If there’s one feature each year than can make winter feel like spring, it’s our annual rundown of the brightest budding talents to have burst into bloom over the past twelve months. But every year we stumble over the same semantic difficulties: just what is it that turns a good performance from a less-well-known actor into a breakout? Since there’s no hard-and-fast answer, the following list features both done-deal breakthroughs — people whose names we might not have easily summoned back in January but who, come December, we can’t remember ever not being obsessed by — as well as a few more wishful thinking choices.
Also, please note we’ll be running a more comprehensive “Best Performances of 2018” feature very soon, and have made the call to have no double-ups, so just as there are some relatively well-established actors on this list (who have suddenly been reinvigorated or transformed over that last 12 months), there will be some first-timers on that one, so if your fave is not here, maybe hold off before @ing us. It ain’t an exact science, but it is a joyous one: here are The Playlist’s picks of the 25 biggest breakouts of the year — 25 people who, contrary to the general flow of things, ought to have very fond memories of 2018 when they look back on it in their dotage.
Click here for our complete coverage of the best and worst of 2018.
25. Mamoudou Athie as A.J. Parker in “The Front Runner” and Matt in “Sorry For Your Loss”
Some actors explode overnight with one head-turning performance — the Jennifer Lawrence approach, if you will. But others build up speed and momentum like a snowball until they’re suddenly everywhere, and kicking ass in everything they do, and that’s how Mamoudou Athie’s been approaching his bid for world domination. Athie stood out in the last few years playing the very different roles of Grandmaster Flash in “The Get Down” and metalhead love interest Basterd in “Patti Cake$.” And this year saw him show even more impressive range: he’s the best thing in Jason Reitman’s “The Front Runner” as a conflicted young reporter, and he’s a warm, striking, scene-stealing presence as Elisabeth Olsen’s late husband in the surprisingly excellent Facebook Watch series “Sorry For Your Loss.” Next up, the big time: he’ll be co-starring with Kristen Stewart and Vincent Cassel in action-adventure movie “Underwater” for 20th Century Fox next year.
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24. Alex Wolff as Peter Graham in “Hereditary”
Yes, Alex Wolff has been around a while now. But if we’re honest, until recently, we’ve had maybe a 70/30 chance of correctly remembering if it was him or his brother Nat who starred in, say 2015’s “Paper Towns” (it was Nat. I’m like 70% sure). But a run of more idiosyncratic roles dragged him out of the shadow of his older bro: Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Peter Berg‘s unsubtle but effective “Patriot’s Day“; Jeffrey Dahmer’s highschool friend and tormentor in “My Friend Dahmer“; and a reluctant adventurer in the endearingly forgettable “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.” But still, we were underestimating him and he schooled us, appropriately, in a classroom: one the creepiest moments in Ari Aster‘s sublimely creepy “Hereditary” is all the more remarkable for just how much it’s not effects, nor editing, nor even sound cues that bring the most fear. It’s the naked terror in Wolff’s eyes, trapped in a contorting torso, bleeding (reportedly for real) from the nose, realizing the call is coming from inside the house and the house is his own body.
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23. Shayna McHayle as Danyelle in “Support the Girls”
Unlike Lady Gaga who goes by her nom de guerre in the credits for “A Star Is Born,” (which led to those amusing “L. Gaga” placecards at her press conferences), the debuting actor playing Danyelle, the suffer-no-fools deputy to Regina Hall’s “breastaurant” manager, goes by Shayna McHale. It’s perhaps a less memorable moniker than Junglepussy, which is McHale’s rapper alter-ego, but commit it to memory anyway: On the evidence of her gloweringly great turn in Andrew Bujalski‘s beautifully deadpan portrait of contemporary, just-getting-by America, we’re going to be seeing a lot more of her. The true genius of her performance is her underplaying, the way she can radiate surly disapproval and bone-deep DGAF ennui, and yet remain so charismatic to watch. She’s exactly the sort of pragmatic pessimist who does not bond easily with anyone, which makes her unshakeable friendship with Hall’s Lisa, and her unsentimental affection for her other co-workers all the more touching, and utterly crucial to the film’s unforcedly feminist portrait of sisterhood flourishing in the unlikeliest of places.
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22. Cayleb Long as Hot Janitor in “American Vandal”
It takes five episodes of the underappreciated and absolutely hilarious second season of “American Vandal” to get to Hot Janitor, but you won’t forget him. The students and faculty of St. Bernardine would worship him if it wasn’t blasphemy, and one admirer perfectly sums up the appeal of this custodial Adonis: “You’d never think mopping would be hot, but when he does it? Fuck.” But what makes the role of Hot Janitor more than just a hunky throwaway gag is the specific brand of doofus that Cayleb Long taps into. Just like everyone else on “American Vandal,” the actor’s CV isn’t particularly long, but the show’s creators and director Tony Yacenda cleverly make the most of his background. Hot Janitor, lives in an Airstream-style RV so he can be closer to nature, grow his own food, and put lichens back in the trees when they blow away because “that’s where they want to be.” So, it’s a pleasant surprise to discover that Long was a former curator at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and maintains his love of the outdoors, and being super hot, in his real life. His Hot Janitor might be a dim bulb (he seems blissfully unaware of his celebrity amongst the St. Bernardine population), but in Long’s performance, his surprisingly encyclopedic knowledge of plant life, willingness to hook up you up with mushrooms for Bumbershoot as well as the aforementioned hot mopping, make him burn pretty damn bright.
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21. Lana Condor as Lara Jean in “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before”
Early on in 2018, there were heart-shaped rumblings that this would be the year Netflix reinvigorated the romantic comedy genre. It’s a good fit — the rom-com is largely a mid-budget genre, that doesn’t necessarily demand a big screen and that can set the mood for anyone’s Netflix-and-chill plans (I know, I know, 2015 called and wants its euphemism back). But after the awful “The Kissing Booth” and the mystifyingly popular “Set It Up,” some of us approached “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” warily — only to be immediately won over, not least by the irresistible Condor in the central role. Like listmate Alex Wolff (above) Condor was in “Patriot’s Day” and also appeared in the terrible “X-Men: Apocalypse” but this effervescent turn deserves to be counted as her true debut. Especially delightful is the film’s NBD approach to Lara Jean’s ethnicity which, while it’s not ignored, is also not a source of angst for our plucky heroine — she has plenty of that of her own making. A sequel has been announced, with Condor surely likely to return, meantime she’ll be in Robert Rodriguez‘ “Alita: Battle Angel” next year, and showing her bad-girl side in Syfy‘s comic adaptation series “Deadly Class.”
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