MAKING HOLLY WOOD THEIR OWN

By Carrie Wittmer

The laws of fame are mercurial. Today, streaming platforms and social media feeds have cracked the once-elusive realm of stardom wide open, trading mystique for exposure and longevity for instant grati cation. This sea change presents a host of new opportunities for emerging performers—while making it all the more challenging to stand out. On a rainy winter day in East Los Angeles, CULTURED shot eight of the industry’s most promising young actors on the eve of career-making projects, from indie features to blockbuster franchises. These eight performers— some of whom came to the craft through years of auditions, others through chance encounters on the street—are doing more than meeting the moment. They’re making it their own.

clothing and accessories by Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello

THE FIRST TIME Myha’la Herrold read the script for Industry, she thought, This is so damn good. Even if she didn’t get cast in the HBO series about the lives of bankers at a top London investment firm, she’d already vowed to watch it. Thankfully, the now 26-year-old actor ended up landing the role of Harper Stern, the competitive, fearless, and arrogant (deservedly so) young woman from New York trying to make it in the, well, industry. It was the first Black role Herrold ever read that surprised her. “She didn’t do anything I thought she would do,” the actor recalls. “She doesn’t fit into any of the archetypes. She is breaking down any stereotype that you thought a Black character should fall under. That is how you do representation.” The San Jose native knew she wanted to perform from the age of six, and spent her entire life preparing on stage. After studying at Carnegie Mellon and moving to New York in 2018, she started to get more attention for film and TV. Herrold, who appeared in the A24 horror-comedy and social satire Bodies Bodies Bodies last year alongside Rachel Sennott, Amandla Stenberg, Pete Davidson, and Lee Pace, can still recall the critiques from college: her performances were “not big enough for the back of the house to see, feel, or hear.” But the camera, which is upclose and catches everything, calls for a more subdued and focused presence. “It feels more real to me,” she says. It was a realization that came to Herrold immediately after stepping onto the Industry set—but it was not an ultimatum: “It’s not to say that I don’t want to return to the stage, because I really do hope to at some point. It’ll just be have to be right story, right time, and right place.”

The star of HBO’s splashy, London-set finance drama Industry originally planned for a life in the theater, but quickly discovered that her subtle, realist performance style was best captured by the camera’s all-seeing eye.

DANNY RAMIREZ had to lie to get his big blockbuster break. When the 30-year-old actor auditioned for the role of Lieutenant Mickey “Fanboy” Garcia in the box of fi ce smash Top Gun: Maverick , he con fi rmed he was comfortable with fl ying. But that was far from the truth: simply traveling from a shoot in Iowa to the film’s casting in Los Angeles filled the young actor with anxiety. He got the part, but the good news came with a kicker: he would have to literally learn how to pilot a plane. Ramirez eventually overcame the phobia, thanks to an even greater fear of pissing off Tom Cruise, hours of fl ight training, and a stressful surprise trip piloted by costar Glen Powell. (Ramirez recognized the actor from Scream Queens but had no idea he would be flying the plane until they took off.) Before spreading his wings, Ramirez fell into acting thanks to a sprained ankle. Unable to practice with his college soccer team, he was asked to be an extra on the set of The Reluctant Fundamentalist , which happened to be shooting nearby. “The concept of getting into this industry always felt so foreign,” he remembers. “It never felt feasible from the films that I would watch as a kid. They always felt like something that other people did.” From the sidelines, Ramirez was enamored of the film’s lead, the thenunknown Riz Ahmed. The next day, he bought a “ridiculous” collection of acting books before enrolling in New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. For Ramirez, who has had TV appearances in The Affair, Orange Is the New Black , and On My Block , the skies are fast becoming a constant presence in his work life. Up next, he’s preparing to reprise the role of Captain America’s winged sidekick, Falcon, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ramirez’s character, whose real name is Joaquin Torres, made his debut in the 2021 series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and will return in Captain America: New World Order alongside Anthony Mackie and Harrison Ford in 2024.