Paul Dano

Paul Dano has been acclaimed by many as one of the top actors of his generation. He co-stars this summer with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig in the sci-fi Western Cowboys and Aliens and currently appears in Kelly Reichardt's period piece Meek's Cutoff. Other upcoming films include Rian Johnson’s time travel thriller Looper, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City with Robert De Niro, and the independent feature For Ellen, which Dano executive produced and stars in with Jon Heder. Dano recently appeared in The Extra Man with Kevin Kline, Knight and Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, and Where the Wild Things Are for director Spike Jonze. In 2007, he garnered BAFTA and Independent Spirit Award nominations for Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. In 2006, Dano starred in Little Miss Sunshine, earning the Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for best young actor and Screen Actors Guild and Broadcast Film Critics Association awards for the ensemble. Dano also received an Independent Spirit Award for best debut performance in Michael Cuesta’s L.I.E. On stage, Dano most recently appeared in John Guare's A Free Man of Color, directed by George C. Wolfe and starring Jeffrey Wright and Mos Def, at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center.  

Photo credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times / Contour by Getty Images

Atom Egoyan

Atom Egoyan has won numerous awards for his 14 feature films and related projects, including five prizes at Cannes, two Oscar® nominations, eight Genie Awards, and prizes from the National Board of Review. He has had full retrospectives of his films, which include The Sweet Hereafter, Where the Truth Lies, Ararat, and Exotica, at the Filmoteca Espagnol in Madrid, the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and The Museum of the Moving Image in New York. Egoyan’s career has been honored by numerous worldwide festivals, most recently with the 2010 Douglas Sirk Award from the Hamburg Film Festival. Egoyan’s art projects have been presented around the world, including the Venice Biennale and Artangel in London. His acclaimed production of Wagner’s Die Walkurie won a Dora Award for Outstanding Opera Production, and his adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s Eh Joe was presented by The Gate Theatre in Dublin, where it won The Irish Times/ESB Award for best direction before transferring to London’s West End and The Lincoln Center Festival in New York. Egoyan will direct Martin Crimp’s Cruel and Tender for the Canadian Stage theatre company in early 2012.

Zoe Kazan

Zoe Kazan received high praise for her breakout role as Maureen Grube in Sam Mendes’ Revolutionary Road opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. An acclaimed theater actress and 2005 graduate of Yale University, Zoe made her New York stage debut in 2006 in the Off-Broadway revival of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie opposite Cynthia Nixon. Additional theater credits include Things We Want; 100 Saints You Should Know, for which she received Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel award nominations; Come Back, Little Sheba, her 2008 Broadway debut; and The Seagull on Broadway opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard. Her film credits that include Paul Haggis’ thriller In the Valley of Elah, Fracture with Anthony Hopkins, The Savages with Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman, August with Josh Hartnett, Rebecca Miller’s The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, I Hate Valentine’s Day with Nia Vardalos, Kelly Reichardt’s Meek's Cutoff, Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles, Josh Radnor’s HappyThankYouMorePlease, and Nancy Meyers’ It’s Complicated. She won Tribeca’s Best Actress award in 2008 for The Exploding Girl. In 2010, Zoe returned Broadway to star in A Behanding in Spokane and Angels in America.

Anna Kendrick

Anna Kendrick can next be seen in the dramatic comedy 50/50 with Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The film will be released in theaters on September 30, 2011. In 2010, Kendrick starred opposite George Clooney and Jason Bateman in the lauded film Up in the Air, directed by Jason Reitman. Kendrick earned a best supporting actress Oscar® nomination and was honored as best supporting actress by The National Board of Review and best breakout star at the MTV Movie Awards. She also earned nominations from the Critic’s Choice Movie Awards, the Golden Globes, and the Screen Actors Guild. In summer 2010, she was seen in the action-packed, genre-bending film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World opposite Michael Cera. Kendrick was also seen in the blockbuster Twilight and the sequels New Moon and Eclipse. She will also appear in Breaking Dawn Part 1, in theaters November 2011. Kendrick also notably starred in Rocket Science and Camp, each of which earned her Independent Spirit Award nominations. An accomplished theater veteran, Kendrick began her career at age 12 in the 1997 Broadway musical production of High Society, for which she received Drama League and Theatre World awards as well as a Tony Award nomination and the distinction of the second youngest Tony nominee in history.

Rainn Wilson

Rainn Wilson can currently be seen in the seventh season of the Emmy- and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning series The Office. Over the years, he has endeared himself to millions and earned two Emmy nominations as the eccentric Dwight Schrute. Last summer, Wilson turned in a humorous cameo in the blockbuster Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. This year, Wilson can be seen in Hesher, out on May 15, and Super, currently in theaters. Wilson also co-starred in Peep World, which released in theaters in April, and was heard in the animated feature Monsters Vs. Aliens. Prior to The Office, Wilson was best known for his role on HBO’s Emmy-winning series Six Feet Under. Previous film credits include The Last Mimzy, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Sahara, Baadasssss!, Full Frontal, Almost Famous, America’s Sweethearts, House of 1,000 Corpses, and Galaxy Quest. Wilson also received his first Writers Guild Award for his turn as host of the 2008 Independent Spirit Awards. His book Soul Pancake: Chew on Life’s Big Questions was published in October 2010 and is a New York Times Best Seller.