tMF | The Movie-Fanatic

Can the media alter the public's perception of an actor? I believe so - that's why we have the likes of Megan Fox hugging the headlines and getting the covers of men's magazines, while a lot of more talented young actresses could not even manage to get featured and have interviews. If you think about it, what has she done in the movies to deserve so much publicity and attention?

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Some may argue, 'hey, don't blame her, she's just good at playing the Hollywood game, and she got a shrewd agent managing her career!'. That maybe so and yes, I agree when others say 'she'll not last another year - others will soon take over'. There are those who may say 'Agents and talent managers always take care of their wards - that's why stars have a public image and a private one'.

But watching a good number of indies vis-à-vis big-budgetted ones, I get to see some exciting new faces, and wonder why can't I see them on the cover of popular movie magazines? Should they follow the same formula as Megan Fox to get that media mileage? Or maybe they simply don't like the attention and wanted to concentrate on doing movies and nothing else?

More about this issue and our ten most underrated young actresses after the jump!
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Celebrity Gossip, Talent agents and the Hunger for publicity: Anne Helen Petersen, the publisher of Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style, who is currently preparing her dissertation on celebrity gossip, wrote an interesting article about Fox entitled: 'The Cultivation of Megax Fox':

In other words, she's [ Megan Fox ] a beautiful face. Perfect for high concept films in which the real talent is the CGI animators in jeans and natty t-shirts behind the scenes. But Megan Fox (along with a savvy team of publicists and agents) is positioning herself as a star. LaineyGossip likes to call her a ‘Blender girl' - (Blender is a skin rag posturing as a music magazine - much like FHM or Maxim, it's known for it's 'steamy' photo shoots with women with tangential connections to to music...such as Megan Fox.) What Lainey is basically claiming is that she's not movie star material. This argument has been pulled out for several TV stars - Courtney Cox, for example, is not a movie star - she's meant for the small screen. (Same for all of the Friends crew, save Jennifer Aniston....all of the ER crew, save George Clooney....) Megan Fox has no distinctive features, no distinctive relationships - ultimately, no charisma. And charisma is what makes a huge star a star: you see it in Julia Robert's smile, Brad Pitt's stare, George Clooney's smirk, the way Cary Grant wears clothes. It's a certain je ne sais quoi that separates the Victoria's Secret models from the Vogue covers ... [ read more ]

Petersen also listed down Fox's strategy in her quest to become a star and which of these strategies are working for her. In the end, she said:

So is Megan Fox a star? Or just a brand that adds luster to the Transformers franchise - essentially performing the same function as hot women in a car commercial? (And Transformers is, after all, one massive car commercial...) Will her self-charted path to stardom work? Or will she always be a pretty face - until she isn't anymore?

I guess, it's up to us - movie bloggers and the movie going public to somehow level the playing field. We'll have more of Megan Fox and nine other actresses in our 10 most overrated list next. Right now, it's about time we celebrate the work of ten underexposed, underappreciated and underrated young actresses. You may not be familiar with some of them, but all of these young actresses have one thing in common - awesome acting talent!

# 10 - Kimberly Nixon - She was named as one of 2007's UK's Stars of Tommorow:

Kimberley Nixon's talent, charisma and delicate beauty have seen her segue straight from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama into the BBC's prestige period drama series The Cranford Chronicles alongside A-listers including Judi Dench, Imelda Staunton and Michael Gambon. That production - about a rural Cheshire town on the cusp of change - wrapped earlier this month and Nixon has moved straight on to Working Title's boarding school comedy Wild Child, in which she co-stars as the spiky tormentor-in-chief of a spoilt US newcomer, played by Emma Roberts. It is the first big screen role for Nixon, a self-confessed film buff, whose tastes run to "films which rely on the screenplay and acting rather than the money". And was she given any tips from the veterans on The Cranford Chronicles? "Eileen Atkins told me the best piece of advice she got was from Alec Guinness - to set three alarm clocks."

