THE IN CROWD: THE 2023 HOLLYWOOD PORTFOLIO | Vanity Fair (2024)

MOVIES: THE WONDER, A GOOD PERSON, DUNE: PART TWO, OPPENHEIMER

She’s been fearless in every role, and became an icon of defiance just for holding an Aperol Spritz. Pugh stars in two of 2023’s most anticipated films, Oppenheimer and the Dune sequel. She hasn’t given up hope in the future of movie stars, partly because she knows Timothée Chalamet. “He’s our Leo,” she says. In that case, she may just be Kate Winslet.

TV: ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING, SELENA + CHEF
MOVIES: MY MIND & ME

The former Disney Channel kid is now an acclaimed actor and mental health advocate whose frankness has won her 374 million Instagram followers, arguably more than anyone else in Hollywood. For a time, Gomez turned her social media passwords over to her assistant because the rare toxic comments were traumatizing: “These people get inside your head.”

“THIS INDUSTRYis aBEAST. IT’S REALLY SCARYtoSEE WHAT HAPPENSwhenYOU’RE GIVEN SO MUCH POWERandMONEYat aYOUNG AGE.”

MOVIES: ELVIS, DUNE: PART TWO
TV: MASTERS OF THE AIR

Butler exploded from former child star to global icon in the vertiginous Elvis, for which he’s been nominated for an Oscar. With the Dune sequel, he’s now part of one of the most exciting casts of his generation. “If I had some film hit really big when I was younger,” he says, “I wouldn’t have had to keep going back to the drawing board and saying, ‘How do you get better at this?’ ”

TV: OZARK, INVENTING ANNA

Last year, she drew Emmy nominations for both Inventing Anna and Ozark, and won for the latter for the third time. Still, Garner remembers being 21 and struggling to find work. “But I booked Ozark,” she says, “and I kept pushing because I felt like I still had a lot to do.”

“I’M GOINGtoBE HONEST: I’M NOT GOODat aLOTofTHINGS, SO I WAS LIKE, ‘THIS ACTING THING BETTER WORK OUT.’ ”

MOVIES: DEVOTION, ANT-MAN AND THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA, CREED III, MAGAZINE DREAMS

If you haven’t followed Majors’s career yet, 2023 should wake you up. He’s put on weight and muscle to play a boxer and a bodybuilder, as well as Marvel’s new big bad, Kang the Conqueror. Says Majors, “I’m very happy with how everything is going, but I’m not satisfied—and that’s the way it’s got to be.”

“IT’S ABOUTtheWORKandHOW YOU DO YOUR WORK. I HAVE NO INTERESTin theFUCKERY OF THE INDUSTRY. I’MinBED BY 12 O’CLOCK.”

MOVIES: BLONDE, THE GRAY MAN, BALLERINA

The Cuba-born actor will star in the John Wick spin-off, Ballerina, and is starting to produce. But her turbulent, Oscar-nominated turn in Blonde is never far from her mind: “If you put Marilyn Monroe ‘the movie star’ aside, she’s just an actress trying to navigate life and this system, which is so hard to navigate for anybody.”

“THE CONCEPTof aMOVIE STARisSOMEONE UNTOUCHABLE YOU ONLY SEE ONSCREEN. THAT MYSTERY IS GONE.For theMOST PART, WE’VE DONE THATtoOURSELVES—NOBODY’S KEEPING ANYTHINGfromANYONE ANYMORE.”

MOVIES: BULLET TRAIN, KRAVEN THE HUNTER

The Englishman has character-actor depth, and enough magnetism to keep climbing the marquee. The Bond rumors are still just rumors, and he’s careful to keep them in perspective: “You just want to stay grounded, and stay around the people that you love and love you back.”

“THE MOMENT YOU STARTbelievingTHE SHIT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT YOU,you’veLOSTyourFUCKING MIND.You’veLOST IT.”

MOVIES: LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER, MY POLICEMAN
TV: RETREAT

Just being cast as Princess Diana in The Crown informed Corrin’s portrayal of the role. “I had a weird parallel experience of being plucked from nowhere and suddenly having people outside my house,” says the British actor. Corrin identifies as nonbinary and credits friends in the industry, like actor Dan Levy and comedian Mae Martin, with helping them on their journey.

“IT’S a REALLY NICE SHIFT that a ROLE MODEL has EVOLVED into SOMETHING WHICH IS MORE ABOUT FLAWS THAN FLAWLESSNESS, BECAUSE I THINK THAT’S the REALITY of MOST PEOPLE’S EXPERIENCES.”

TV: THE BEAR
MOVIES: FINGERNAILS, THE IRON CLAW

After 10 years on the cult treasure Shameless, White broke big as chef Carmy Berzatto on The Bear. He’s since made the sci-fi romance Fingernails alongside two actors he loves, Riz Ahmed and Jessie Buckley, and donned “ridiculously skimpy clothing” as the late wrestler Kerry Von Erich in The Iron Claw.

