10. Amy Adams
Amy Adams made her big screen debut in 1999 playing a ditzy, highly sexed beauty pageant contestant in the black teen comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous. After a surprising false start, as one of Leonardo DiCaprio's love interests in 2002's Catch Me If You Can, a role that Steven Spielberg said "should have launched her career," Amy failed to find work for a whole year, but then gradually started to make her name as a comic actress in films like Talladega Nights and The Wedding Date. And she was soon winning the critics over, bagging herself an Oscar nomination for Junebug in 2005 and a 2007 Golden Globe nomination for her role as the wonderfully buoyant princess Giselle in Disney musical Enchanted. However, it was with the 2008 holy laugh-vortex Doubt, that Amy showed her real intentions as a dramatic actress, hooking up with Oscar magnet Meryl Streep to play a young teacher who casts suspicion over the relationship between a catholic priest and a young altar boy. She picked up a second Oscar nomination for the part and has never looked back, gaining further nominations for The Fighter (2010), The Master (2012) and, most recently, as the charming con artist Lady Edith Greensly in 2013's American Hustle. Amy looks set to continue her career as a dramatic heavyweight although, happily, she still likes to dip her toe in comedy from time to time, as she proved with The Muppets in 2011. But really, who could turn down the chance to work with Kermit?