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Movie worth watching: She's playing one of the leads in Cherrybomb, together with Rupert Grint and Robert Sheehan. The film, says IMDb, " is about three teenagers who went on a wild weekend of drink, drugs, shop-lifting and stealing cars that quickly spins beyond their control."

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# 9 - Kaya Scodelario - Seductive and sexy, Kaya Scodelario will be introduced to American audiences via Moon, but she is already quite popular in the UK via the tv series, Skins. With no prior acting experience, Scodelario was cast in the first series of Skins in 2007 as Effy Stonem, and was renowned for having very limited speaking lines. She returned to the second series in which her character was developed considerably, before eventually becoming the central character in the 2009 series. Scodelario and Lisa Backwell (who plays Pandora Moon) are the only actors from the original cast to return to the latest season.

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She has described how, in this role, at the age of only 16, she was able to cope with having to disrobe for several 'racy scenes':

Obviously it's slightly embarrassing to be standing in a room full of fifty men in your underwear. But you just had to laugh at yourself. We had to do one in the woods at night. It was freezing cold and I was like, 'Why, why would you do this in the woods?' ... But she [Effy] has always worn skimpy outfits, so I've got used to the fact she's a very sexy girl.

Movie worth watching: She's the lead in Shank. Says IMDb: "an action film for the youth generation, set in a decaying future London. A gang set out on a chase to avenge the murder of one of their own."

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# 8 - Melonie Diaz - She was proclaimed queen of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival:

In a ritual almost as old as the festival itself, the media single out one prolific actress each year for what is widely seen as a career-boosting coronation. Being anointed is a confirmation of status in the independent film world and a step toward studio movie stardom. Diaz, who this year is actually in four festival entries -- "American Son," "Assassination of a High School President," "Be Kind Rewind" and "Hamlet 2" -- is the latest to be handed the crown. She joins such esteemed predecessors as Parker Posey, Lili Taylor, Christina Ricci, Kirsten Dunst, Chloë Sevigny, Catherine Keener and Patricia Clarkson.

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Movies worth watching: Her breakthrough roles include Blanca in Catherine Hardwicke's Lords of Dogtown (2005) and as Laurie in Dito Montiel's A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006) which earned her a Independent Spirit Awards nomination for Best Supporting Female. She was subsequently cast by Jamie Babbit in the lead role of Anna in Itty Bitty Titty Committee (2007) as well as a role in Hamlet 2 and Be Kind Rewind in 2008.

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# 7 - Katie Jarvis - Reports the Guardian:

Jarvis is being hailed as a major acting discovery. It took three auditions for her to win the part of headstrong 15-year-old Mia in Arnold's second feature, Fish Tank, but already her fierce, touching portrayal has earned her a best British performance award at this year's Edinburgh film festival, and helped win Arnold the jury prize at Cannes - the same gong she had scooped in 2006 for her debut feature, Red Road. [ read more ]

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Adds INDIEWire: Starring as Mia in every scene in "Fish Tank," Katie Jarvis is the first major acting discovery of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. It's just a shame she isn't in the South of France for her moment in the spotlight. The 17 year old gave birth to a baby one week ago, so she declined to attend. [ read more ]

Movie worth watching: A social drama at once bucolic and grimy," The Guardian's Sukhdev Sandhu writes, "'Fish Tank' draws a magnificent performance from newcomer Katie Jarvis, who plays Mia, a fierce-tempered, beer-guzzling teenager." indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez noted that Jarvis just might be the discovery of the festival in his report from "Tank"'s screening. "Starring as Mia in every scene in 'Fish Tank,' Katie Jarvis is the first major acting discovery of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival," Hernandez said. "It's just a shame she isn't in the South of France for her moment in the spotlight. The 17 year old gave birth to a baby one week ago, so she declined to attend." Jarvis was also singled out by Screen Daily's Allan Hunter, who writes that she finds "the vulnerability of the teenager without recourse to sentimentality or surrendering any of her anger or sarcasm." Hunter goes on to also note that the film confirms director Arnold's "status as a torchbearer for the social realist traditions of Ken Loach and the Dardenne brothers." Variety's Leslie Felperin calls Jarvis "mesmerizing" and says of the film: "What makes ['Fish Tank'] feel special is its unflinching honesty and lack of sentimentality or moralizing, along with assured direction and excellent perfs."

