The nominee list for the Orange Rising Star Award 2010 was unveiled on Tuesday by 2009 winner Noel Clarke.
This year Jesse Eisenberg, Nicholas Hoult, Carey Mulligan, Tahar Rahim and Kristen Stewart are in the running for the award which recognises five international actors and actresses whose talent has inspired popular acclaim from the British public.
Announcing the nominees Clarke said: “Winning the Orange Rising Star Award in 2009 was the highlight of my year. The fact that the award is the only one voted for by the public made it even more special. Since winning I have gone on to direct a brand new feature which is due to be released in the summer and I hope this year’s winner finds the accolade as beneficial to their career as I have.”
The award is the only Orange British Academy Film Award to be voted for by the public. Film lovers wanting to vote can do so via the widget at the end of this article or online at orange.co.uk/bafta and the winner will be announced at the Orange British Academy Film Awards on Sunday 21 February 2010.
The Orange Rising Star Award was created in honour of Mary Selway, the highly respected BAFTA-winning casting director whose career spanned three decades and over ninety films before she died in 2004. She worked with notable directors such as Steven Spielberg, Roman Polanski, Clint Eastwood and Ridley Scott, contributing to the creation of some of the silver screen’s most memorable characters.
Hattie Magee, Head of Partnerships at Orange, “This year we are celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Orange Rising Star Award. Over the last four years we have presented the award to an impressive list of recipients who have gone on to achieve great things. We wish all of this year’s nominees the best of luck for the big night. Orange is proud to be involved in an award that enables communities of film fans to come together and get closer to the Orange British Academy Film Awards.”
NOMINEE BIOGRAPHIES
Jesse Eisenberg
Eisenberg’s film career started in 2002 when he starred in the independent film Roger Dodger, for which he was nominated for a Gotham award.
He gained recognition for his role in Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale. The film won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Ensemble Cast and Jesse received nominations for an Independent Spirit Award and a Boston Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 2009, Eisenberg played the lead role in Adventureland, a comedy directed by Greg Mottola, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Fellow cast members included fellow Orange Rising Star nominee Kristen Stewart and Bill Hader. Since we last saw him in Zombieland in 2009, Jesse has now completed filming Holy Rollers which has been accepted into the Sundance Film Festival 2010 and is currently filming The Social Network, in which he plays the role of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Nicholas Hoult
Hoult has a family history of stardom: Dame Anna Neagle, the acclaimed English stage and film actress from the 1930’s, is his great aunt.
At 12 years old, Hoult left school to focus on his acting career, attending the Sylvia Young stage school and making his professional debut in the 1996 film Intimate Relations. Hoult worked mainly in television until the success of About a Boy, in which he played a nerdy 12-year-old named Marcus, alongside Hugh Grant’s rich lothario, Will.
While at sixth form, he gained a lead role as Tony Stonem in the first two series of E4 drama Skins, for which he was nominated for a Walkers Home Grown Talent Award.
This year, Hoult stars in Tom Ford’s directorial debut film A Single Man due for release in February, as well as the fantasy epic Clash of the Titans, due for release in March.
Carey Mulligan
Mulligan has garnered much critical acclaim for her role in An Education, written by Nick Hornby. The film made its debut at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews referencing Mulligan as the breakout star to watch in 2009. In the last six months alone, Mulligan has received the Hollywood Breakthrough Actress Award at the 2009 Hollywood Film Festival, the British Independent Film Award for Best Actress and was recently named Best Actress by the National Board of Review and the Washington Film Critics Association, for her role in the film.
Mulligan will next been seen in The Greatest, starring opposite Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan. She also recently completed production on Oliver Stone’s Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, the sequel to the 1987 film, in which she starred alongside previous Orange Rising Star winner Shia LaBeouf. In Autumn 2010 Mulligan will also star in Never Let Me Go based on the award-winning novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.
Tahar Rahim
Tahar Rahim had an early passion for cinema, often visiting his local theatre three or four times a week. In 2002 he moved to Montpellier and completed a three year degree in Cinema at the Université Paul Valéry.
After a spell on the stage, Rahim landed a small part in his first feature film Inside, directed by Julian Maury and Alexander Bustillo, and then appeared in the French television series La Commune. In 2008, he came to international prominence with his lead role in Un Prophete (A Prophet), a French film about a young Arab man sent to a French prison where he becomes the mafia kingpin. Written and directed by Jacques Audiard, the film premiered at Cannes earlier this year winning the Palme d’Or and is released in the UK in January. Fluent in English, Algerian and his native French, Rahim will next be seen in The Eagle of the Ninth in a Gaelic-speaking role as the fearsome Seal Prince.
Kristen Stewart
Stewart’s acting career began at the age of eight, after an agent saw her perform in her elementary school’s Christmas play. Her first major role was for the Panic Room, playing the sullen, diabetic daughter of a divorced mother (Jodie Foster).
In 2007, Stewart starred in Sean Penn’s critically acclaimed adaptation film Into the Wild. After which she had a cameo appearance in Jumper and also appeared in What Just Happened.
In November 2007, it was announced that Stewart would play Isabella ’Bella‘ Swan in the movie Twilight, based on Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling vampire romance novel. Stewart was on the set of Adventureland, in which she plays lead character Em Lewin, when director Catherine Hardwicke visited her for an informal screen test which “captivated” the director. After the release of Twilight, Kristen Stewart was awarded the MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance for her portrayal as Bella Swan. Stewart reappeared as Bella in the sequel, New Moon, and will reprise this role in Eclipse.
