In preparation for our upcoming Top 50 Hottest Young Actors list, we have made the rounds of upcoming movie listings and selected the 10 young actors with the most exciting and challenging roles - from independent films to foreign productions and even some big budget feature films!

Here are our choices (in no particular order):

Jake Gyllenhaal - two upcoming roles: as Tommy Cahill in Brothers and as Prince Dastan in Prince of Persia.

Based on Susan Bier’s film, also entitled Brothers, Jake Gyllenhaal plays Tommy Cahill, the brother of Sam Cahill (played by Tobey Maguire). Tobey’s character is a soldier who goes missing in Afghanistan, and Jake’s character tries to comfort his older brother's wife Grace (played by Natalie Portman) and her children.

The original Bier film is a drama about a UN-soldier who is in a helicopter crash somewhere in Afghanistan and is believed to be dead. His wife and younger brother both deeply mourn him, but eventually finds comfort in each other's company, leading to the two of them falling in love. Months later, the soldier reappears alive but deeply traumatized.

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In Prince of Persia, based on the 2003 video game of the same name, Jake plays the title role. The film is directed by Mike Newell and also stars Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina. Filming is taking place in the United Kingdom and Morocco. As Prince Dastan, Gyllenhaal is a 6th century prince of Persia who teams up with Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) to rescue the Sands of Time, a gift from the gods that controls time, from the hands of the villainous nobleman, Nizam (Ben Kingsley).

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt - He has about seven upcoming projects, all of them very exciting and diverse, so we choose three that really excite us. Joe Levitt is always an indie player, and we based our choices on that premise…

In The Frog King, Joe plays a struggling writer toiling away at his publishing house job who tries to keep the one good thing in his life -- his relationship with his girlfriend -- from going wrong. The film is based on Adam Davies’ book The Frog King. Here’s a review and more insights into what may be a fantastic film to watch out for:

A mediocre book leaves you cold. But an almost-great book--that's enough to make you gnash your teeth. In his debut novel, The Frog King, Adam Davies maddeningly fails to recognize and develop the terrific material he has at hand. Harry Driscoll, raised in privilege and Ivy League-educated, is a peon at a prestigious New York publishing house--in fact, the house is called Prestige--and he hates it: hates the menial labor, hates the intellectual pretension, and hates the political jockeying necessary to advancement. Driscoll is terrific on the disappointment peculiar to the overeducated and underemployed: "All those years of schooling (Yes I speak Old English!) and résumé building. (Yes I interned on Capitol Hill!) didn't pertain at all to the life that was waiting for me." The insider peek at New York publishing is terrific, too, if scant: "There's a joke at Prestige that The New Yorker will publish any story that ends with the word 'home.'" Davies devotes most of his energy, however, to Harry's somewhat mystifying relationship with his girlfriend Evie. He loves her madly, but he's sleeping around. When he loses her, he continues to lie to her even as he tries to win her back. Davies may have some kind of emotional profile in mind for Harry, but he fails to put it across to the reader. Fortunately, the well-observed social comedy and nicely exaggerated workplace farce more than make up for the rest of the novel's shortcomings.

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500 Days of Summer tells the story of the relationship between Summer (played by Zooey Deschanel), who doesn't believe in true love and Tom (Gordon-Levitt), described as a hopeless romantic, who falls in love with her. Over a span of 500 days, it is told from the perspective of Tom, who is influenced by pop music and who breaks out into song throughout the movie.

He’s also slated to play Cobra Commander in GI Joe and one supporting role in Killshot (with Mikey Rourke, among others), but I would think his role (rumored) in Akira would be just as exciting, if not one of the three most exciting. It would be the first time that Joe gets to work with Leonardo DiCaprio. Akira is part one of a two-part live action adaptation of the 1988 anime film, "Akira", in which the leader of a biker gang tries to save his kidnapped friend from a powerful supernatural experiment.

Just in! Apparently the rumor is not true... Here's the post from Cinematical:

Joseph Gordon-Levitt was caught by MTV at the Toronto Film Festival, where he blew off any and all suggestion that he was ever cast in the film. "That just goes to show what you can believe about what people write about movies. I love the movie Akira. I still have yet to read the manga, but that's really just a rumor. They don't have a script or anything." Quite possibly, DiCaprio isn't going to star in it either -- that was never mentioned in the initial trade stories, only from a source on Ain't It Cool News...

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Aaron Johnson - At 18 years old, Johnson is the youngest on the list, but that has no bearing whatsoever on the intensity of his acting. While the latest news about the young actor is that he has been cast in Nicolas Cage’s Kick-Ass, it’s his role in Matthew Thompson’s Dummy that really interests us.

