Some actors follow the script. Others rewrite the entire room the moment the camera turns on. Hollywood has always had a rare category of performer who makes the audience forget there is anyone else in the frame. They steal focus without trying, make supporting roles feel like leading ones, and leave audiences wanting more of them long after the credits roll.
These machines have become the scene-stealers of contemporary cinema and television. Each of them stepped into someone else’s film or show, effortlessly capturing attention and making it their own, leaving a lasting impression.
Austin Butler and the role that followed him everywhere
Austin Butler, born August 17, 1991, in Anaheim, California, spent years on Nickelodeon and Disney Channel before making his Broadway debut in Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh in 2018. In 2019 he played Tex Watson in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with limited screen time but memorable intensity. Then in 2022 director Baz Luhrmann cast him as Elvis Presley in the biographical film Elvis, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival that same year and went on to gross $269.7 million worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing musical biopic in history behind Bohemian Rhapsody.
His performance earned him the BAFTA Award for Best Actor, the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama, and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2023. He then played the villainous Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two in 2024, described by Collider as “scene-stealing” in a cast that included Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, and Florence Pugh. He went from background player to one of the most in-demand actors in Hollywood in the span of two films.
Florence Pugh and the films she was not supposed to own
Florence Pugh, born January 3, 1996, in Oxford, England, made her screen debut in The Falling at age 18. Her first starring role came in the independent film Lady Macbeth in 2016, which led to a BAFTA Rising Star nomination. She earned her first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Amy March in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women in 2019. Critics consistently noted that she stole scenes opposite Saoirse Ronan, the film’s lead, in nearly every shared moment they had on screen.
In 2022 she starred in Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling opposite Harry Styles, and critics agreed that her performance was the film’s strongest asset. In Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in 2023, she played Jean Tatlock opposite lead Cillian Murphy and won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Cast alongside her ensemble. In a 2022 Empire magazine readers poll she was voted one of the 50 greatest actors of all time. Pugh is consistently the most-discussed performer in nearly every film she enters, even when she is not the lead.
Jeremy Allen White and the kitchen that made him unstoppable
Jeremy Allen White was born on February 17, 1991, in Brooklyn, New York. He spent eleven seasons playing Phillip “Lip” Gallagher on Showtime’s Shameless from 2011 to 2021, building a strong following before receiving wider awards recognition through FX’s The Bear.
Beginning in 2022, White starred as Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto, a fine-dining chef who returns to Chicago to manage his late brother’s sandwich shop. His performance earned consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for the 2023 and 2024 award years. The Bear also received 23 Emmy nominations in 2024, setting a record for a comedy series.
White later played wrestler Kerry Von Erich in the 2023 biographical drama The Iron Claw. He also portrayed Bruce Springsteen in the 2025 film Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere.
His work in The Bear marked a major expansion of his public profile and established him as a leading television actor.
Cillian Murphy and the 20-year wait for his own movie
Cillian Murphy, born May 25, 1976, in Douglas, County Cork, Ireland, had collaborated with director Christopher Nolan for nearly two decades across Batman Begins, Inception, and Dunkirk, always in supporting or ensemble roles. He became a global television star as Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders, which ran from 2013 to 2022 on BBC Two and BBC One. But Nolan had never placed him at the center of one of his films until Oppenheimer, released July 21, 2023, in which Murphy played theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb.
Oppenheimer grossed nearly $1 billion worldwide and received 13 Academy Award nominations, the most of any film released in 2023. It won seven, including Best Picture. Murphy won Best Actor at the 96th Academy Awards on March 10, 2024, his first-ever Oscar nomination and win. He also won the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild Award for the role. He became the first Irish-born actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. A performer who spent two decades stealing scenes in other people’s stories finally became the story everyone needed to watch.
Ryan Gosling and the Ken who owned an entire ceremony
Ryan Gosling, born November 12, 1980, in London, Ontario, Canada, had already proven himself a dramatic heavyweight in films including The Notebook, La La Land, and First Man. Then in 2023 director Greta Gerwig cast him as Ken in Barbie opposite Margot Robbie, and Gosling turned what could have been a comedic footnote into the film’s most talked-about performance. His rendition of the song “I’m Just Ken,” written and produced by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, went viral and earned him both a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination and an invitation to perform the song live at the 96th Academy Awards.
On March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, Gosling performed “I’m Just Ken” backed by 62 fellow Kens, guitarist Slash of Guns N’ Roses, and songwriters Ronson and Wolfgang Van Halen. He began the number seated directly behind Gerwig and Robbie in the audience and brought the entire theater to its feet by the end. The Irish Times described it as “a stirring, funny performance of the old school.” Gosling had played second billing in his own story before. As Ken he finally made the audience remember that no one plays second better than a first-rate talent.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph and the cook who became the heart of everything
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, born May 21, 1986, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, attended Temple University for classical vocal performance before switching to musical theatre and graduating from the Yale School of Drama in 2011. She earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for the Broadway production of Ghost in 2012. She built her reputation across television and film in roles on High Fidelity, Only Murders in the Building, and a scene-stealing turn opposite Eddie Murphy in the 2019 film Dolemite Is My Name. In 2023 she played gospel singer Mahalia Jackson in the political drama Rustin.
