5 Breakthrough Actors of 2021
Agathe Rouselle, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alana Haim+
Every year talented young actors affect audiences worldwide. These performances are often the actors’ first leading roles or work in a mainstream project. Let’s look at seven actors who broke through this year.
SHUYA CHANG
Evan Jackson Leong’s feature film directorial debut, Snakehead, only got mediocre reviews from critics and viewers. Still, one performer singled out in the action crime drama was Shuya Chang. Chang plays a woman who falls in with a human smuggling ring in her efforts to reunite with her daughter.
MIKE FAIST
Very often, with productions of West Side Story, the reviews single out the women in the show as standing out, but Faist has broken through that noise with his performance as Riff in Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story. And is it any wonder? He’s already been nominated for a Tony for his performance in Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway.
ALANA HAIM
Haim is best known as one-third of the pop-rock group Haim, along with her two older sisters, Este and Danielle Haim. But now she’s shown the world she also has acting talent with her debut leading role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza.
EMILIA JONES
This young British actor has already played a leading role in the Netflix fantasy series Locke & Key. Still, it was her performance in CODA, where she stars as the hearing-child of deaf parents who is torn between her family and wanting to follow her dreams, that blew audiences away. She is now set to star in the film adaptation of Cat Person.
AGATHA ROUSELLE
Rouselle got her start as a journalist in her native France. She co-founded the feminist magazine Peach and the custom embroidery company Cheeky Boom. This year she broke through in a whole new way as the lead in Julia Ducournau’s Cannes-winning, erotic body horror Titane.
KODI SMIT-MCPHEE
Australian actor Smit-McPhee has worked steadily for over 15 years. So it’s a good bet you’ve seen one of his performances before, whether that was in Let Me In, ParaNorman, or Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. But his performance inThe Power of the Dog has established him as someone to watch.
RACHEL ZEGLER
Zegler made her film debut earlier this month as María in Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story, and she has been getting rave reviews. Yes, this was her first film role ever. But it certainly won’t be her last. She was also cast in Shazam! Fury of the Gods and as Snow White in the live-action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
