On the very first day of Movieline.com's launch last April, we introduced our weekly feature The Verge with the following spiel: "Ever watched a film and wondered, 'Who's that?' Now you'll know before you even have to ask. Welcome to The Verge, Movieline's weekly interview with up-and-coming actors on the verge of a serious career boost." Since that day, we've profiled 38 rising talents, and all of their profiles have only continued to surge. (Give yourself a pat on the back for getting in on the ground floor!) Here are ten of our favorites, who we can guarantee you'll be seeing more of soon:
AGE: 26
THEN: Played Captain Kirk's father in the prologue of Star Trek
NOW: Nabbed one of Hollywood's most-coveted roles in the upcoming Marvel mega-tentpole Thor (which he was just about to audition for when Movieline spoke to him), and will be seen as the lead in the Joss Whedon/Drew Goddard horror take-off The Cabin in the Woods.
ON COMPETING FOR ROLES WITH HIS ACTOR BROTHERS LIAM AND LUKE: "You know, you try to use it to your advantage as far as if there's any knowledge you can give each other [about parts], you do. The three of us have always been really close, and it's not a spiteful, competitive kind of thing. We're always kind of asking each other, 'How did we get in this position?' To be involved in any of this stuff is kind of a trip for us."
AGE: 26
THEN: Played the lead in Precious
NOW: Nominated for a Golden Globe, just shot the pilot for Bill Condon's Showtime series The C Word, starring Laura Linney
ON HER GERMAN VOGUE PHOTOSHOOT OPPOSITE HEIDI KLUM: "That was bad-ass. It was just a photo shoot of her teaching me to model. It was very cute, very tongue in cheek -- like a 'model-off,' I guess...She's yelling, 'OK! Be edgy!' I was like, 'What does that mean? How am I supposed to be 'edgy'?' And she goes, 'I don't know!' And I'm like, 'Well, you made it up!'...It was just her screaming random things at me and then showing me how to pose. Then I'd stand next to her and do it, too. [Laughs.] I loved it."
AGE: 17
THEN: Landed key supporting roles in Gamer and My One and Only.
NOW: About to be seen as the lead in 20th Century Fox's potential fantasy franchise Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
ON THE ENDURING GENERATIONAL APPEAL OF A CERTAIN 1985 FILM: "The Goonies is classic. That's like the movie I bring with me with if I go out of town for a long time, because it just makes me think of the best times I've seen it with my friends growing up. Dude, everybody knows that movie, everybody watches that film. Best family film ever made."
Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard
AGES: 33 and 34
THEN: Made a dynamic duo in the mumblecore comedy Humpday
NOW: Duplass stars in the FX series The League and can be seen in the upcoming Ben Stiller comedy Greenberg, while he and his brother directed the Sundance entry Cyrus, starring John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill; Leonard just finished directing The Lie, in which he stars opposite Jess Weixler
ON THE RELATIVE SAFETY OF INDIE MOVIEMAKING:
DUPLASS: "No one's gonna go out of their way to bash a $20,000 movie."
LEONARD: "Well, one guy at the Hollywood Reporter, he did...He eviscerated us."
DUPLASS: "That's just 'cause I wouldn't have sex with him in the bathroom, though."
AGE: 26
THEN: Skated through Drew Barrymore's Whip It as Eva Destruction
NOW: Smooches Steve Buscemi in Youth in Revolt, then can be seen in the Sundance entry Holy Rollers, the Steve Carell/Tina Fey comedy Date Night, and the Hilary Swank drama Betty Anne Waters
ON DONNING A BIKINI FOR YOUTH IN REVOLT: "I was gearing up for that scene for months in my mind and in the gym, figuring out how to deal. Once I would get over the bikini part of it, then I had to get over the 'I'm going to be making out with Steve Buscemi in front of a million people' part of it. Once we actually got there on the day and I had as much spray tan on my body as humanly possible, we just sort of went for it."
AGE: 25
THEN: Gained notice as part of the Parks and Recreation ensemble and as Seth Rogen's love interest in Funny People
NOW: In addition to a second season of the newly thriving Parks, will be seen in Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
ON AN IMDB COMMENTER WHO CLAIMED TO HAVE ACTED WITH PLAZA IN A PLAY: "The Bo Peep Case! That was totally real, and I played the evil villain. It was this one-act play in my hometown at the Wilmington Drama League Community Theater, and I think that girl's name was Lucy. I feel like I remember her. She was maybe playing, like, a little newsboy. Or a chicken. Wow. That play was full of Oscar-worthy performances."
AGE: 32
THEN: Charmed audiences with a George Sanders purr as Lt. Hicox in Inglourious Basterds, was shortlisted for the lead in The Green Lantern
NOW: Will shortly be seen in the well-received Cannes entry Fish Tank, then plays a heavily tattooed villain in Jonah Hex
ON TRYING FOR CHRISTOPH WALTZ'S BASTERDS ROLE: "I didn't really know what way to pitch Hicox because I was really gunning for Landa, actually...They had told me, 'Look at Hicox as well,' and I was sort of in denial, I suppose -- like, 'No, no, no.' So then I arrived, and Quentin was like, 'OK, let's take a look at Hicox' and I was like, 'Shit!' [Laughs] I was like, 'What about Landa?' and he was like, 'I cast my Landa on Tuesday.' I went, 'Really? Are you sure?' But then, I'm not about to tell Quentin Tarantino how to cast his movies, so I said, 'OK, let's read Hicox.'"
AGE: 13
THEN: Starred opposite Viggo Mortensen in the post-apocalyptic drama The Road.
NOW: Will play the lead in the Hollywood remake of Sweden's vampire thriller Let the Right One In.
ON TACKLING DARK MATERIAL AT A YOUNG AGE: "I remember in one of the interviews I did they said I was like an alien who could turn it on and off. And that's not the thing -- it's that I did the work beforehand. That's why I can turn it on and off. You've got to make a whole different character of it -- what happened before this, what happens after, what's not in the script that I need to put in there."
AGE: 30
THEN: Appeared briefly as Silver Fox in X-Men Origins: Wolverine
NOW: Shortly after our interview, Collins snagged the high-profile female lead in Andrew Stanton's John Carter of Mars
ON ASTROLOGY: "I've studied astrology for many, many years, and I feel like it's an incredibly challenging art. Personally, I go both ways with it, and one way is that I think it's an incredible way to get in touch with yourself. At the same time, I don't believe that by knowing someone's sign you're going to define them in a couple of sentences, nor does predictive astrology necessarily ring true to me. But the intuitive art and metaphysical studies and the big questions that we don't have the answers for...I prefer to play with that."
AGE: 31
THEN: Co-starred in An Education and nailed the showiest monologue in John Krasinski's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
NOW: Just finished the Stephen Frears film Tamara Drewe, and is prepping Lee Tamahori's The Devil's Double and a new adaptation of David Copperfield
ON THE INSIDIOUS PERKS OF ESCALATING FAME: "You go and do a press junket for a film and you stay in these lavish, wonderful hotels, or you're on these islands in the middle of nowhere and you're treated like royalty, and you begin to think, 'Oh, this is how my life is. This is me now.' But it's not -- it's just a little chunk of time, and I think it's quite dangerous. Why wouldn't you be excited, though? It's exciting, jetting off and staying somewhere different and being treated nicely and experiencing these things."