Actresses to Watch
by richardcgentile | created - 10 Mar 2018 | updated - 29 Oct 2018 | Public1. Anna Kendrick
Actress | Up in the Air
Anna Kendrick was born in Portland, Maine, to Janice (Cooke), an accountant, and William Kendrick, a teacher. She has an older brother, Michael Cooke Kendrick, who has also acted. She is of English, Irish, and Scottish descent.
For her role as "Dinah" in "High Society" on Broadway, Anna Kendrick was...
2. Melissa Benoist
Actress | Supergirl
Melissa Marie Benoist is an American actress, singer and dancer. She was raised in Littleton, Colorado , the daughter of Julie and Jim Benoist, a physician. She is of French, German, English, and Scottish descent. She started dance classes at the age of three and when she was four years old her ...
3. Amandla Stenberg
Actress | The Hunger Games
Named for the Zulu and Xhosa word for "power," Amandla was born in Los Angeles, California, to Karen Brailsford, a writer, and Tom Stenberg, a businessman. Her mother is African-American and her father is Danish (and of part Inuit-Greenlandic ancestry).
In the summer and fall of 2010, she shot her ...
4. Olivia Cooke
Actress | Ready Player One
Olivia Cooke was born and raised in Oldham, a former textile manufacturing town in Greater Manchester, North West England. She comes from a family of non-actors; her father, John, is a retired police officer, and her mother is a sales representative. Cooke attended Royton and Crompton Secondary ...
5. Storm Reid
Actress | A Wrinkle in Time
Storm Reid is an Emmy-nominated actress, producer, and current student at USC. With numerous credits to her name, Reid has emerged as one of Hollywood's most sought-after young actors. She recently earned her first Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Guest Actress In A Drama Series" for her work as ...
6. Charlize Theron
Producer | Monster
Charlize Theron was born in Benoni, a city in the greater Johannesburg area, in South Africa, the only child of Gerda Theron (née Maritz) and Charles Theron. She was raised on a farm outside the city. Theron is of Afrikaner (Dutch, with some French Huguenot and German) descent, and Afrikaner ...
7. Rutina Wesley
Actress | True Blood
Rutina Wesley is known for the character Tara Thorton, on the gritty Southern vampire drama, True Blood (2008). She was born in the city most renowned for glitz and glamour, Las Vegas, Nevada and was exposed to the arts at a very early age; in fact entertainment runs through her veins. Her father, ...
8. Hayley Atwell
Actress | Captain America: The First Avenger
Born in London, England, Hayley Elizabeth Atwell has dual citizenship of the United Kingdom and the United States. An only child, Hayley was named after actress Hayley Mills. Her parents, Alison (Cain) and Grant Atwell, both motivational speakers, met at a London workshop of Dale Carnegie's ...
9. Hailee Steinfeld
Actress | True Grit
Hailee Steinfeld was born on December 11, 1996 in Tarzana, California, to Cheri (Domasin), an interior designer, and Peter Steinfeld, a personal fitness trainer. She has a brother, Griffin. Her uncle is Jake Steinfeld, a fitness trainer, and her great-uncle is actor Larry Domasin. Her father is of ...
10. Zendaya
Actress | Spider-Man: Homecoming
Zendaya (which means "to give thanks" in the language of Shona) is an American actress and singer born in Oakland, California. She began her career appearing as a child model working for Macy's, Mervyns and Old Navy. She was a backup dancer before gaining prominence for her role as Rocky Blue on ...
11. Dafne Keen
Actress | Logan
Dafne Keen Fernández is a British and Spanish actress who played the role of the mutant Laura Kinney / X-23 in Logan (2017) and Lyra in the HBO series His Dark Materials (2019).
She is the daughter of British actor Will Keen, and Spanish actress, theatre director and writer María Fernández Ache.
Keen...
12. Michelle Williams
Actress | My Week with Marilyn
A small-town girl born and raised in rural Kalispell, Montana, Michelle Ingrid Williams is the daughter of Carla Ingrid (Swenson), a homemaker, and Larry Richard Williams, a commodity trader and author. Her ancestry is Norwegian, as well as German, British Isles, and other Scandinavian. She was ...
