From Bond to Britney Spears, a year of triumph for the counted out and the overlooked.
Image: Murray Close/Lionsgate
With the entertainment industry fighting off challenges left and right — from the digital world to international competition — Hollywood has been running scared for years now, seeking magic bullets in everything from 3-D to teen vampires. At times like these, the doors swing open to the less traditional talents, and new audiences find their day in the sun. A business that is generally complacent to churn out a steady diet of action francises marketed to teenage boys built around stubble-faced hunks finds itself looking in different directions.
2012 was a year of impossible comebacks and small-timers turned stars; a time when the biggest star on the horizon was an indie actress barely out of her teens, when those used as props in the lives of the giants turned the story around to their advantage, and when wacky television animators got tapped to host Hollywood's biggest night. Some had been counted out, others just ignored, others forced us to see them in a new light. But one thing's for sure: A year or two ago, no one would have expected that these would be the faces everyone would be talking about at the end of 2012.
1. Jennifer Lawrence
Image: Murray Close/Lionsgate
From Mel Gibson to Tom Cruise, Will Smith to Robert Downey Jr., the blockbuster stars of Hollywood, those leading lights who could move effortlessly from action to comedy and drama have traditionally had one thing in common — they have all been men. Kristen Stewart knocked on this door with the Twilight series, but this year, Jennifer Lawrence kicked it down, and with no giant action hunk dominating the screens right now, the next few years could easily see the box office crown passing to this young actress, straight out of the indie circuit.
In 2010, the teenage actress proved her indie acting cred with a showstopping performance in Winter’s Bone. In 2012, however, she established herself as perhaps the most potent presence in film today. This year, she gave audiences a one-two punch: first as the front woman of filmdom’s newest goliath, The Hunger Games. Then, she backed up that show of box office creds with a dazzling tour-de-force romantic comedy lead in Silver Linings Playbook, a role in which she both charms the abrasive Bradley Cooper and stares down Robert DeNiro. With range and presence winning over audiences and critics alike, Lawrence is poised to become, essentially, the only giant new star Hollywood has created in years, and ready for a run of box office success unseen by any female star since Julia Roberts' Pretty Woman decade.
