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Nick Stahl
BORN: Dallas, Texas, USA
AGE: 22
After being taken by his mother to see a children's play at the age of 4, the precocious Nick Stahl confidently announced that acting would be his future. A string of commercials followed, but it wasn't until Mel Gibson handpicked him to play Chuck, the boy who befriends a disfigured stranger, in The Man Without A Face that he got his first taste of Hollywood. Still only 14, Stahl found it difficult to capitalise on this early success - despite appearing in Safe Passage opposite Susan Sarandon a year later. Declaring that "I try to avoid the sweet-ass roles", as Stahl neared the end of his teens, he began living up to that proclamation. He was one of many thesps who enjoyed the Terrence Malick boot-camp in The Thin Red Line, but it wasn't until 2001 that the muscular Stahl matured into a serious indie-player. As one of Larry Clark's kids, he brilliantly took centre stage in Bully as the thuggish Bobby Kent, before playing a more passive victim of violence in Todd Field's adult grief drama In The Bedroom. Currently preparing to square up to Arnold Schwarzenegger's killing machine in Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines, Stahl will certainly be back.
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Orlando Bloom
BORN: Canterbury, Kent, England
AGE: 25
After his near-silent but very deadly performance as the blonde archer Legolas in the first episode of Lord of the Rings, Orlando Bloom's career has lived up to his name. Aside from returning for the second and third parts of Jackson's epic, Bloom has already been seen in Ridley Scott's military drama Black Hawk Down - as the luckless rookie who falls from a helicopter and breaks his back (a fate that, coincidentally, the actor suffered himself several years back). Bloom realised he wanted to act from an early age - when he discovered that Superman was actually played by Christopher Reeve. Training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he made his screen debut in literary biopic. With delicate features, making him perfect casting for one of Tolkien's elves, he's often described as classically handsome; something, undoubtedly, that will have no bearing whatsoever when he is seen opposite Heath Ledger next year in Gregor Jordan's Ned Kelly story, The Kelly Gang.
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Piper Perabo
BORN: Toms River, New Jersey, USA
AGE: 25
Named after the actress Piper Laurie, it would seem destiny that Miss Perabo would make it big. Her break-out role as Violet, the bartender who dreams of singer-songwriter stardom in sleeper hit Coyote Ugly, would seem to echo her own thirst for success. With Norwegian and Portuguese-born parents, Perabo studied acting at Ohio University, having already appeared in a string of musicals at school. Making her debut as the girlfriend of a wannabe rapper in Whiteboyz in 1999, after she falsely convinced producers she too could rap, she has since acted opposite Robert De Niro in The Adventures Of Rocky And Bullwinkle. Playing the goody-goody FBI rookie, Perabo has since attempted to move away from such sweet-natured roles - with her wicked turn as a malicious exchange student in comedy Slap Her, She's French destined to help. Natural in appearance, her casting as the fair Princess in the forthcoming live-action story of George And The Dragon was a given, but it is her inclusion in intriguing thriller The I Inside that sounds most appetizing.
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