The busiest actors of 2019

The former “Twilight” teen idol has been steadily making a name for himself as one of the finest actors of his generation. This year found R-Patz going galactic for renowned French filmmaker Claire Denis in “High Life”, playing the Dauphin in David Michôd’s Henry V retelling, “The King”, contending with Willem Dafoe’s flatulence in “The Lighthouse” and hanging out with Johnny Depp and Mark Rylance in Ciro Guerra’s “Waiting for the Barbarians”.

There isn’t a more in-demand actor working today than Adam Driver, and he put in a full 2019 with leading roles in Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story”, Jim Jarmusch’s “The Dead Don’t Die”, Scott Z. Burns’s “The Report” and one last go-round as the Vader wannabe Kylo Ren in J.J. Abrams’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker”. The effort appears to be paying off: he was just received a SAG Award nomination for “Marriage Story”, and is currently considered the frontrunner for the Best Actor Oscar. 

Timothée! Timothée! The impossibly pretty twenty-three-year-old stole hearts as Armie Hammer’s boy toy in Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me By Your Name”, and he’s been working steadily ever since. He played the young King Henry V in David Michôd’s “The King”, Laurie in Greta Gerwig’s inventive take on “Little Women” and the unfortunately named Gatsby Welles in Woody Allen’s barely-released “A Rainy Day in New York”. 2020 brings “Dune” and, hopefully, glory.

It was an eventful year for young Tom Holland. Somewhere around the release of “Avengers: Endgame”, Sony announced that they were ending their Spider-Man share agreement with Marvel Studios so that they could keep the web-slinger to themselves. This gave “Spider Man: Far from Home” a melancholy feel, as it looked as though this would be the last time Holland’s Peter Parker would get to interact with Happy Hogan and the rest of the MCU gang. Sony and Marvel eventually worked it out (allegedly due to tearful pleading from Holland), so Spidey is in the MCU to stay. Holland also contributed a voice to the animated “Spies in Disguise”.

Chris Evans’s schedule is about to get a little less cluttered now that he’s bid adieu to the role of Captain America in the MCU. But he’ll likely keep busy because, y’know, he’s Chris Freaking Evans. This year, we saw him give up the shield in “Avengers: Endgame”, connive convincingly as Christopher Plummer’s son in Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” and rescue Ethiopian Jews in “The Red Sea Diving Report”.

The South African superstar is about to earn her third Academy Award nomination for her eerily accurate portrayal of news personality Megyn Kelly in “Bombshell”, but she gave her best performance as a presidential candidate who falls for the charming schlub she used to babysit in Jonathan Levine’s “Long Shot”. She also capably conveyed the voice of Morticia Addams in the animated “The Addams Family”.

Though Zendaya only had one big-screen appearance this year (reprising her role as MJ in “Spider-Man: Far from Home”), she was insanely busy on the small screen with “The OA” and a critically acclaimed turn as Rue Bennett in Sam Levinson’s groundbreaking HBO series, “Euphoria”. Next year, she joins the “Dune” universe as Chani, and if that takes off as expected, she’ll have two franchises running concurrently.

You can’t make a list of busy actors and leave out Samuel L. Jackson. The famously industrious actor pulled triple duty as Nick Fury in “Captain Marvel”, “Avengers: Endgame” and “Spider-Man: Far from Home”, while also reprising his role as one of three black private dicks who’s a sex machine to all the chicks in “Shaft”.

The Willennium is still in full effect. The Fresh Prince kept busy in 2019 as the blue-hued genie in Disney’s live-action remake of “Aladdin”, and went mano-a-mano with a CG representation of his younger self in Ang Lee’s weirdly underestimated “Gemini Man”. He also contributed a voice to “Spies in Disguise”, and will be wrecking shop once again as Detective Mike Lowry in “Bad Boys for Live” this January.

Professor X v.2 finished out his mutant schooling duty with the box office bomb that was “Dark Phoenix”, and he helped drive the stake through the heart of M. Night Shyamalan’s “Unbreakable” series with the outlandishly awful “Glass”. Did it get better with “It Chapter Two”? Marginally. But work is work, and Mr. McAvoy keeps booking plenty of it.

The closest thing we have to a Paul Newman gave us two great performances this year, which feels like a bonanza. Pitt was in fine, sunbaked form (particularly on Rick Dalton’s roof) as stuntman Cliff Booth in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood”, and found surprising depths as an astronaut sent to commune with his father for the sake of humankind in James Gray’s “Ad Astra”.

R-Patz’s “Twilight” costar was busy this year as well. She starred as a controversial author in “JT Leroy”, headlined Elizabeth Banks’s failed “Charlie’s Angels” reboot, and dialed up some French New Wave magic as Jean Seberg in Benedict Andrews’s “Seberg”. She’ll be back onscreen next month in the William Eubank-directed horror flick “Underwater”.

