8 Young Stars Hollywood Can't Stop Talking About Right Now

Jenna Ortega went from Disney Channel to horror's biggest new scream queen

After starting out on Disney Channel's Stuck in the Middle, Ortega built a horror résumé with Scream (2022), X (2022), and Scream VI (2023) before landing the role of Wednesday Addams in Netflix's Wednesday — learning to play the cello for the part and later becoming an executive producer on its second season.

Glen Powell got his pilot's license paid for by Tom Cruise

Powell started acting at 14 in Spy Kids 3, and Denzel Washington personally introduced him to his own agent after working together on The Great Debaters. His career exploded after Top Gun: Maverick, where co-star Tom Cruise was so impressed he paid for Powell to attend real flight school — Powell is now a licensed pilot.

Sydney Sweeney had to convince a casting director to even let her audition for Euphoria

A casting director initially discouraged Sweeney from auditioning for Euphoria's Cassie Howard, so she recorded a scene at home with her mom's help and sent it in anyway. The gamble worked — she landed the role, and later co-starred in and executive produced the hit rom-com Anyone But You.

Jacob Elordi went from a teen rom-com franchise to working with three of the most acclaimed directors alive

Elordi's first taste of fame came from Netflix's The Kissing Booth movies and HBO's Euphoria. He's since pivoted hard toward prestige work, starring as Elvis Presley in Sofia Coppola's Priscilla, opposite Barry Keoghan in Emerald Fennell's Saltburn, and in Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein — a run that's repositioned him as one of his generation's most serious actors.

Joseph Zada landed his first major film role playing a young Woody Harrelson

Before Sunrise on the Reaping, the Australian actor's biggest credits were the streaming series We Were Liars and Invisible Boys. Playing a teenage Haymitch Abernathy in the new Hunger Games prequel is his first major studio film role — and he was named Breakthrough Actor of the Year by GQ Australia before the movie even opened.

Anna Sawai made history at the Emmys before most audiences even learned her name

Sawai spent five years as a member of the Japanese girl group FAKY before pivoting to acting. Her performance in Shōgun made her the first Japanese actress ever to win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, and she picked up a Golden Globe for the same role months later.

Chase Infiniti had never acted on camera before Paul Thomas Anderson cast her off a karate class

A year removed from her musical theater degree, Infiniti's first-ever on-camera acting job was a supporting role on Presumed Innocent. She auditioned for Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another four separate times with barely a script to work from, and he cast her right after watching her in a karate training session — the role opposite Leonardo DiCaprio went on to earn her a National Board of Review Award.

Paul Mescal earned an Oscar nomination just two years after his first-ever film role

Mescal broke through with the TV adaptation of Normal People in 2020, winning a BAFTA for the role. His film debut came the following year in The Lost Daughter, and just one year after that, his performance in Aftersun earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor — before Gladiator II and Hamnet made him a household name in blockbusters too.