The other night, I was watching one of my favorite movies (The Breakfast Club) on cable and it occurred to me that the cast has aged well. For example, I realized that Anthony Michael Hall is nearly 50 years old!
It got me wondering how some actors age and others don’t. So I started looking at young actors on the red carpet and thinking about what they had in common (besides youth).
First, almost all of them are in their 20s or 30s. Then I noticed a number of them had been in the Harry Potter movies: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson. Then there was Dakota Johnson (the daughter of Melanie Griffith), who was in “The Social Network” with Justin Timberlake and Jesse Eisenberg.
I thought maybe it was because so many young actors come from families with show business roots. Then I looked for exceptions, like Jennifer Lawrence, who hasn’t been around very long but has already won an Oscar, and Jessica Chastain, who got her first big break when she starred opposite Brad Pitt in “Tree of Life.” The director Terrence Malick had spotted her on Broadway three years earlier, but she didn’t get her first Hollywood
Actors are often asked to describe who they would like to be, if not themselves. The stock answer is “astronaut.” The reason for this has nothing to do with the cosmos and everything to do with the glamour of being an astronaut: the suit, the helmet, the spaceships.
It’s a good line, but it’s also a little disingenuous. Actors want to be astronauts because they want to be astronauts. They want that otherness, that distance from earth; they want people to gape at them as they go by.
In short, actors want what everyone wants: celebrity. But in our celebrity-obsessed culture, actors have become the most coveted and most visible celebrities of all. So it’s only natural that in recent years we’ve begun seeing them younger and younger on magazine covers and on red carpets.
Perhaps this is just a throwback to when child stars were more common (e.g., Shirley Temple). Or maybe there is something about movies today that makes it easier for children to act credibly alongside adults (e.g., Haley Joel Osment). Either way, it seems clear that Hollywood’s recent obsession with youth extends well into adulthood: today many of our most popular actors are barely out of
At the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and other pre-Oscars ceremonies, veteran actors are often outshined by their younger counterparts. Do you know who they are?
1. This young man plays a gay teen in “Love, Simon.” His previous credits include “Paper Towns” and an episode of “The Walking Dead.” Who is he?
2. This Emmy-nominated actress stars in her own Netflix series and has also appeared in the films “Me Earl and the Dying Girl” and “The Edge of Seventeen.” Who is she?
3. He first made waves as a child actor in HBO’s “Big Little Lies,” then went on to star alongside Nick Robinson in the coming-of-age drama “Love, Simon.” Who is he?
4. She co-starred with Claire Foy in the 2014 film “Rosewater” and will appear this year with Julia Roberts in the movie adaptation of Maria Semple’s novel “Where’d You Go, Bernadette.” Who is she?
5. This actress appeared with Lucas Hedges in two Oscar-nominated films: Kenneth Lonergan’s “Manchester by the Sea,” for which she was nominated for a SAG award,
Natalie Portman is no longer the little girl who was Padme Amidala in the “Star Wars” prequels. But she might be more famous than ever, thanks to her Oscar-winning role in “Black Swan.”
In “No Strings Attached,” she plays Emma, a young medical resident who finds herself sleeping with Adam (Ashton Kutcher), a television producer. As they try to maintain a casual relationship, they quickly discover that it’s much harder than they thought.
In this interview, Ms. Portman talks about her new film and her experiences working with Mr. Kutcher and Ivan Reitman, the director of “No Strings Attached.”
A potential Oscar nominee, an up-and-comer or a young star?
“I’m just trying to make sure that the working relationship is good.”
A first-time nominee, a promising talent or a young star?
“I’m still trying to figure out what this whole awards circus is about.”
The “Silver Linings Playbook” actor Bradley Cooper, who received his third Academy Award nomination last week, is one of several actors in their 30s who are finding themselves at the center of the awards season. The affable Mr. Cooper, 38, has emerged as one of the most high-profile members of a younger generation of male movie stars whose career trajectories have been developed over time, rather than skyrocketing into orbit. They include Ryan Gosling (32), Michael Fassbender (35), Leonardo DiCaprio (37) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (31).
In the first decade of the 21st century, a new type of celebrity emerged: the red-carpet starlet. She is still relatively young, usually in her 20s. She has some claim to artistic accomplishment, or at least a role on a popular television show. And she has a well-defined sense of personal style.
In many cases that style is defined by an association with a single designer — which is to say, it is partly defined by that designer’s marketing department. Fashion labels have wooed actresses for years (sometimes with mixed results), but there is something new about the way these relationships have developed so far in this century. In the past few years, designers from Rodarte to Prada and Miu Miu have been cultivating young women who aren’t quite superstars yet, but are famous enough to pose for paparazzi pictures on the red carpet and show off their gowns on social media.
Those young women have become powerful vehicles for promoting a brand, not just because they are photographed wearing its clothes but also because they are seen as having taste and discernment, qualities that were once the exclusive domain of editors at glossy fashion magazines. The idea is that we can trust these women to pick good clothes because they don’t
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes, a second-year star for the Kansas City Chiefs, was the favorite to win the N.F.L.’s Most Valuable Player award after throwing 50 touchdown passes this season, but the honor went to Los Angeles Rams running back Todd Gurley on Saturday night at the league’s annual awards ceremony in Atlanta.
Mahomes threw for 5,097 yards and 50 touchdowns this season; he became just the second quarterback in N.F.L. history to throw more than 50 touchdowns in a single season (joining Peyton Manning in 2013).
Mahomes and Gurley were joined by Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints and Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers as finalists for M.V.P., but it was Gurley who won out — despite missing two games with a knee injury late in the season and finishing behind Saquon Barkley of the New York Giants in rushing yards and Ezekiel Elliott of the Dallas Cowboys in total yards from scrimmage.*