It was a huge year for Disney’s live-action Jasmine. Not only did she co-lead one of the biggest box-office hits of the year, she also stole scenes from Kristen Stewart in Elizabeth Banks’s reboot of “Charlie’s Angels”. We couldn’t take our eyes off Scott, and that bodes well for 2020 and beyond.

There’s no such thing as too much Jude Law, and, to be honest, we could’ve used a little more Law in 2019. He’s incorrigible as ever as “The New Pope”, and whined spectacularly as Yon-Rogg in “Captain Marvel”. He also turned up in Woody Allen’s long-delayed “A Rainy Day in New York”, which may not endear him to some viewers, but, hey, the man respects a paycheck.

The breakout star of “Stranger Things” left a deep cinematic footprint in 2019. He reprised his role as Richie Tozier in “It Chapter Two” and played the young Boris in John Crowley’s bizarre adaptation of Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch”. He also pitched in on “The Addams Family” animated film as the voice of Pugsley Adams.

If you’re looking to make a halfway decent movie, your first call should be to Jessica Chastain. This was probably the operating philosophy of the filmmakers behind “It Chapter Two” and “Dark Phoenix” and, well, it didn’t turn out that well. Chastain did her best with the material, and she’ll be back next year as an assassin in the Tate Taylor-directed “Ava”.

The gravelly voiced Canadian charmer is a welcome presence in any movie, and we were thrilled to see him verbally jousting with Charlize Theron in Jonathan Levine’s terrific rom-com, “Long Shot”. Rogen also gave amiable voice to the warthog Pumbaa in “The Lion King”, and dropped in as Viking Man in James Franco’s uninspired adaptation of Steve Erickson’s “Zeroville”.

Our once and forever Peggy Olson has upended her plucky image as the oppressed June Osborne in “The Handmaid’s Tale”, which is entering its fourth season next year. On the big screen, she was splendidly annoying in Jordan Peele’s “Us”, something-or-another in Casey Affleck’s “Light of My Life”, present in “The Kitchen” and positively brilliant in Alex Ross Perry’s “Her Smell”.

Tiffany Haddish has been one of the hardest working actors in Hollywood over the last few years, and she didn’t let off the gas in 2019. She was ubiquitous as a voice actor in “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part”, “The Secret Lives of Pets 2” and “The Angry Birds Movie 2”, but she did her best work on camera in “The Kitchen” and the uproarious “Between Two Ferns: The Movie”

As if pulling off the most protracted death scene in the history of cinema in “Avengers: Endgame” wasn’t enough, Johansson gave two awards-worthy performances in Taika Waititi’s execrable “JoJo Rabbit” and Noah Baumbach’s exceptional “Marriage Story”. She also popped up briefly in “Captain Marvel”, so this was a good year if you need a ScarJo fix.

As the Hollywood saying goes, Eric Roberts makes a movie on the way home from making a movie. Twenty-seven releases in 2019, and unless you’re a Roberts completist, you probably haven’t seen a single one (okay, we all saw “A Karate Christmas Miracle”). That’s dedication to the craft, and an utter absence of ego. Just another year for the hardest working actor in the film industry.

The man, the myth, the working actor. Nicolas Cage won a Best Actor Oscar for playing a drunk in “Leaving Las Vegas”, and he’s been drunk on acting ever since. He churned out six movies in 2019, including the Richard Stanely’s critically acclaimed adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “Colour Out of Space”. The other films were not so critically acclaimed, but they’re available to stream for your Cage-ian enjoyment.

This was something of a down year for the prolific, pint-sized comedic dynamo. He voiced an animal in “The Secret Life of Pets 2”, cameo-ed in his pal The Rock’s “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw”. Hart’s big 2019 turn was reprising his role as Mouse Finbar in “Jumanji: The Next Level”, which is tremendously good work if you can get it.

Dwayne Johnson put in a pretty typical 2019. He made a “Fast & Furious” movie with Jason Statham, turned up in the wrestling dramedy “Fighting with My Family” and came back for “Jumanji: The Next Level” because the franchise gods demanded it. Maybe one year Johnson will make his “Death of a Salesman”. Until then, we will gladly watch him continue to kick ass.

Ana de Arms is about to explode. Building off her portrayal of the cutest Jiminy Cricket ever in “Blade Runner 2049”, she owned 2019 as the truth-queasy Marta Cabrera in Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out”, Sofia Hoffman in “The Informer” and an integral piece of the Cuban espionage in Olivier Assayas’s “Wasp Network”. She also made a brief appearance in Danny Boyle’s “Yesterday”. But we’re all waiting to see what she does as Marilyn Monroe in Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde”.