“IF YOU READ TOO MANY REVIEWS,thisTHING THAT WAS ONCE OURShas hadSO MANY IDEAS PUT ON IT. I’M HOPEFULwe canSHUTtheWORLD OUT A LITTLE BIT.”

MOVIES: NOPE, LIGHTYEAR

She was a spirited, surprising hero in Nope, and—thanks to SNL—her baby bump enthralled the internet. Asked who her heroes are, the former Nickelodeon darling says, “One hundred percent Tyler Perry. He’s showing a path of ownership for Black creators. You want somebody else? We got Jordan Peele, we got Donald Glover, we got Issa Rae. It’s like, we have options.”

“I WISH I COULD SAY I STRATEGIZED INSANELY.ButTHERE’S TOO MANY THINGSthat canSHAKE SHIT UP.So I’m notOVER-STRATEGIZINGto thatDAMN DEGREE BECAUSEthenI CAN’T FOCUSon thePRESENT.”

MOVIES: THE GRAY MAN, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES

The British actor broke out in Bridgerton, then made clear he’s more than just a (breathtakingly) handsome face with The Gray Man. Page, one of two actors in this portfolio rumored to be in the running to play 007, has a strict policy of humility: “The actors are the piece of equipment that turns up last and fucks up most, basically.”

“THERE’SaHEALTHY AMOUNTofWOLF-AT-THE-DOORthatKEEPS YOU GETTING UP EVERY MORNING. A GOOD 90%of myINDUSTRY IS OUT OF WORKatANY GIVEN TIME.”

TV: SQUID GAME, DISCLAIMER

The Korean model turned actor rocketed to fame (and a best actress award from the Screen Actors Guild) with Squid Game. Next up? A role on Apple TV+’s Disclaimer, starring Cate Blanchett. It’s all made for an intense ride with “complex emotions coming from everywhere.”

“I DON’T WANT to GIVE UP JUST BECAUSE it is NOT an EASY PATH. THERE are SO MANY STORIES to be TOLD. ASIAN ACTORS are PREPARED.”

Interviews by Caitlin Brody, David Canfield, Yohana Deta, Rebecca Ford, Natalie Jarvey, Julie Miller, Chris Murphy, Joy Press, Katey Rich, and Savannah Walsh

LOOK, THEREWASa time I thought it was a dirty word,” says Jonathan Majors. “You know what I mean?” He’s talking about stardom. He says the wordsmovie star,then lets them hang in the air like an incantation. “In school, you would never dream of saying something so ambitious.” Majors grew up poor in Texas, where he was raised by his mom, who’s a pastor. As a teenager, he was combative. Anti-authority. Then he discovered the release valve that was acting. This year, the Yale drama school grad’s coiled presence is on display inCreed IIIand the newAnt-Man and the Waspmovie, and he’ll reign as the archvillain in the next phase of Marvel blockbusters. Majors pours himself into his roles and wants them to be seen, so he doesn’t shy away from the notion of stardom anymore. “I think it’s a word that I was afraid of, because it actually comes with a lot of hope,” he says, “and that’s scary.”

There aren’t many actors who give us as much hope as the 12 stars in these pages. None of them have been on one of our Hollywood covers before. We’ve chosen them because they’re riveting onscreen and driven and ever-evolving in real life. Florence Pugh, the British actor who entered the atmosphere like a comet not so long ago, recently shotDune: Part Twowith other bright lights of her generation, including Austin Butler. “They are remarkable people, number one, and unbelievable actors, number two,” says Pugh. “They’re stars in their own ways, not in the cliché way of using the word. They’re just—they’re sparkly people.”

Despite their youth, most of the sparkly people in this issue have been acting forever. Pugh played Mary in a school nativity play at the age of six—and decided her character should have a Yorkshire accent. Keke Palmer made her film debut as a child, and Butler and Selena Gomez found fame early on TV as well. “When I was filmingElvis,Selena found this photograph of the two of us when I did a guest-star thing on her showWizards of Waverly Place,” says Butler. “And she sends it to me, just going, ‘Wow, remember this?’ It feels like another life. When you’re a child actor, you see so many people come in from Texas or something, and at a certain point they may quit or go back. We’re just so fortunate to have careers in this industry for this amount of time.”

Everybody here is ecstatic just to be regularly employed when, as Regé-Jean Page puts it, “a good 90 percent of my industry is out of work at any given time.” Page, who grew up in London and in Harare, Zimbabwe, is best known (for now) as the duke onBridgerton.He regularly reminds himself that an entire fictional world has been built before he even steps on a set—that every project “has had love, sweat, tears, and breakdowns before I’ve ever read the script.” Palmer, a native of Illinois and a magnetic heroine inNopelast year, also refuses to take too much credit for her trajectory. “Anything that’s happened in my life—especially how it’s happened this year—was ordained by forces beyond me,” she says. “I give it up to God. I give it up to the universe, because I could not have written some of these things, you know what I mean? I’m not that good of an author.”

