it comes to the kind of films I like the best, I try to keep an open mind. I'll see anything, really. It's always fun to find something new. I watch old films with my parents, romantic comedies and other girly films with my two sisters, and action films with my bloke mates. I'd really like to do an action movie one day. It would be so much fun, all the stunts and stuff, just not the dangerous ones obviously. I'm a huge "Bond" fan, and really looking forward to the new one. I also reckon Bond fans will like Pierce Brosnan in "The Matador". He plays a fed up assassin, and though his character is nothing like Bond, he's still really cool.

Let's take a closer look at two of Hoult's best work (without having to include Skins, of course!) to date...

About A Boy: A comedy-drama: Will (Hugh Grant), a rich, child-free and irresponsible Londoner in his thirties who, in search of available women, invents an imaginary son and starts attending single parent meetings. As a result of one of his liaisons, he meets Marcus (Hoult), an odd 12-year-old boy with problems at school. Gradually, Will and Marcus become friends, and as Will teaches Marcus how to be a cool kid, Marcus helps Will to finally grow up.

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Hoult's thoughts on The Weather Man:

A lot of people didn't know what to make of the film at first. Nicolas's character is going through a midlife crisis in it, and everything's falling apart. It might sound depressing, but actually it's quite funny. It's a big studio film, but has a small indie feel about it, which I really like. It's also set in Chicago during the winter, and it's good to see it's not just us here in England getting the bad weather!

I was quite nervous about my American accent being up to scratch, but Michael Caine and I had the same dialect coach and I worked pretty hard at it. I think I got away with it! Once you get used to doing an accent, it becomes part of the character and you kind of forget you're doing it. After we shot the film, when I got back home and started reading other scripts, I found that I was reading them with an American accent. I couldn't stop!

There is no doubt Hoult has considerable sex appeal - it certainly stems from the fact that he's quite young but there is something about him that makes people think of such words as 'naughty' or even 'notorious'. His Skins role proved he can really heat up the screen. Here's another role for Hoult that would highlight his onscreen sex appeal:

Being cast in A Single Man is another case in point, though he landed the role only when Jamie Bell dropped out two weeks before shooting. Based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood, the film covers one day in the life of a homosexual Englishman and professor at a Californian college (played by Colin Firth) whose lover (Matthew Goode) has recently died. Julianne Moore plays his friend and Hoult one of his students. 'Myself, Colin, Matthew and everyone had to have spray tans,' Hoult says, describing the weekly routine at his LA hotel room of being hosed down while standing on towels in only his underpants. 'That was a little bit strange.' Tom Ford, he says, 'wanted everyone to have a particular look. Everything had to be precise.' Hoult didn't realise who Ford was until after their first meeting, when he looked him up on Google. 'I'm glad I didn't know or I probably would have had a panic about what to wear. I flung on whatever,' he chuckles.

While he may have sacrificed education to take on more challenging roles, he still thinks of school as being an important part of his life plans. With killer looks and the ability to act and drive girls crazy, why would anyone want Mr. Hoult to go away?

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# 24 - Tom Sturridge: Re-emerging as a young actor, Tom Sturridge returns to the big screen by capturing roles in Vanity Fair, Being Julia and Like Minds. As the young Georgy in Vanity Fair, he took to the role with much gusto, playing a spoiled, impressionable young boy who gave up his mother and settled in with his rich grandparents. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers played his father and although there are no scenes involving the two directly, he managed to act exactly like a younger version of the Rhys-Meyers character - a conniving, selfish man with little or no concern for the people who love him. In Being Julia, his role as the son of aging stage diva Julia Lambert (played by Annette Benning) brought him much notice and subsequently allowed the young actor to explore more roles to his liking. In Like Minds, Tom played opposite fellow young actor Eddie Redmayne and the multi-talented Toni Collette. The psychological thriller was hailed by critics as a great vehicle for both young actor and one which gave them a chance to further their careers.

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But it was his more recent film - The Boat That Rocked - that is finally giving him the spotlight he deserves. An article from The Telegraph explains further:

Sturridge says that he wasn't sure the film's casting director liked him - or the big beard he was wearing at the time - but Curtis tells a different story: 'We probably saw 70 people for this part over about two months so it was a big relief when we met Tom. He's handsome, but also quirky and charming. We were pretty sure when he walked out of the room that we'd found the right guy.'

Sturridge plays the part of Carl, a freshly expelled 18-year-old sent by his free-spirited mother, Charlotte (EmmaThompson), to visit his god­father Quentin (Bill Nighy) to 'learn about life'. Quentin is the boss aboard Radio Rock, a pirate radio station broadcasting rock'n'roll music 24/7 from a rusty trawler in the North Sea to millions of insatiable rock-deprived Brits, tired of the BBC's conservative offering of only two hours of rock'n'roll a week.

One of Tom's most recent movie is The Boat That Rocked. Here's a video clip of Tom's interview by Emily Philipps courtesy of Empire Magazine:

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Interview Magazine's Michael Martin wrote this amusing piece that profiles the young actor. Excerpts follows:

To take a breather from films, British actor Tom Sturridge ran among the lions. He returned some 14 months later from Botswana's Okavango Delta, where he had been studying the animals with his cousins. "I wasn't very brave or very helpful," admits Sturridge, 22. "You drive to the toilet there. You don't walk or you'll be killed." What he gained was a crash course in survival. "Once, my 10-year-old cousin was driving the car, and we were charged by 10 elephants," Sturridge recalls. Compared with that trip, the actor's other experiences have been slightly less terrifying-particularly shooting The Boat That Rocked alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman earlier this year. The film concerns pirate-radio operators in the '60s; Sturridge stars as a young Turk mentored by a legendary DJ played by Hoffman. "He's astonishing," Sturridge says of his co-star. "If you're an actor, he's one of the people you want to work with before you die." [ read more ]

I can certainly understand fan's fascination (some may say, obssession) with the young Sturridge - not only is Tom from acting 'royalty', he also happens to be an amazing actor in his own right. Expect Sturridge to rule the hitlist very soon!

