Sundance's Best New Leading Ladies
It’s no secret that Hollywood is something of a boys club, but this year’s Sundance film festival — which wraps up tomorrow in Park City, Utah — belonged to the ladies. An encouraging 36 percent of the films screened over the last week were helmed by women. And, when they weren’t making magic behind the camera, they were soaring in front of it. If the essence of Sundance is about discovery, then 2015’s iteration was one for the ages. Here are five talented actresses coming to a theater near you.
Related: Girl You Need to Know: Lola Kirke
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Olivia Cooke
Where She’s Been: If you don’t recognize the 21-year-old Brit from A&E’s Bates Motel, where she plays the cystic fibrosis-stricken love interest to a young Norman Bates, you’ll definitely recognize her as the lucky girl who gets a piggyback ride courtesy of Harry Styles in One Direction’s “Autumn Term” video.
Sundance Breakout: In the whimsical, heartfelt dramedy Me & Earl & The Dying Girl, Cooke stuns as a terminally ill high schooler who uses a new friendship with two art kid weirdos to help escape the inevitability that lays ahead. The packed theater premiere ended with a weepy, never-ending standing ovation.
Where She’s Going: Or better yet, where isn’t she? Me & Earl & The Dying Girl was the undisputed runaway hit of Sundance, selling for a festival record $12 million. Oh, and the last time a sick-kid movie based on a best-selling YA novel had this much buzz, Shailene Woodley happened.
Lola Kirke
Where She’s Been: In Jason Schwartzman’s Amazon pilot Mozart in The Jungle as the only oboe-playing ingenue on television; as the sinister, motel-dwelling hillbilly who gets the better of Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl; and the IRL sister of Girls star Jemima Kirke, making them the “Rooney and Kate Mara” for the hipster set.
Sundance Breakout: As Tracy, the introvert Barnard freshman whose muzzled life gets a much needed jolt from Greta Gerwig’s electric gal-about-town, in Noah Baumbach’s delightful chronicle of female friendship, Mistress America.
Where She’s Going: Mistress America will likely get a theatrical release later this year, while Kirke’s personal blend of New York downtown boho chic and Hollywood glam will make her one of 2015’s most exciting red carpet fixtures.
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Bel Powley
Where She’s Been: Like most of her London counterparts, the 22-year-old Powley cut her teeth in theater before submitting an audition tape for an indie about a sexually precocious teenage girl. “I’ve probably done 300 tapes over my lifetime and not heard back from any of them,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. Who knew that tape 301 would strike her gold?
Sundance Breakout: In rookie director Marielle Heller’s The Diary of A Teenage Girl, Powley plays Minnie, a 15-year-old girl who loses her virginity to and embarks on a torrid affair with her mom’s (Kristen Wiig) boyfriend (Alexander Skarsgård), in 1970s San Francisco (those clothes!). Her complex, gutsy, and out-of-nowhere performance is exactly the kind of star-making turn that’s become synonymous with Sundance.
Where She’s Going: Despite some backlash to the film’s somewhat flippant treatment of statutory rape, Sony Pictures Classics dropped $2 million for the film. Powley will also star alongside Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult in Drake Doremus’ upcoming sci-fromance Equals.
Melissa Rauch
Where She’s Been: Rauch is best known for playing Bernadette, a cloying doctor on The Big Bang Theory.
Sundance Breakout: In The Bronze — which Rauch also wrote — she plays a past-her-prime gymnast in the vein of Tonya Harding, who must come to terms with her own grim reality when a talented new upstart comes to town. After the film’s raucous opening night premiere, all anyone could talk about was the acrobatic sex scene.
Where She’s Going: Despite mixed reviews, The Bronze is the kind of crass comedy that will be a crowd pleaser especially with the added bonus if 90s cheerleading outfits, bangs, and scrunchies galore. In the meantime, you can catch Rauch nerding out on the eighth season of The Big Bang Theory.
Anya Taylor-Joy
Where She’s Been: Nowhere really (unless you count a bit part in something called Viking Quest). But it’s precisely that anonymity that made her debut here such a gut punch.
Sundance Breakout: In the psychological period horror The Witch, Taylor-Joy plays Thomasin, a girl on the cusp of puberty and the eldest daughter in a family of New England Puritans. When their baby mysteriously disappears, all eyes turn to Thomasin who is accused of witchcraft. What happens next is as unsettling as any thing we’ve ever seen on film.
Where She’s Going: She hasn’t found a follow-up project yet, but with this knockout performance, the offers should come flooding in very soon.