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In this coming-of-age drama, Johnson plays Danny, the older of two brothers who just lost their mom. Danny is supposed to take care of his brother (played by Thomas Grant) who tries to cope with their loss by dressing up a life-size mannequin and pretends that it’s their dead mum. Danny’s way of coping with the loss is to take drugs and have sex, in turn leaving his younger brother to cope by himself…

I think this guy is going to be a big star, someone who is both leading man material and a dramatic actor to be reckoned with.

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Gaspard Ulliel - The French actor is playing one of the most unique and exciting roles ever offered to a young actor. He is to play an angel named Xas in the film adaptation of Elizabeth Knox’s novel The Vintner’s Luck. Playing Xas may be the biggest challenge in Ulliel's acting career to date. It is not, however, without controversy: the character, as depicted in the novel, has a relationship with the vintner which goes beyond the platonic...

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Why so much buzz about this fictional character? For one thing, Xas is an angel whose philosophical discourses have set him on a collision course with God. He is forsaken but unlike other fallen angels, goes on to deal with Lucifer in a way never before seen in film or book ... [read more from our coverage of The Vintner’s Luck]

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Jim Sturgess - As we reported earlier, Jim is to portray Martin McGartland in Fifty Dead Men Walking. The movie was inspired by McGartland, is based on his novel and is directed by Canadian filmmaker Kari Skogland. Here’s more:

Jim Sturgess (dynamic in last year's Across the Universe) turns in a star-making performance opposite Ben Kingsley in Fifty Dead Men Walking, a sweeping political thriller that gives a face to what Northern Ireland wryly calls “the Troubles.” Directed by Kari Skogland with grit, precision and a focus on the human drama, this widescreen story highlights the personal toll wrought by the larger civil conflict. Martin (Sturgess) is a small-time Belfast hustler working in the late eighties. Part of a tight group of mates, he's more concerned with regular pub attendance and easing his way through British military checkpoints than with the reasons the checkpoints stand there in the first place.

As such, he makes a prime target for British intelligence. Recruited by a complex, wily agent (Kingsley), Martin starts feeding information about Irish Republican Army activities to the British. With every success, he intensifies the danger posed to himself and his family. The IRA is shown to be ruthless in its retribution; once an infiltrator has been found out, he becomes a “dead man walking.”

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Just in! Early review from Toronto (via Screen Daily):

Sturgess once again confirms his ability to carry a film with a performance that is just as commanding but very different from his most notable roles in Across The Universe and 21

This is not the only notable role for Jim Sturgess; he is also cast as Gavin Kossef in Crossing Over. The ensemble cast includes Harrison Ford, Sean Penn, Ashley Judd and Ray Liotta. A third movie, also one of his most anticipated to date, is entitled Heartless. As Jamie Morgan, Sturgess plays a young man who is tricked into a deal by a demon and then fights back to save his soul. Clemence Poesy plays his leading lady.

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Ben Whishaw - Two exciting new roles for Ben, definitely one of the most talented young actors we have today. One is as poet John Keats in Bright Star and the other is Ariel in The Tempest.

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It is important to note that Ben has had extensive training in theater, and while there is no assurance that actors who have theatrical training will be great on the big screen, in Ben’s case, it seems to be working for him. Playing John Keats, a real historical character and Ariel, a famous fictional character, would be any actor’s dream. Here are more details on the characters:

John Keats was one of the principal poets of the English Romantic movement. During his short life, his work received constant critical attacks from periodicals of the day, but his posthumous influence on poets such as Alfred Tennyson has been immense. Elaborate word choices and sensual imagery characterize Keats's poetry, including a series of odes that were his masterpieces and which remain among the most popular poems in English literature. Keats's letters, which expound on his aesthetic theory of "negative capability", are among the most celebrated by any writer. [More from wikipedia]

In Brightstar, the focus is on Keats’s relationship with Fanny Brawne. The film's title is a reference to a sonnet by Keats named Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art, which he wrote while he was with Brawne.

As for his rumored role as Ariel, here’s what we have so far…

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Paul Dano - After Little Miss Sunshine and There Will Be Blood, you wouldn’t expect Paul Dano to go anywhere but up! With six new films coming his way, we took an immediate liking to two of them:

In Gigantic, he plays Brian, a depressed mattress salesman whose quest to adopt a Chinese baby is sidetracked when he falls for Happy (played by Zooey Deschanel). What makes this role so cool is that Dano will act alongside John Goodman, Ed Asner and Jane Alexander. Ed Asner will play Dano's pot-smoking, gangsta rap-loving father, and Jane Alexander is to be his long-suffering mother. John Goodman will play Zooey's brilliant, domineering dad.

