Get to know these stars now, people.
McKenna Grace (I, Tonya)
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Margot Robbie is already getting well-deserved awards season buzz for her portrayal of Tonya Harding, but I, Tonya belongs to Allison Janney, who plays Harding’s chain-smoking, foul-mouthed, abusive, fur coat–clad mother, LaVona Golden. Some of Janney’s most harrowing and insidiously funny scenes are opposite 11-year-old actor McKenna Grace, who plays a young Tonya.
From getting kicked out of a chair to being beaten with a brush in an ice rink bathroom, Grace holds her own opposite Janney’s scene-steamrolling. She imbues young Tonya with an emotional steeliness that lends even further depth to Robbie’s interpretation of the skater in her later years — and she was a complete pro on set. “McKenna was so sweet and fun with me,” Janney told BuzzFeed News after the film premiered in Toronto. “She would call me ‘Miss Alison.’ She would say, ‘Miss Alison, I know this is not who you really are. I know this is your character, and I have a pad in my shoulder, so you can hit me harder. It’s OK.’” —Keely Flaherty
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Natalie Morales (Battle of the Sexes)
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Battle of the Sexes left a lot to be desired — it was a challenge to buy Emma Stone as Billie Jean King, to see a very extra Steve Carell in sideburns as Bobby Riggs and not Anchorman's Brick Tamland, and to keep my eyes from rolling at the very glossed-over portrayal of King's lesbianism.
But then there was Natalie Morales. The actor — not the Today show host — first popped on my radar on Parks and Rec and won my heart on the gone-far-too-soon ABC comedy Trophy Wife. She's had arcs on some very other successful TV series, like White Collar, The Newsroom, and Girls, but she hasn't been given a film platform like Battle of the Sexes and seriously, she runs with it.
Her performance as the sarcastic but genuine Rosie Casals, a fellow tennis pro of King's, quietly steals the movie. She nails the nuances of Rosie's clearly coded gayness — Morales herself identifies as queer — and her hilariously dry commentary in the broadcast booth during King and Riggs' big match makes the film's climactic moments all the better. Let this be the role that allows Morales to take the lead. —Jaimie Eitkin
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Daniela Vega (A Fantastic Woman)
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We hear Vega before we see her, as her character Marina croons a deceptively upbeat song about a wayward lover while her current one, a much older man named Orlando (Francisco Reyes), watches her with rapt attention. She sings with panache and wit, but when Marina steps offstage, her demeanor grows quiet, almost shy. When Orlando suddenly dies of an aneurysm, we begin to understand why: Marina is trans (as is Vega), and we watch her struggle to grieve her beloved's death as the police treat her with suspicion and Orlando's family treats her with contempt (and worse). Co-writer-director Sebastián Lelio rarely takes his camera off of Vega's face, and Vega's subtle, emotionally intricate performance commands our attention and fills our hearts. —Adam B. Vary
Sony Pictures Classics