Year in Review: 2021 Entertainers of the Year
Friday, December 31, 2021 at 9:00PM by Team Experience
Olivia Colman photographed by Amelia Troubridge from The Guardian
In our final "Team Experience Year in Review" post before the 10th annual Team Experience Awards and Nathaniel's own Film Bitch Awards (both in January), we wanted to pay tribute to the stars who worked overtime to keep us smiling, crying, laughing, and altogether wide-eyed in 2021. We asked contributors to cite ten choices as "Entertainer of the Year". The catch was the celebrity in question had to have had more than one project during the year. Quantity and Quality.
Names that didn't quite make the list but are nevertheless worthy of our sincere gratitude include actors Olivia Colman (Landscapers, Mitchells vs the Machines, The Lost Daughter, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain), Bradley Cooper (Nightmare Alley, Licorice Pizza), Vicky Krieps (Old, Next Door, Bergman Island), and auteurs Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy), and Ridley Scott (House of Gucci, The Last Duel). Technically speaking both Jamie Dornan and Oscar Isaac made the following list but since we already sufficiently highlighted them yesterday in "Thirst Traps of the Year" we've ceded their spots to others. Spread the wealth is always our motto...
"ENTERTAINERS OF THE YEAR"
(a dozen wonders in no particular order)
The Sparks - Annette and The Sparks Brothers
Confession time: before 2021 I had never heard of The Sparks. After their documentary (The Sparks Brothers by Edgar Wright) and original musical (Annette), I can’t believe I didn’t have them in my life. Wright’s documentary does an incredible job exploring how the two brothers have lasted nearly five decades in the music industry by defying expectations and staying ahead of trends. Their songs aren’t just lyrical jokes, they have added dimension beyond their catchy hooks. It’s a shame that it took this long for The Sparks to make it to Hollywood, their failed projects are part of the expansive documentary. However, they could not have found a better collaborator to bring their music to life than Leos Carax. Their dark family drama Annette follows a provocative comedian and opera singer as they navigate love and having a baby. (Truthfully, Baby Annette should be the Entertainer of the Year.) Here’s hoping they earn their first Oscar nomination for their shortlisted song “So May We Start,” which provides the perfect opening for the odd musical. -Christopher James
Adam Driver for Burberry's fragrance "Hero"
Adam Driver - House of Gucci, The Last Duel, Annette, and Burberry "Hero"
The in-demand Adam Driver had not just another banner acting year, but one where he plays three different levels of scumbag. In the medieval drama The Last Duel, he plays a man accused of rape while in House of Gucci, his other collaboration with Ridley Scott, he portrays a sleazy, adulterous fashion company heir. Then there's his best performance of the year in Annette where he sings his heart out as Henry McHenry, an egotistical stand-up comic envious of his opera singer wife's success. All three performances show off his versatility and fearlessness as he taps into humanity's dark side. Just hopefully, he plays someone much nicer in the near future. - Matt St Clair
Zendaya photographed by Richie Shazam from Interview Magazine
Zendaya -Spider-Man No Way Home, Malcolm & Marie, Dune, Euphoria
While she skipped the Met Gala (usually a major showbiz event in her year) and and we only got one reminder of her Emmy-winning brilliance on Euphoria (which was focused on her excellent co-star Hunter Schafer), she found other ways of holding on to the crown of most-deservedly-obsessed-over of her generation. At the beginning of the year the 25 year old superstar was front and center for the entirety of the polarizing black and white Malcolm & Marie (and was the only thing undivisive about it was surely how much the camera worshipped her). Later in the year she played second fiddle in two blockbusters. But her utter ease and fun chemistry with Tom Holland (her real life boyfriend) brought home the minor tragedy embedded in Spider-Man: No Way Home's ending. Finally, did anyone get more showbiz bang for their buck, than she did from that very brief camera time as Fremen "Chani" in Dune. She's not onscreen long but the movie keeps breaking like a lucid dream to aspirationally gawk at her. She's like a ethereal advertisement for Dune Part Two. . - Nathaniel R
Timothée Chalamet photographed by Hedi Slimane from Document
Timothée Chalamet - Dune, Don't Look Up, The French Dispatch
Chalamet is one of the few human beings who could star as a destined Messiah without being annoying. He plays the role of the Chosen One in Dune so convincingly that I am tempted to draw a comparison with Keanu Reeve's universally loved Neo in The Matrix (1999). Chalamet has the looks and charm and talent to be both a glamourous superstar and acclaimed actor. In a single year he embodied an emotionally vulnerable punk in Don't Look Up, a tragic revolutionary figure whose image ends up on t-shirts in The French Dispatch, and Paul Atreides, that Messiah figure, while never failing to deliver truth about his very different characters. Beyond that, he also made it look effortless. Bravo! - Elisa Giudici
Rita Moreno photographed by Greg Williams from Elle
Ariana DeBose photographed by Ramona Rosales from NY Post
Rita Moreno - West Side Story / Just a Girl Who Decided To Go For It
...AND Ariana DeBose - West Side Story / Schmigadoon
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Anita is the best role in West Side Story. In 2021, this miraculous part brought together two of the year's best entertainers. First up, we have living legend Rita Moreno who won her Oscar for the 1961 movie, a victory so deserved it's counted among the best in the Academy's history. Over the decades, Moreno's stardom has endured, and her legacy has only grown. The documentary Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It is an homage to the actress and her rich history, while Spielberg's West Side Story proves she's still as talented as ever. Her rendition of "Somewhere" is the emotional highpoint of the project, a devastating reinterpretation that justifies, all on its own, the remake's existence. As for the new Anita, Ariana DeBose might be on her way to repeating Moreno's victorious Oscar run, having risen to the top of the pack in the Best Supporting Actress wars of 2021. This theater actress has beautifully transitioned from stage to screen, both big and small. After all, before she dazzled us with her "America," DeBose made us laugh in Schmigadoon!'s first season. - Cláudio Alves