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In another cool new project for Dano, he’ll be reunited with his L.I.E. co-star Brian Cox, only this time it’s not a serious drama but a comedy for the duo called The Good Heart. Says Monika Bartyzel at Cinematical:

The movie is about a man named Jacques (Cox) who runs a deadbeat bar in New York, "like a bar in a Eugene O'Neil play." Dano, meanwhile, is a young homeless man with healing powers who comes to the bar and heals all the men there -- including Jacques, who "is always in the hospital, nearly dying." In thanks, the homeless man is taken under Jacques' wing to take over the bar, but things get tricky when a Hungarian air-hostess creates a triangle between the two men.

And then, at some point, they find themselves committed. They're certainly not in a normal hospital if they're walking around on their own and playing Frisbee. Whatever the case, the mixture of Dano and Cox sounds excellent, and it should be worth the crazy, healing, dramatic adventure.

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Ben Barnes - he was OK in The Chronicles of Narnia, better in Bigga than Ben, but I would have to say he’ll really be tested as an actor in Dorian Gray. The handsome young Brit has a lot to prove to his critics, but grabbing the lead role in the movie adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is enough to put him on our list.

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And as if playing Dorian Gray is not enough, he's also grabbed another high-profile role this time opposite Jessica Biel, Colin Firth and Kristin Scott-Thomas. The movie is entitled Easy Virtue and here’s more from the film producer’s site, Ealing Studios:

John Whittaker (Ben Barnes), a young Englishman, falls madly in love and impetuously marries a glamorous American woman, Larita (Jessica Biel) in the South Of France, but when he brings her home to meet his parents (Colin Firth and Kristin Scott Thomas), their homecoming is not quite what they hoped. His mother takes an instant dislike to the new wife. A battle of wits ensues and sparks soon fly.

If you saw Barnes' handsome face during the big splash of a campaign for the Narnia series, hopefully he’ll get the chance to prove he’s more than just a pretty face by attacking these roles and proving he can act, and act really well.

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Shia LaBeouf - The Big Studios’ favorite young actor LaBeouf stars in the $100 million DreamWorks production of the thriller called Eagle Eye.

Shia plays “one of the two strangers (the other is played by Michelle Monaghan) who become the pawns of a mysterious woman they have never met, but who seems to know their every move. Realizing they are being used to further her plot for a political assassination, they must work together to outwit the woman before she has them killed. “

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The movie is the follow-up to the big box office winner Disturbia, directed by D.J. Caruso.

Universal, on the other hand, cast Shia in the upcoming Neil Burger thriller called Dark Fields. Based on the novel by Alan Glynn, Dark Fields tells the story of:

… an intellectual slacker and former cocaine addict now is eking out a living as a copywriter for a small publishing house. Through a bizarre series of coincidences, Eddie finds himself in possession of MTD-48, a drug that has some curious effects. On his first trip, Eddie discovers that the drug boosts the intellect, making him far smarter - but also faster, more intuitive, and more charismatic. By warding off sleep and focusing his attention span, Eddie finds that the drug enables him, in a matter of hours, to write a book, learn a foreign language, or predict certain events by detecting patterns in vast amounts of information. What author Glynn has imagined is the perfect drug for the information age, one that makes its user a match for the ceaseless flow of data from television and newspapers to the Internet. Rather than being lost in the overload of endless news, history, opinions, and other information, the user of MDT-48 can take it all in and find meaningful patterns within it. It is an addictive combination, and the book follows Eddie's adventures as he goes through numerous career changes: from copywriter to stock trader and ultimately high-finance guru. However, like all drugs, MDT-48 has its downside, including lethal withdrawal symptoms and terrifying side-effects that can render a user homicidal. If this were not enough, the drug itself is both created and distributed by a shadowy corporation worthy of Pynchonian paranoia, and it isn't too long before Eddie begins to suspect that he didn't just "find" MDT-48 after all.

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Robert Pattinson - is armed with a role that is bound to create one of the biggest buzzes in Tinseltown (Twilight) and two roles in indie films that will help convince critics that he has what it takes to become one of cinema’s leading stars.

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Online movie and fansites have began to call Pattinson a phenomenon, and come November 21st, his box office appeal will be tested to its limits, while his turn to entertain the more artsy crowd will have to wait a few months until the release of Little Ashes, where he plays the controversial artist, Salvador Dali. Another buzz is that Pattinson is part of the cast of a new movie entitled Parts Per Billion. He's supposed to play 21 year old Erik Miller, here's more:

A guitarist who has found his one true love, though it's going to be hard for him to ask her marry him. He's honest, and learning to be strong; it's just starting to come clear what kind of man he's going to be. He wants to write the perfect song, figure out how to make a living without taking money from his grandfather, and make love to Anna every day for the rest of his life.

But if you want to take a peek at what Pattinson has to offer, watch out for How To Be and then find out if the movie is showing in a festival near you. If it is, buy a plane ticket and make sure you purchase a movie ticket too, and then tell us if it wasn't worth it!

