Before They Were Stars: Maika Monroe and Jeremy Allen White

Posted on July 20, 2024 at 8:00 am

Maika Monroe stars in one of the highest-profile horror films of 2024, “Longlegs,” following her role in a thriller, “The Watcher.” And Emmy winner Jeremy Allen White is now one of television’s biggest stars, with the third season of “The Bear.” (Also in the film is Sasha Lane, who appears in this week’s blockbuster, “Twisters.”)

Just six years ago, Monroe and White played a romantic couple in a small, independent film called “After Everything,” written and directed by Hannah Marks and Joey Power. I gave the film 3 1/2 stars out of 4 in a review for rogerebert.com: ” a bittersweet love story, bitter because the couple meet just as the guy is diagnosed with cancer, but sweet because the young couple is so believably tender and loving….White and Monroe create imperfect but always likable characters and the direction is brisk but assured.”

Here Hannah Marks and Joey Power, and Jeremy Allen White talk about the film.

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Actors Breakthrough Perfomers

Most Valuable Players: Actors Who Appeared More than One Top 2017 Film

Posted on January 19, 2018 at 1:31 pm

Michael Stuhlbarg, Timothee Chalamet, Sally Hawkins, Lucas Hedges, Alison Brie, and Caleb Landry Jones are among the actors who appeared in more than one 2017 awards contender. Some are well-known actors we are seeing in a new light, like Bob Odenkirk, or well-known actors who just keep being great like Nicole Kidman and Robin Wright. Others are reliable stalwarts like Stuhlbarg, Tracy Letts, and Bill Camp. Others seem to have come out of nowhere to astonish us, like Chalamet and Jones. Indiewire has a great gallery of last year’s MVPs.

Breakthrough Star: Mahershala Ali

Posted on December 12, 2016 at 8:00 am

Mahershala Ali is one of the busiest actors today, so versatile that audiences might not realize that they are seeing the same performer in “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay,” “House of Cards,” “Luke Cage,” and “Alphas.” As Juan, the compassionate drug dealer who befriends “Moonlight’s” main character, he was recognized by the Washington Area Film Critics Association as the best male supporting performance of the year. He plays a military man in the upcoming “Hidden Figures,” based on the true story of black female mathematicians at NASA in the 1960’s. I can’t wait to see what he does next.

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Actors Breakthrough Perfomers

Breakthrough Actor: Ben Schnetzer

Posted on August 20, 2016 at 8:00 am

I’ve been a big fan of actor Ben Schnetzer since I saw him in “Pride” and “The Book Thief.” I didn’t realize at first it was the same actor, and I certainly didn’t realize that the actor who played a German Jew hiding from the Nazis during WWII and a gay Londoner raising funds for striking miners in the 1980’s was an American.

He appeared in the justifiably overlooked “Warcraft” this summer, but his upcoming appearances in “Snowden,” “Goat,” and “The Journey is the Destination” should make 2016 his breakthrough year.

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Gone Girl’s Rosamund Pike

Posted on September 30, 2014 at 8:00 am

Rosamund Pike delivers a stunning breakthrough performance in this week’s “Gone Girl.” She’s been a favorite of mine for a long time, for her elegant voice and precise acting choices. It’s a good excuse to check out some of her other films. The daughter of opera singers, she has a degree in English literature from Oxford. She has appeared opposite Ryan Gosling and Anthony Hopkins (“Fracture”) and Tom Cruise in “Jack Reacher,” played a Jane Austen character (“Pride and Prejudice”), a Bond Girl (“Die Another Day”), and was Queen Andromeda in “Wrath of the Titans.” She will be in the upcoming “Thunderbirds” television series.

She played Miranda Frost in “Die Another Day.”