Six months on from the final 'Harry Potter' film, the young stars of the franchise, who gave half of their lives to date to Hogwarts, are starting to break out on their own. Daniel Radcliffe has just come off a lengthy Broadway run, is starring in the imminent "The Woman in Black," and even impressed as the host on "Saturday Night Live" last weekend, even if he was somewhat undermined by Lana Del Ray discovering on live television that she didn't know what to do with her arms when she sings. Tom Felton added another snivelling villain to his resume in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." And Rupert Grint is doing whatever Rupert Grint does (as it turns out, a Norwegian war movie. Thanks, internets!).
But perhaps the most promising career looks to be coming from Emma Watson. The stand-out performer of the central 'Potter' trio, she's had an ambivalence about acting as she's gotten older, but seems to have finally embraced the profession at last. And it looks like she's playing the long game, starting out with a little cameo in awards favorite "My Week With Marilyn," and now moving into the indie world with a leading role in the upcoming adaptation of the cult coming-of-age novel "The Perks of Being A Wallflower."
Written and directed by the book's author, Steven Chblosky, and with the backing of the producing team behind "Juno," it stars "Percy Jackson" star Logan Lerman as a high school freshman trying to get over the suicide of his best friend, with an impressive supporting cast including Watson as the senior he falls for, Ezra Miller ("We Need To Talk About Kevin") as her brother, Paul Rudd as an inspirational English teacher, Kate Walsh ("Private Practice") as his mother, Nina Dobrev ("The Vampire Diaries") as his sister, and 'Scott Pilgrim' veterans Mae Whitman and Johnny Simmons. The new images come in part from MovieWeb, and show off first looks at much of the cast. While we can't quite shake the feeling that Ezra Miller is about to kill everyone, it's still as promising of a cast for a quirky bildungsroman as you could ask for. There's no release date yet, but we'd expect the film to appear by TIFF, if not before.