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# 6 - Mia Wasikowska - She's probably the next actress from Australia to follow in the footsteps of Cate Blanchett, Naomi Watts, Nicole Kidman and Judy Davis.

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Growing up she wanted to become a ballet dancer but it seems 'destiny' has other plans for her. She switched to full-time acting only in 2006 and was nominated for a Young Actress AFI Award (Australia's acting award giving body) for her role in Suburban Mayhem. American TV audiences will remember her for her performance in HBO's In Treatment, playing Sophie, an aspiring Olympic gymnast who is sent to Gabriel Byrne's psychotherapist following an accident which is suspected to have been a suicide attempt. She followed that up with supporting roles in several films - She played the role of Elinor Smith, a young woman hoping to follow in the footsteps of Amelia Earhart in Amelia, starring Hillary Swank. Wasikowska also appeared in Defiance with Daniel Craig, as well as in the indie film That Evening Sun with Hal Holbrook.

Her role in the new Tim Burton film, Alice in Wonderland, is giving the young actress a lot of buzz. Says the Olivia Smith as the Daily News:

At the center of the director's latest off-kilter universe will be relatively unknown Australian actress Mia Wasikowska, 19. Wasikowska has been picked to play the plumb role of Alice, who is 17 in Burton's realization of the classic fantasy book by Lewis Carroll (the heroine of the book is a younger girl). Burton said of his choice, "We met a lot of people, but she just had that certain kind of emotional toughness, standing her ground in a way that makes her kind of an older person with a younger person's mentality," [ read more ]

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# 5 - Juno Temple - She has won critical praise for playing supporting roles, but she's definitely ready for a lead one.

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A reviewer said that she played her part in Notes on a Scandal with "petulance and angst," (from Miranda K. Pennington @ Ithacan Online) while her performance in Atonement has been called "impressive" by Variety.

The Telegraph did a profile of Ms. Temple and one part talked about how she became an actress: ...at 15, she realised she wanted to be an actress. 'I just had to turn around to my parents and say, "I really want to do this."' It was then that her mum suggested she attend the audition for Notes on a Scandal: '"You know what Juno?" she said, "If you want to do this, go and see your competition."' Richard Eyre remembers the sweet girl he met back then. 'None of Juno's personal qualities was required in the part,' he says. But even though she had never really worked before, Eyre knew she could do it. Already 'she was an actress. I knew she could play it without having to be it.' Now Juno Temple is one of our best new acting talents... [ read more ]

Ms. Temple has five new feature films to be shown this year and the next - including the historical-drama-thriller Glorious 39 (with Romola Garai, Bill Nighy, Julie Christie, among others), Cracks (with Eva Green) and Noah Baumbach's latest feature, Greenberg, where she plays a lead role.

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# 4 - Rinko Kikuchi - Rinko Kikuchi's movie career began when she was 18, but she kept herself busy before that by appearing in Japanese TV commercials. Her first movie role was Will to Live (1999), which was primarily released in Japan and Europe. Right from the start, Rinko Kikuchi was a surefire crowd pleaser. She has never conformed to the populace and has the uncanny ability to make her roles something more unique than they were intended to be. Rinko Kikuchi has carried her eccentric sense of style over into everything she has done in her acting career.[ read more ]

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In 2006, she appeared in the critically-acclaimed Alejandro González Iñárritu-directed film Babel, where she played Chieko Wataya, a deaf teenage girl, in a role for which she was critically acclaimed and nominated for numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She won several, such as the National Board of Review Award for Best Breakthrough Female Performance (tying with Jennifer Hudson) and the Gotham Award for Best Breakthrough. Kikuchi is also the fifth actress in Academy Award history to be nominated for an award for a role in which they do not speak a word. (The others were Jane Wyman, Patty Duke, Holly Hunter, and Samantha Morton.)