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What's on your mind? Did we miss any young actor with an amazing role in an upcoming movie? Let us know, we would love to feature him too! Among the current top 10, which roles and which movies are you looking forward to the most and why?

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Comments (17)

I Love Robert Pattinson

SIMPLY he is the best actor I've ever know
I just love him he is so simply in his way to be, its so normal like everybody and that its one of many thing that I love him....
he can do a movie like twilight and other like litle ashes and be the same person without any change
he is just a grat actor!!!
I love him

Andrea , September 11, 2008

LOVE THEEEEEM (LLL)

They're all ADORABLE
The first, SHIAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
and then Ben, Gaspard, Joseph and Jake.
(LLLLLLLLLLLL)

Clara , September 12, 2008

ROB!

*Screams* I can't wait for Twilight!!!!!!! I'm counting down the days! I have no idea why that Gaspard guy is on the list though...

Love Rob!

cammywamy , September 12, 2008

Excited

I have to say, even though Rob Pattinson was the draw here for me, I'm now looking forward to several other films, thanks to the top 10 actors here. The 500 Days of Summer, and Gigantic, because I will watch anything with Zooey Deschanel.

I've recently become a Strugess fan, and know he will be excellent in anything he chooses to do. And of course Jake's always been a winner in my book.

Out of them all however, Pattinson's three films, and the rumored fourth, are at the top of my list. Twilight because I am a fan of the books.
How To Be, because Art - though similar to Daniel Gale from The Bad Mother's Handbook - the character seems just so lovable and so much like many young people today, still finding themselves and trying to make their way in the world. And based on the interview tMF did with the director of How To Be, Rob sounds amazing in the role.
Finally, the most anticipated Pattinson film for me, Little Ashes. The more involved I get in this film, the more I want to see it. Reading all the fantastic articles at www.LittleAshesRelease.com and knowing the amazing exclusive interviews coming up, makes January of 2009 a very long time to wait to see Little Ashes. And the anticipation will only continue to grow!

Great list, in my opinion, and a lot of up-and-comers!

blearyeyedmesgirl , September 13, 2008 | url

iloverobertt

sooo excited for Twilight AND Parts Per Billion

Annie , September 13, 2008

ROB ROB ROB

THE MOST AMAZING MAN/ACTOR. He has the sweetest personality, so genuine... hes laugh smile ARGH

hayley , September 14, 2008

...

I can't wait for Little Ashes. Pattinson is a great actor, he's taken a variety of roles to prove how amazing he just is. His performance in The Haunted Airman was intense! His facial expressions were superb.. there are no words to describe this young man.
He's #1 on my list!

Maria M. , September 14, 2008

ROBERT PATTINSON

From what I've seen of the Twilight trailers and his role as Cedric Diggory in HP, Rob's proven to be a talented actor. And of course, the more I look at him, the better I feel he channels Edward Cullen! Can't wait for Twilight to be out!!!

Raven , September 14, 2008

YAY ROBERT !!!

I'm a huge Twilight fan and I AGREE WITH ROBERT P. CHOICE ! Thanks !!!

Twilighter , September 15, 2008

TWILIGHT !!!

Yay for Robert !!! I LOVE THE TWILIGHT SERIES AND CAN'T WAIT FOR THIS MOVIE !!!

Kalo , September 15, 2008

Robert Pattinson

Need I Say More?

Amber , September 15, 2008

...

i'm in love with rob!
you are the TOP of this list totallyyyyyyyyy!
i love you!!!

rob forever! , September 15, 2008

...

to many hot guys in one place!get me some ice!

layla , September 15, 2008

viva robert pattinson

pos soy de venezuela y considero k uno de los
mejores actores k tendremos en kuenta es robert pattinson
en realidad jajaja weno creo k ya muxas personas ya lo tomamos en cuenta

wenu robert siempre contaras con mi apoyo en tus pelis creo XD wenu cuidate y cuidense po me despido con un sayonara ^^

liz XD G.N , September 16, 2008 | url

viva robert pattinson

pos soy de venezuela y considero k uno de los
mejores actores k tendremos en kuenta es robert pattinson
en realidad jajaja weno creo k ya muxas personas ya lo tomamos en cuenta

wenu robert siempre contaras con mi apoyo en tus pelis creo XD wenu cuidate y cuidense po me despido con un sayonara ^^

liz XD G.N , September 16, 2008 | url

...

Lovin me some Rob Pattinson!!

Susan , September 20, 2008

Gaspard & Robert = Love

Both Gaspard and Robert are fantastic actors and have a very bright future in front of them (Plus they are easy on the eyes) Everyone else on this list is good too but they are my favorites!
Hannibal Rising=Awesome
How to Be=Awesome

Meghann , November 17, 2008

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