You've Seen Her In: Blue Jasmine (2013) If you watched the most recent Academy Awards, you probably saw Sally Hawkins, who received a long overdue Best Supporting Actress nomination for Blue Jasmine, and sat next to Cate Blanchett wearing almost exactly the same dress the whole time. The English actress, daughter of two children's book illustrators, first made her name in 2008's Happy-Go-Lucky, a dark indie comedy from British auteur Mike Leigh. In it, she played a giggling schoolteacher trying to learn how to drive, and wrung from that a ton of independent and critical acclaim, with many predicting an Oscar nomination for it; that particular honor was not forthcoming. Popping up in films like Vera Drake, Layer Cake, An Education, and Submarine, Hawkins always brings a particular kind of crackling energy to her roles, and reached a new level as Ginger in Blue Jasmine, putting in a performance as a brassy blue collar Long Islander that rivaled Cate Blanchett's Oscar-winning turn as her sister. Her two upcoming roles are in the big budget Godzilla remake and a film version of Paddington Bear, so hopefully things are turning around, as far as long term success is concerned. The Role She Needs: Any weighty lead role, honestly. She has a defiant cheeriness, no matter what the situation might be, that's been used to marvelous effect in roles like hers in Happy-Go-Lucky; anything like that on a wider scale would be really fantastic.
