If there was one thing that united us during a polarized 2024, it was likely the solar eclipse, a reminder of the awesome forces in our galaxy as one star disappeared, albeit briefly. Throughout the year, luckily, we saw the birth of more stars on Earth.
Aaron Pierre announced himself in the taut, suspenseful thriller “Rebel Ridge,” Nicholas Alexander Chavez frightened in the one-two punch of “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” and “Grotesquerie,” and GloRilla emerged as one of rap’s most promising new voices.
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An appropriately named celestial being — Maleah Joi Moon — blew up on Broadway, while Myha’la stamped her authority on the series “Industry,” Adria Arjona soared in “Blink Twice” and “Hit Man,” and Fred Hechinger ruled as a Roman emperor in “Gladiator II.”
All seven have ended 2024 with critical and popular attention and have been named The Associated Press’ Breakthrough Entertainers of the Year. The latest class join a range of Breakthrough Entertainers anointed since 2017, including Ayo Edebiri, SZA, Rachel Zegler, Megan Thee Stallion and Daniel Kaluuya.
“It felt like I was doing the thing that I was put on earth to do,” says Chavez, who cut his teeth on ABC’s “General Hospital” before starring in two Ryan Murphy shows this fall.
GloRilla established herself as a proven hitmaker with “Wanna Be” featuring Megan Thee Stallion and the breakout hit “Yeah Glo!,” which earned two Grammy nominations.
“Don’t ever get too comfortable,” advises the rapper. “Take advantage of everything that comes your way. If you drive and apply yourself, it’s going to happen.”
Moon has had quite a 2024 — winning a best actress Tony Award, going to the Met Gala and appearing on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. She calls all of the events “wonderful sprinkles on an already really good cupcake.”
Arjona doesn’t take it lightly that she is one of the few Latina actors able to play multidimensional roles. Her long-term dream is to see more varied Latin American stories on screen.
“I just hope that it gets less and less complicated and that the opportunities of playing real dimensional characters just doesn’t stop,” she says.
Pierre — who once had an otherworldly part in SyFy’s “Krypton” — will next showcase his vocal talents in “Mufasa: The Lion King.”
“I want to always feel like I’m growing, like I’m shifting the needle. You know, I never want to feel stagnant. I never want to feel comfortable,” he says.
Hechinger, with his breakthrough role as Caracalla in “Gladiator II,” is on a roll: He's in the Spider-Man spinoff “Kraven the Hunter,” along with “Nickel Boys,” based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
“For so many years I wanted to tell stories and be an actor,” he says. “So, the moment I started to get paid to do it, where it was a job, an actual real job to do this thing that I loved to play and focus and work in this way, that’s something I count as a blessing.”
Myha’la is already looking ahead: She has roles in two notable films coming next year — “Swiped,” about the founding of Bumble, and “They Will Kill You,” with Zazie Beetz — in addition to the fourth season of “Industry.”
“Nobody saw this trajectory for me. Not even me,” she says. “This has actually been sort of like a very happy accident and surprise that I have any career at all in TV/film.”
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For more on AP’s 2024 class of Breakthrough Entertainers, visit https://apnews.com/hub/ap-breakthrough-entertainers