ARETHEREPOTHOLESthat everybody here has to swerve around on a daily basis? Of course. For one thing, how do you remain elusive and intriguing in a ravenous culture like ours? “When Paul Newman was acting, he was always 40 feet tall,” says Butler. “We didn’t see a ton of him outside of that big screen, and there’s something really special about that.” Julia Garner, whose talent felt like a bolt out of the blue inOzarkand who has been, justifiably, receiving awards on something like a conveyor belt ever since, worries about overexposure too: “Everyone is soout there,and the mystery is disappearing. And when a person doesn’t have mystery anymore, you can’t get it back.”

Three of these actors—Butler, Ana de Armas, and Emma Corrin—have given arresting performances as the most famously doomed icons in history: Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and Princess Diana. Both Butler and de Armas even snagged Oscar nominations. So, yes, this generation knows the glare can burn. Their opinion of social media is…let’s call itcomplicated.

“If it was up to me, I would delete Instagram right now, but I can’t,” says de Armas, who grew up in Cuba and had to learn her first English-language roles phonetically. The reason she can’t delete it, of course, is that she needs to promote her projects and the brands she has partnerships with. “It’s tricky because you feel the pressure to share some personal insight, or something about your private life, to keep people interested in you,” she says. “You have to find a balance somehow, which I find very difficult.” Gomez, a toweringly popular figure online, as well as a key part of the delicious seriesOnly Murders in the Building,has taken breaks from social media, but recently returned to posting on Instagram and TikTok, the latter of which she finds to be “a little less hostile.” Jeremy Allen White, who’s been inspiring a couple of different kinds of hunger as a chef onThe Bear,may have landed on the healthiest way to filter out noise: “My mom tells me what they’re saying on Twitter, which is nice.”

GIVENTHESCRUTINY, it’s been refreshing to see these actors admit to being human as devotedly, and publicly, as they do. Pugh wages a kind of campaign against the appearance of flawlessness. Is it ever a burden? “No, I love it, I love it,” she says. “When I started out, my granddad would always tell me off and be like, ‘Why are you showing everyone your ugly spots?’ He’d be really confused as to why I’d show my cellulite. My answer was like, ‘Well, I’d much rather do it thantheydo it, and then I feel ashamed.’ There’s no pretending with me. When I put on makeup and step in a wonderful dress, I give credit to the people that made me look like that, and I also want my fans to know that (a) I don’t look like that all the time, and (b) I also have stress acne, and I also have hairy eyebrows, and I also have greasy hair.”

Gomez has thought a lot about public personas since that photo of her and Butler was taken on the set ofWizards of Waverly Place,needless to say. “I wasn’t a wild child by any means, but I was on Disney so I had to make sure not to say ‘What the hell’ around anyone,” she says. “Now I think being the best role model means being honest even with the ugly and complicated parts.” Talking openly about her anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder had a dramatic, liberating effect, which she noticed even when encountering fans on the street: “I wasn’t just this prop to people.You’re so cute—let’s take a picture!It was more than that. It was a conversation about mental health or a conversation about courage or disappointment or grief or loss. And I started to go, okay, this is paying off.”

Corrin, the British actor who gave such raw, humane performances inThe Crown,My Policeman,andLady Chatterley’s Lover,has been sharing their experience as a nonbinary actor. “No matter who we are or what our jobs are, we have a self that we presentandhow we feel on the inside,” they say. “Everyone has a journey of combining those to feel like we’re living as ourselves. In the past that has been so restricted. So, there’s a lot of joy for me in talking about that and sharing that part of myself, because I hope that it helps others as well.”

The message in all this is thatpretendingis best left in movies and on TV, where everyone in these pages is fully committed. “That’s the thing that I get the endorphins and the high from—being around great actors, working with directors, digging deep into characters where you’re really feeling vulnerable and on a path,” says the British actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson. “It feels therapeutic.” He remembers loving Brad Pitt’s movies when he was growing up: “I was a big fan of Brad when I was a kiddo. I loved his presence onscreen. He really was the master of cool.” This past year, he appeared inBullet Trainwith Pitt. Now, like Page, he’s rumored to be in the running to inherit James Bond’s tux from Daniel Craig. So, you know, no complaints.

As her own star rose, the South Korean actor Hoyeon did have one small request: some time off to recuperate and filter through everything that had happened sinceSquid Gamebecame a phenomenon. After last year’s Emmys she found herself overwhelmed: “These kind of complex emotions were coming from everywhere. I thought I could have a break, but I was working, working, working.” If it’s any consolation, as with all the stars here, we’ll be at our screens, ready to watch, watch, watch.