BAFTA's Rising Stars

BAFTA Nominees Will Poulter, Lea Seydoux, and George MacKay

Established in 2006, the BAFTA Rising Star Award has gone to such future movie stars as James McAvoy, Kristen Stewart, and Tom Hardy, and has become both a prestigious award and a fun way for the public to interact with the BAFTA Awards without taking away any of the prestige and veering into VMA/People's Choice Awards.

It's worth noting that the public hasn't always gotten it right: Noel Clarke beating Michael Fassbender and Adam Deacon taking out Eddie Redmayne both stand out.  However, we all get to choose the future history of this award with this year's five nominees, profiled below:

Dane DeHaan (Age 27): DeHaan has continued to grow on the promise of films such as Chronicle into indeed being an actor worth watching.  His work this past year in The Place Beyond the Pines was (in my opinion) the best part of the film, and I've heard solid things about Kill Your Darlings.  It's worth noting that of these five actors, he's the one that has the guaranteed hit next year (he will take on the role of Green Goblin in The Amazing Spider-Man 2).

George MacKay (Age 21): The least known of the bunch, he's the only one that doesn't have an instant film to attach toward.  However, MacKay has had a very busy year, appearing in a trio of films, including the critically-acclaimed How I Live Now.  Plus, let's not forget the BAFTA Awards tend to favor their own, and MacKay is London-born.

Lupita Nyong'o (Age 30): While she may well win the Best Supporting Actress prize from the BAFTA Awards, it's no guarantee that she'll take this trophy (Ellen Page was nominated for Best Actress for Juno the year she was beaten out by Shia LaBeouf for this award...and yes, I think everyone realizes how stupid that was now).  Nyong'o has only two awards under her belt, and while she gives the best performance of any of these actors, I'm not 100% sold that she's a rising star quite yet, considering most of the other actors have more work to judge.

Will Poulter (Age 20): The youngest of the bunch, Poulter's probably the most surprising nominee on the list (I would have expected Adele Exarphopoulos or Michael B. Jordan to score).  His biggest role in 2013 was as Kenny in the sleeper hit We're the Millers (the one where Jennifer Aniston is a stripper), and though he has some larger roles coming up (The Maze Runner), this seems a bit out-of-nowhere (though it's worth noting that Poulter is from Hammersmith in London).

Lea Seydoux (Age 28): In an odd twist, Seydoux managed to score a nomination while her younger costar, who has taken the lion's share of the precursor awards, was snubbed.  Perhaps this is because Seydoux has a far more extensive filmography, having worked with Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott, Brad Bird, and Woody Allen in the past.  In fact, of the five, she's probably the actress you could least call "rising star" in the sense that she seems to have already risen.

Those are the nominees!  If you live in the United Kingdom, vote here, and if you don't, share in the comments who you think should win!