13. Michelle Yeoh
Actress | Everything Everywhere All at Once
Michelle Yeoh was born in Ipoh, Malaysia. She's the daughter of Janet Yeoh & Kian Teik Yeoh. She's of Hokkien descent, speaking English and Malay before Chinese. A ballet dancer since 4, she moved to London to study at the Royal Academy as a teen. After a brief dance career, she won the Miss ...
14. Letitia Wright
Actress | Black Panther
With a career spanning over a decade, Emmy-nominated Letitia Wright has cemented her position as one of the industry's most captivating young actresses. From her breakout role as ambitious Summerhouse resident Chantelle in Top Boy, to her critically acclaimed performance as Nish in Black Mirror, ...
15. Rachel Bilson
Actress | Jumper
Rachel Bilson was born in Los Angeles, to Janice (Stango), a sex therapist, and Danny Bilson. Her father is Ashkenazi Jewish and her mother is of Italian descent. She began acting while still at Notre Dame High School. She graduated high school in 1999 and went to Grossmont College but dropped out ...
16. Lucy Lawless
Actress | Xena: Warrior Princess
New Zealand icon Lucy Lawless is most known for her role as "Xena the Warrior Princess." Lucy is married to producer Rob Tapert (Robert Gerard Tapert) and resides in New Zealand. They have two sons, Julius Robert Bay Tapert and Judah Miro Tapert, who were both born in New Zealand. Lucy also has a ...
17. Zazie Beetz
Actress | Atlanta
Zazie Beetz (born c. 1991) is a German-American actress known for the role of Vanessa on Atlanta (2016), as well as for starring in Deadpool 2 (2018), Joker (2019), and Nine Days (2020).
Born in Berlin to a German father and an African-American mother, Beetz was raised in New York speaking both ...
18. Tamzin Merchant
Actress | Carnival Row
Tamzin Merchant is a British born actress, writer and director. She grew up in Dubai and was cast in her first professional role as Georgiana Darcy in Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice (2005). She attended The University of Cambridge to read Education Studies and continued to develop her career as...
19. Lily James
Actress | Cinderella
Lily James was born Lily Chloe Ninette Thomson in Esher, Surrey, to Ninette (Mantle), an actress, and Jamie Thomson, an actor and musician. Her grandmother, Helen Horton, was an American actress. She began her education at Arts Educational School in Tring and subsequently went on to study acting at...
20. Michelle McLeod
Actress | Don't Talk to Irene
Michelle McLeod is a Toronto based Actor originally from Peterborough Ontario. She has BA in theatre studies and film and is a graduate of the Second City Conservatory Program in Toronto and of the (CFC) Canadian Film Centre Actors Residency.
She has been acting in since the age of 11 both in film ...
21. Elsie Fisher
Actress | Eighth Grade
Elsie Kate Fisher is an American actor. They began their career in 2009 with a role in the television series Medium at age 6, before voicing Agnes in the first two Despicable Me films. In 2018, they received critical acclaim for their performance as the socially-struggling teenager Kayla Day in the...
22. Milly Shapiro
Actress | Hereditary
Milly Shapiro is an American actress and singer. She starred in the 2018 horror film Hereditary and originated the role of Matilda Wormwood in the Broadway production of Matilda. She has also played Sally Brown in an Off-Broadway production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. In 2021 she ...
23. Megan Charpentier
Actress | It
Megan Charpentier was born in New Westminster, British Columbia. She began her career in commercials, and graduated to dramatic work by playing the role of a young Amanda Seyfried, first in JENNIFER'S BODY(2009) and again in RED RIDING HOOD (2011). Megan's breakthrough role was Guillermo Del Toro's...
24. Kelly Macdonald
Actress | No Country for Old Men
Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald was born and raised in Glasgow. Her parents divorced when she was young, and she was raised by her mother, a sales executive in the garment industry. She has one brother, David. As a hobby, she acted in an amateur theatrical club, which she enjoyed a great deal. ...
25. Cynthia Erivo
Actress | Harriet
Cynthia Erivo is an English actress, singer, and songwriter. She is the recipient of several accolades, including a Daytime Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, and a Tony Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Screen Actors Guild ...
26. Regina King
Actress | Ray
Regina King was born in Los Angeles, California, to Gloria, a special education teacher, and Thomas King, an electrician. She began her career in the television show 227 (1985), followed by a role in Boyz n the Hood (1991). She began to be recognized by a mainstream audience after her role as Cuba ...
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