These are the actors who left their mark on film and television this year. Now they enter 2015 as Hollywood’s most exciting new players.
Chris Pratt
Thanks to consistently adorable and flat-out hilarious turns on Everwood, The O.C., and Parks and Recreation, Chris Pratt's star factor has been building for years now. But the first clue that this lovable Parks & Rec cast member could hold his own on a bigger screen came when Pratt slimmed down, and beefed up, to play the supporting role of a soldier in 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty.
And after Pratt underwent a second physical transformation — to become Peter Quill/Star-Lord in this year's Marvel hit Guardians of the Galaxy — he solidified his position as a movie star in his own right. His on-screen charisma was more than matched by his off-screen charm, found front and center in every single interview he did for the film.
Guardians' box office dominance and Pratt’s publicity sprint (his body was also talked about once or twice or three trillion times) turned the 35-year-old actor into 2014's most obsessed-over "new" star. With the final season of Parks starting in January and Pratt's second starring action hero role in June’s hotly anticipated Jurassic World , it feels like this year gave birth to a major new movie star. —Jarett Wieselman
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Gugu Mbatha-Raw
With her elegant and expressive face, Gugu Mbatha-Raw was born to be projected onto the biggest screen possible. And after two short-lived television shows — 2010’s Undercovers on NBC and 2012’s Touch on Fox — Mbatha-Raw gifted audiences with a pair of performances as unique as the films that contain them. The 31-year-old actor starred in May's sumptuous Belle and November's criminally ignored Beyond the Lights , delivering thoughtful portraits of women in crisis that were as heart-wrenching as they were captivating. —J.W.
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Grant Gustin
A thousand-ish miles away from Oliver Queen's (Stephen Amell) super-grounded, super world of The CW's Arrow is the fantastical land of The Flash, where Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) dons a skintight, head-to-toe bright red suit to catch metahumans (those given special powers in the fallout from a particle accelerator explosion).
While there are hundreds of people responsible for the unlikely success of The Flash — the masterful visual effects team, the writers, and executive producers Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg, David Nutter, and Sarah Schechter — the show was going to live and die on Gustin's performance.
In the 24-year-old actor's hands, Barry Allen has a delicious zest for life. The notes of humor Gustin vocally and physically peppers into each episode cannot be celebrated enough — they are what truly convey Allen's fundamental understanding that he is living out every fanboy's dream. And, in many ways, so is Gustin. —J.W.
The CW
Sarah Koenig
No one captured our imagination or attention in 2014 quite like Sarah Koenig, the narrator (and true star) of This American Life's spin-off podcast, Serial. What began as one woman's search for answers turned into a full-blown cultural obsession as we attempted to solve the puzzle of Hae Min Lee's murder.
Was Adnan Syed truly innocent or secretly a charming psychopath? And what is the deal with Jay? And how in the world did Mr. S. happen upon Hae's body? These are just three of the three million questions fans have asked, Reddit'd, and podcasted about after listening to every gripping installment of Serial.
Along the way, Koenig has been celebrated for her findings and criticized for how she reported them. And while the finale didn't offer up concrete answers, the 44-year-old journalist did prove that the radio show is alive and well. —J.W.
Elise Bergerson
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