10 Breakthrough Performances From 2014's Rising Movie Stars

8. Evan Peters - X-Men: Days Of Future Past

American independent cinema wasn't the only source for great breakthrough performances - the big summer blockbusters also introduced audiences to rising stars. With X-Men: Days Of Future Past, Bryan Singer's first film in the franchise for some time and something of a return to form, that rising star was Evan Peters. This time traveling X-Men installment unwound many aspects of the previous films in the franchise, for better or worse (mostly for the better) and introduced fans to a new incarnation of Peter Maximoff, also known as Quicksilver. Evans played the character with a cool, cocky assurance, and the sequence in which he takes out a room full of guards during the rescue of Magneto from a prison cell beneath the Pentagon is a highlight of the movie. It remains to be seen how much more Quicksilver will become involved in future X-Men movies - although he's set to return again in X-Men: Apocalypse - but it's a promising start to a cinematic career for Peters after breaking onto the scene via the American Horror Story television series.