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# 23 - Zac Efron: Zac is certainly a revelation! With his drive and ambition to become a better actor, he has chosen to prove his critics wrong that there is more to him than just singing. But hey, any actor who can sing and act well is always a good thing. Everyone knows Zac Efron to be one of the leads in Disney's High School Musical. It certainly gave the young actor a good leverage in Hollywood.

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There was an interesting interview from Chicago Sun-Times and I quote:

I just had this ear for music and I went around singing all the time, he says. We were a regular family and I was always involved in sports, he says. Like I said, I was short for my age, so sports weren't going to become a career. But my parents knew I could really sing. And they saw I was serious about it. [ read more ]

One of Zac Efron's latest flick, Me and Orson Welles, received major acclaims during its early screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival. Directed by Richard Linklater, Zac plays a teenager cast in the Orson Welles directed play Julius Ceasar in 1937 who starts a torrid affair with the character played by Claire Danes.

Efron has proven already that he can be a major box office attraction:

Nice guys finish first: Zac Efron proved he's a potent marquee name, as his new movie 17 Again grabbed the gold among new releases this weekend, with an estimated North American gross of $24.1 million, its very pleased studio, Warner Bros., said Sunday. Original box-office projections for the PG-13 movie had been in the low $20 million, say industry sources, so the final take had Dan Fellman, Warners president of domestic distribution, telling Reuters, "We're going to have some legs on this film."

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# 22 - Aaron Johnson: If there is any rivalry between Zac Efron and Aaron Johnson, then we have made our choice quite clear.tMF thinks Aaron Johnson rules!

Says Aaron on acting:

I have a huge passion for acting but I'm interested in variety, both in the characters I play and the kinds of films I'm involved with.

There is always a constant supply of pretty faces aspiring to star in movies. But only a few of these pretty boys and girls can really make it big-time. I've heard a lot of buzz regarding Aaron Johnson for his role in the British teen flick, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging. That got me curious, and to my surprise, he's also the same young actor who played Eisenheim in The Illusionist. If a small role in the Edward Norton starrer impressed me, what more if its a prominent role?

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The latest buzz on the young actor is being cast to play the young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy. The Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye explains:

It was important to find someone to play the young Lennon who had the chops to act opposite Kristin Scott Thomas (Mimi) and Anne-Marie Duff (the lad's mother), both powerful actresses. Johnson, who was in last year's Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging and the forthcoming comic-book thriller Kick-Ass, fit the bill. Sam told me she wanted to 'evoke the soul of a boy that becomes John Lennon'.

The John Lennon biopic is not the only good news for Johnson. He is also making waves in, at least, another 3 films.

Dummy: A heavy-drama from TV helmer, Matthew Thompson. The film is a coming of age drama about two young brothers whose lives are thrown into turmoil when their mother dies suddenly, leaving them to fend for themselves.Aaron plays Danny, the older brother.

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The Greatest: Shana Feste's family drama " is both heartbreaking and heartwarming all at once. The film opens with a semi-steamy scene between Bennett (Aaron Johnson) and Rose (Carey Mulligan). Afterwards when they're in the car together, Bennett is about to confess his feelings to Rose when a truck hits them from behind and Bennett is killed " [ read more ]

Kick-Ass: Based on a comic series. Aaron plays a lonely teenage boy called Dave Lizewski, who decides to become a real-life superhero after being inspired by the heroes of comic-books. He soon encounters a mysterious vigilante called Damon Macready (Nicolas Cage), and his daughter Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz), who are working to bring down a drug baron.

Expect Aaron Johnson to climb the rankings as a result of these exciting new films!

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# 21 - Joe Anderson: Even before Across the Universe or Becoming Jane, Joe Anderson is already a wanted man - he's a fantastic actor!

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Says Nathan Southern:

When British actor Joe Anderson debuted on screen in the mid-2000s, he immediately evinced a predilection for seeking out supporting roles in the most conceptually interesting and dynamic material available to him. Anderson's chosen projects - which spanned a wide variety of genres - never felt less than arresting. These included the Agnieszka Holland Beethoven biopic Copying Beethoven (2006), Julie Taymor's much-anticipated Beatles drama Across the Universe (2007) and the critically-praised biopic of punk rocker Ian Curtis, Control (2007).

Joe was quite vocal, expressing his views about his work as an actor and the issue of being typecasted. Says the 26-year old Anderson:

I knew my physicality and what I look like. Actor know thyself is one of the first things I learned. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be an action hero and run around with guns, but they're not the sort of movies I watch. There's something about character-driven movies and about the numbing of the situation - even like in the Matrix - all this - is it real or is it not? And the big question: What are we doing on this planet? Americans tend to medicate a lot - anti-anxiety medications - look at Heath Ledger - and it all has to do with the question, what the fuck are we doing here? So no, I won't be typecast because you can choose your work, but "High Life" is different; it's tongue-and-cheek and is hopefully going to be really funny. You get typecast if you become a product. There are big actresses and actors that make big money, but they never change their haircut. But if you have a lifestyle where you need $8 or $9 million more, it's your own stupid fault.

We @tMF believe Mr. Anderson is destined for more leading roles and while he's good at being part of the supporting cast, it's about time he took first billing to further impress his growing audience.

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What's on your mind? Oh and yes, there are 20 more names on the list, and if your favorite actor is not yet here, then perhaps he might be ranked higher or perhaps not at all, so please do tell us who he is and why he ought to be part of the list. Anyway, just fire away!

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