Her emotionally intense role in Babel has led to her being noticed by many international directors, such as Rian Johnson, auteur director of Brick. She starred in his second film, 2009's The Brothers Bloom, which was her first fully English-language feature. Though she plays a main character, she only speaks three words in the film; her character is said to only know three words of English. Up next for Rinko includes the Japanese remake of Sideways, the John Cusack starrer Shanghai and acclaimed filmmaker Anh Hung Tran's latest feature, Norwegian Wood, where she is playing the lead character, Naoko.

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# 3 - Deborah Francois -  She is considered one of European cinema's undiscovered gems.

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There are 2 big reasons why you need to know more about award-winning Belgian actress Deborah Francois... First, she's the star of three highly-acclaimed movies - Cannes big winner, the Dardenne Brothers' The Child (L'Enfant), the dramatic-thriller The Page Turner (La Tourneuse de pages) and the recent Sundance favorite and François’ first English-speaking film — Unmade Beds, by Argentine director-writer Alexis Dos Santos. The movie has earned critical acclaim after screening at the recent Sundance festival. “Unmade Beds” uses an unconventional format, mixing still photography, live action and musical performances from underground British bands such as (We Are) Performance, Connan Mockasin and Plaster of Paris to narrate the intersecting lives of a group of young bohemians in a London loft.

Second, she's one award-winning actress with such intensity and dedication to her craft, you need to watch her perform and add the fact that she's simply beautiful with such a refreshing personality. [ read more of tMF's profile ]

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# 2 - Shareeka Epps - It's a tragedy that a young and talented actress such as Shareeka Epps is not given roles that would challenge her and allow us, moviegoers to watch her more. After Half-Nelson, the movie that puts her in the spotlight, there are no other films as exciting and as 'worth it' for Shareeka.

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She plays the young but definitely not naive student of Ryan Gosling, the idealistic History teacher (yet suffering from drug addiction), in the critically-acclaimed 2006 film, Half Nelson. This review says it all:

Shareeka Epps made her acting debut in Half Nelson. As young Drey, Epps portrays a latch key kid in danger of falling prey to a neighborhood drug dealer. Perhaps even more dangerous to her safety is a burgeoning friendship with her well meaning, drug-abusing history teacher (Ryan Gosling). Epps more than holds her own against Gosling's marvelous performance; she is all-knowing and charmingly naive, all at once. The actress suppresses her smile, but then lets it shine with full, heartbreaking force.

For Half Nelson, she won the Gotham Award for Breakthrough Performance and was named Best Supporting Actress by the Boston Society of Film Critics and Best Actress by the Independent Spirit Awards. She was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress by the Broadcast Film Critics Association. In 2007, she appeared in the Noah Buschel film Neal Cassady, as well as Alien vs. Predator 2. Another upcoming project is Mother and Child, an upcoming drama film directed and written by Rodrigo García. It also stars Naomi Watts, Annette Bening, Kerry Washington.

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# 1 - Anna Kendrick - Don't be surprised, but Anna Kendrick is poised for more success, even after Twilight!

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I think she was very fine in Rocket Science and look forward to the next movies she'ls been cast, especially Elsewhere and Up in the Air. IndieWire and other movie blogs put out their early predictions for the 2010 Academy Awards nominations. And they have chosen Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air) as a front runner for Best Supporting Actress. Anna is joined by Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard (Public Enemy) as front runner. In addition, the film Up in the Air is predicted to be nominated for Best Picture.

Kendrick is featured in the upcoming 2009 film Elsewhere, in which she plays her first lead character, a girl whose best friend (played by Tania Raymonde) goes missing. Her theatre singing experience gave her the opportunity to star in her next project, The Marc Pease Experience, currently in production, where she appears opposite Jason Schwartzman and Ben Stiller as a high school senior involved in musical theatre. She is set to feature in Edgar Wright's upcoming adaptation of the graphic novel Scott Pilgrim, titled Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

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What's on your mind? Are you familiar with some of the young actresses on this list? Do you have names of young actresses you think should be included here? Let us know what you think!
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