AP Breakthrough Entertainers
NEW YORK (AP) — When Sadie Sink joined the cast of “Stranger Things” in its second season, the then 14-year-old was already a fan of Netflix’s megahit show.
Daryl McCormack is having a busy and rewarding year with appearances on TV in brutal period drama “Peaky Blinders” and dark comedy thriller “Bad Sisters.”
Audiences watching “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” have been greeted with an exhilarating new superhero in Namor, played by Tenoch Huerta.
This year’s nine Associated Press’ Breakthrough Entertainers of the Year includes actors and musicians who flowered in 2022.
NEW YORK (AP) — Winning a Tony Award as best lead actress in a musical cemented Joaquina Kalukango’s place in the Broadway firmament.
In Chinonye Chukwu’s “Till,” Danielle Deadwyler gives one of the most powerful and subtly expressive performances of the year.
If 2020 was a pandemic-induced pause, 2021 was when things started up again, albeit slowly and timidly.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — As she pursued her dream to become an actor, Sydney Sweeney’s family lost their home, her parents got divorced and she spent countless nights crying herself to sleep because of the constant rejection.
Anupam Tripathi said his grandfather sometimes read his palm and told him he’d be rich one day. He jokingly responded: “Where is my money!”
He started off wanting to be a star soccer player, but instead Rauw Alejandro has become a breakout Latin music sensation.
Bay Area-rapper Saweetie wants to win a Grammy for the West Coast. Nominated for best new artist and best rap song, the icy queen with the sharp lyrics has taken the rap game by storm and has been named one of the Associated Press’ Breakthrough Entertainers of 2021.
NEW YORK (AP) — Adrienne Warren had studiously avoided ever touching a Tony Award her entire stage career. Her motto was that she’d only hold one if she deserved to.
NEW YORK (AP) — When little-known actor Simu Liu tweeted in 2014 asking Marvel for an Asian American superhero, he wasn’t vying for a job — he was venting at Hollywood’s status quo.
In another timeline, Rachel Zegler would have had her breakthrough moment last December.
That was when Steven Spielberg’s rendition of “West Side Story” was supposed to open and introduce the world to the New Jersey high school student who responded to an open call on Twitter and beat out thousands for the part of Maria. But the pandemic had other plans.
That was when Steven Spielberg’s rendition of “West Side Story” was supposed to open and introduce the world to the New Jersey high school student who responded to an open call on Twitter and beat out thousands for the part of Maria. But the pandemic had other plans.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Damson Idris transformed from his real life British-speaking Nigerian persona into a canny drug kingpin character with a West Coast accent on FX’s popular crime drama “Snowfall.”
NEW YORK (AP) — Onstage, Finneas and Billie Eilish come across like a seasoned, veteran musical duo.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The video couldn’t have been simpler: A woman in her apartment, lip-syncing audio of President Donald Trump as he expounded on possible coronavirus treatments.
NEW YORK (AP) — If Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was told nearly a decade ago that he’d trade in reading blueprints for movie scripts while he worked as a city planner in the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community, he’d start checking his watch.
LONDON (AP) — When 22-year-old Daisy Edgar-Jones ditched her British accent for the dulcet Irish tones of Marianne in “Normal People,” the actor’s stardom hit a new trajectory.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a span of seven months this year alone, Anya Taylor-Joy played a meddling British brat in “Emma,” a Russian mutant with teleportation powers in the latest “X-Men” film, and an American orphan who turns out to be a chess phenom who can checkmate grown men by the time she’s 8 in
Making a breakthrough in pop culture during any year is hard. Doing it during a global pandemic is an entirely different thing.
For the first time, The Associated Press is spotlighting key entertainers who had that breakthrough moment in 2017.
NEW YORK (AP) — How is a great actor made? For Jonathan Majors, the 30-year-old breakout star of “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” it started in drama school.
