2. Justin Timberlake The Social Network
These days Justin Timberlake is established as the showbusiness triple threat he can dance, he can sing, and he can act. However, the third part of that trinity took far longer to establish than the first two. Timberlake had been singing and dancing forever, whether on the Mickey Mouse Club, with nSync or during his highly successful solo career. When he started to act, nobody really took it too seriously his debut came in a direct-to-DVD release, he starred in Richard Kellys ultraflop Southland Tales, lent his voice to the forgettable Shrek The Third and just looked sort of moody and constipated (moodstipated?) in Alpha Dog and Black Snake Moan. So when it was announced that he taking the part of Shaun Parker in David Finchers upcoming Facebook origins story The Social Network, eyebrows were understandably raised. However, they really shouldnt have been Timberlake went and smashed it out the park, coming off one part charismatic bastard, one part master manipulator and one part awful human being. He was nothing less than a tour-de-force you knew he was terrible, but when he started giving monologues about what Facebook should do, you were drawn in and enthralled by his delivery. Though he wasnt Oscar-nominated for this, it was impressive enough that hes managed to launch an A-list career in another field.