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With age being such a liberal concept in acting, as often people with pension plans and two kids play high schoolers, not a lot of attention is given to maturity of performers like it is for instance, in sports. Yet the road to A-list stardom is long and is often achieved only by those who had their breakthrough early like Jake Gyllenhaal and Leonardo DiCaprio. So these most promising actresses under 25 have the 20 yards advantage over their competitors of and have the attention of every working director and casting agents.
Elle Fanning – Born in 1998
The younger sister of the longer-known Dakota, Elle still managed not to be in the shadow of her insanely successful sibling as she stared in some equally big feature films. While it was somewhat hard to differentiate the two when they were kids, now we don’t have that problem as both landed some monumental roles. Despite being four years younger Elle appears older and in the recent years she got more mature roles. She stars as an aspiring model in Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon (2016) while having a much more grounded role in the 20th Century Women, which came out this year as well, showcasing her diversity and transformability.
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It’s really valuable when a young, kid actor manages to pull off a supporting role and add to the depth of the movie, but it’s a whole different story when they get to carry a movie on their own. Madeline Carroll did that in 2010’s Rob Reiner movie Flipped, a very endearing, relatable story about first love, a timeless tale actually set in the 1960ss. Reiner went back to Carroll for The Magic of Belle Isle (2012) starring Morgan Freeman, and this is an important achievement for a young actresses as she earned the respect of a very talented, very busy director. While she didn’t do as much movies from 2010, in every single role she was accompanied by some of the biggest names in entertainment.
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We’re sorry to be the ones that break it to you, but you’ll have to learn how to pronounce Saoirse’s name as she isn’t going anywhere. With the amount of work this 22-year-old has done and the importance of roles she got it’s really hard to believe that she was a teen just three years ago. Not to forget the recognition she got from the industry as she was Oscar nominated for the best supporting role in 2007 for her performance in Atonement, and then for the leading role in 2015 for Brooklyn. She nailed the job of portraying a barely-human girl in Hanna (2011), and in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) she grasped the Wes Anderson’s concept perfectly and gave a spotless performance, proving the wide range. She already established a monopoly on the female leading roles, throughout genres, but mostly in dramas.
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It has to be handed it to the creators of The Force Awakens, they had the courage to put the fate of the most beloved franchise ever on the shoulders of unknown actors, and alongside John Boyega, Daisy Ridley delivered flawlessly. It takes a special person to take on a pressure of the highest expectations of an insane number of people and still do exquisitely. With the success and the attention role in Star Wars brought offers came flooding in for 24-year-old Ridley and she will star in ecranisation of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express and the re-imagining of the story of Hamlet called Ophelia. That’s just one of many films the charismatic English actress has lined up beside starring in the biggest movie franchise of them all.
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The youngest on our list and yet the one with the experience in working with the best and most ambitious director right now, Christopher Nolan. Mackenzie Foy’s breakthrough role came in the Twilight franchise where she played the daughter of the lead characters, and then continued a hot streak by having a role in the horror hit The Conjuring (2013). Her young career reached new heights in 2014 with Nolan’s Interstellar where she carried the first half of this huge movie producing real emotional value. As she has a black belt in Taekwondo we hope to see grow up into a legit action star beside taking on drama roles and she already disclosed she enjoys fast-paced action-packed movies very much.
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Arguably the most well known of the bunch as she has quite a few notable movies in which she has important roles. The most memorable being that of Hit-Girl in the Kick-Ass movies as it caused a lot of controversy due to the language she was using (and not the body count which would put Terminator to shame). Chloë Grace Moretz has had the most diverse career of all the girls on the list as she did comedy, animation, drama, action, sci-fi, and both leading and supporting roles. She is almost already an A-lister and the industry is just waiting for a while before giving her the leading roles in more adult movies, and with the contacts and experience she already posses, it’s inevitable.
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The cute blonde girl from the War of the Worlds and Man on Fire movies is all grown-up but she’s still young, and luckily she didn’t catch the child-star syndrome of going overboard with her antics. Dakota is committed to acting and while she did commonly play intelligent children at the beginning of her career, she has achieved a wide range of diversity in her filmography already. And the sheer volume of characters she has done is enough to put any actresses to shame, regardless of age. The older of the Fanning sister is already a Hollywood veteran and one that has the privilege to choose movies she wants to do, as evident by her small vacation from blockbuster flicks, aiming for smaller, more personal films for now.
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Breaking on the scene in the best way possible with True Grit (2010) which earned her an Oscar nomination for the best supporting role at the age of 13, it seemed like that performance would be an almost impossible act to follow. Judging on what the 20-year-old did after it, and especially with The Edge of Seventeen (2016), she really proved everybody wrong. The multitalented actor is also a singer and a model, but luckily she values movie-making the most. Definitely one of the most promising actresses under 25, if not the most promising, Steinfeld has the famed “command of the screen” and the talent to make a hairy, grown man genuinely feel the troubles a 17-year-old girl has.
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Here’s a pro tip: if you ever want to jump out of your skin to punch a character that’s a good example of an actor who is doing an outstanding job. Besides Joffrey and Cersei, we were always angered by Sansa in the Game of Thrones, even though she probably had it worst in the brutal series, therefore, Sophie Turner is a great actress. Out of the young actor’s GoT-propelled bunch, she probably managed her career the best as she got the role of iconic Jean Grey in the strongly standing X-man franchise. Her exposure won’t be lacking anytime soon as we await the two final seasons of the biggest TV show ever.
Are there any other actresses under 25 from whom you expect great performances?