Her defining performance came in Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, released in 2023, where she played Mary Lamb, a boarding school head cook grieving the loss of her son in the Vietnam War. Deadline called her performance “simply wonderful, saying more with a look than any words could ever do.” She swept the entire 2023 to 2024 awards season, winning the Golden Globe, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild Award, and finally the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at the 96th Oscars on March 10, 2024. In 2024 Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Robert Downey Jr. and the return that silenced every room
Robert Downey Jr., born April 4, 1965, in Manhattan, New York, defined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Tony Stark across 10 films from Iron Man in 2008 to Avengers: Endgame in 2019. After Endgame many assumed his defining chapter in blockbuster cinema was closed. Then Christopher Nolan cast him as Lewis Strauss, the antagonist of Oppenheimer, and Downey disappeared entirely into the role of a cold bureaucrat seeking revenge against J. Robert Oppenheimer. Reviewers noted the transformation was so complete that the Tony Stark charm had vanished entirely.
He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor at the 96th Oscars on March 10, 2024, his first-ever Oscar win after two previous nominations. In his acceptance speech he thanked his “terrible childhood and the Academy in that order” and called his wife Susan “my veterinarian” before saying she “loved me back to life.” He also won the Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild Award for the role. Downey had stolen scenes his entire career. In Oppenheimer he stole the whole conversation about what great screen villainy looks like at any age.
Ayo Edebiri and the chef who made everyone nervous in the best way
Ayo Edebiri was born on October 3, 1995, in Boston, Massachusetts, and is of Nigerian and Barbadian descent. She first gained wider industry attention as a television writer, with credits including Big Mouth and Dickinson. She also appeared in Dickinson as Hattie, but she did not create the series.
Her breakthrough acting role came as sous-chef Sydney Adamu in FX’s The Bear, beginning in 2022. Her performance as an ambitious young chef navigating a high-pressure Chicago restaurant earned widespread critical recognition and several major awards.
Edebiri won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for The Bear at the 75th Emmy Awards, held in January 2024. That same month, she won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Series — Musical or Comedy. She also shared in the cast’s Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 2024.
Outside The Bear, Edebiri co-starred in the 2023 comedy Bottoms and voiced Envy in the 2024 animated film Inside Out 2, which earned approximately $1.7 billion worldwide.
Zendaya and the silence that says everything
Zendaya, born September 1, 1996, in Oakland, California, began as a Disney Channel actress and pop star before HBO’s Euphoria confirmed her as one of the most gifted dramatic actors of her generation. She won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for Euphoria in 2020 at age 24, becoming the youngest person ever to win in that category according to Guinness World Records. She won the same award again at the 74th Emmy Awards in 2022, becoming the youngest two-time acting winner in Emmy history and the first Black woman to win the Lead Actress in a Drama category twice.
In 2024 she gave a masterclass in silent scene stealing in Luca Guadagnino’s tennis drama Challengers, in which she played Tashi Duncan, a former player turned coach. Critics unanimously agreed she held every scene through stillness and controlled intensity alone. Challengers grossed $94.4 million worldwide against a $55 million budget and became one of the most critically discussed films of 2024. She also returned as Chani in Dune: Part Two in 2024 and co-chaired the 2024 Met Gala. Zendaya has long been the person in every room that every other person cannot stop watching.
Mikey Madison and the role that no one saw coming
Mikey Madison, born March 25, 1999, in Los Angeles, California, spent six years in a supporting role on the FX comedy series Better Things from 2016 to 2022. She had small parts in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in 2019 and the slasher reboot Scream in 2022. Director Sean Baker cast her without an audition in Anora after watching those two performances. He wrote the title role specifically for her. For the part she studied Russian, learned pole dancing, performed her own stunt fight scenes, and temporarily relocated to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn during pre-production alongside Baker himself.
Anora premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2024, where jury president Greta Gerwig awarded it the Palme d’Or. The film was released theatrically on October 18, 2024, by Neon and grossed $59.3 million worldwide against a $6 million budget. At the 97th Academy Awards it won five Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, and Best Actress for Madison herself, making her the first Generation Z actor to win the Best Actress Academy Award. Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson called her performance “big and vivid, brash but charming.” She spent a decade in rooms no one noticed her in. Then she walked into one and won everything.
Featured Image: Photo by Netflix on Wikimedia Commons