Anders Danielsen Lie photographed by (we think...?) Reto Sterchi
Anders Danielsen Lie - Worst Person in the World, Bergman Island
Every year brings a new star that you suddenly see everywhere. Anders Danielsen Lie may not be a household name (yet), but he became the most welcome surprise in some of the best movies of the year. In The Worst Person in the World (which made the shortlist for Best International Feature), Lie pulls off an incredible magic trick. His character, Aksel, never seems like the best match for Julie (Renate Reinsve). He’s ten years older than her, but still less mature. His R-rated comic brims with misogyny that Julie simultaneously overlooks but still rolls her eyes at. Even when we think he might be the titular character, his character makes a third act turn that dazzles. It’s an impressive and varied performance. This nimble performance pairs well with his work in Bergman Island, where he plays a character in the screenplay that Chris (Vicky Kreips) is working on. In her story, Joseph (Anders Danielsen Lie) rekindles a relationship with his old girlfriend, Amy (Mia Wasikowska), while attending a wedding on Bergman Island. Joseph and Amy’s chemistry is palpable. Anders Danielsen Lie is that boy everyone told you to worry about, but staring into his eyes, you can’t help but give him a chance. He’s a matinee idol with the acting chops to back it up. -Christopher James
Jennifer Coolidge photographed by Augusta Sagnelli from Vogue
Jennifer Coolidge - Swan Song, Single all the Way, White Lotus
Jennifer Coolidge stole my heart when she professed her love of snow peas two decades ago in Best in Show, and in 2021, she reminded the world over and over that she’s one of entertainment's greatest treasures. In Mike White’s White Lotus, her self-involved depression uprooted the lives of those around her, stealing scene after scene with bittersweet comedic brilliance. Playing against type, she surprised with her cool, taunting rival to Udo Kier’s retired hairdresser in Swan Song (one of the year’s most underrated cinematic gems). We were also graced with a string of brilliant moments in the (admittedly just OK) Christmas film Single All the Way, where she delivered one of the best lines of the year: “Unless you look deeper, there’s nothing particularly remarkable about Mary.” Plus, if that wasn’t enough Christmas cheer, her reading of The Night Before Christmas will have you in stitches. If there was anything the world needed in 2021, it was joy, and Jennifer Coolidge delivered it in spades. - Eurocheese
Awkwafina photographed by Charlotte Hadden for Who What Wear
Awkwafina - Swan Song, Shang-Chi, Raya and the Last Dragon, Nora From Queens
When actors aren't leading the show, the world sometimes undervalues them. Awkwafina has been on a tear of late but she's usually playing a sidekick. The result is that everyone loves her without quite extolling her virtues. She's the MVP of Raya and The Last Dragon, considerably upping the film's energy and comedy. What would Shang Chi, the year's most endearing superhero picture all on its own (No Way Home is pooling 20 years of cinema for its emotional affect), be without her wisecracking and wonderment as the audience proxy? Watch the way she loosens up Simu Liu. All of his best moments are with her since the naturally charismatic and funny actor is tasked with mostly keeping a straight face and carrying a gargantuan picture on his (mostly) unknown but thankfully broad shoulders. She has the same affect, albeit to a lesser degree, on Mahershala Ali, in the context of the weepy drama Swan Song. And when she does get the spotlight on her own TV show Nora From Queens she's generous enough to cede some big laughs to co-stars even though she's reliably hilarious all on her own. - Nathaniel R
Rebecca Hall photographed by Yelena Yemchuk for Violet Book
Rebecca Hall - The Night House, Passing
Great actors don't always make great directors. There can be a predisposition to sacrifice formal precision in lieu of actorly focus, littering a picture with an unproductive number of close-ups and medium shots, little visual variety. In 2021, Rebecca Hall showed everyone she was the real deal, seamlessly stepping behind the cameras to deliver one of the year's most astonishing directorial debuts. Grappling with complex ideas on race, identity, and desire, Passing articulates its conceptual gambits through audiovisual means as much as performance. Moreover, what Hall got from her cast, namely Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga, is no thoughtless surrender to standardized realism. Instead, the director guided the actors to a willfully anti-naturalistic register, full of complexities and mysteries. Not happy to leave it at that, Rebecca Hall also showed off her scream queen bona fides by headlining The Night House and delivering one outstanding star turn. Negotiating gradations between a character study and Final Destination-esque revelations, she illuminates the horror of finding out that, in the end, you never knew the person closest to you. - Cláudio Alves
TOP THREE ENTERTAINERS OF THE YEAR
(though this list is not in any particular order they had the most team members citing them)
Andrew Garfield photographed by Cliff Watts for Variety
Andrew Garfield - tick, tick... BOOM!, Spider-Man No Way Home, Eyes of Tammy Faye
Yes, Garfield was spectacular in Tick, Tick...BOOM! And yes, he was one of the [SPOILER] best parts of Spider-Man: No Way Home but it was on his never-ending press tour where he kept giving his best performance. His steadfast refusal to admit his participation in No Way Home showed his complete commitment to the bit. Whatever Marvel paid him, I hope he got a bonus for keeping it so tight-lipped. - Ben Miller
Benedict Cumberbatch photographed by Gavin Bond for NME
Benedict Cumberbatch - Electrical Life of Louis Wain, The Power of the Dog, Courier, Spider-Man No Way Home
Until now, Benedict Cumberbatch has made a brand out of playing imperious toffs – often highly cerebral, usually upper-class, always arrogant and irritatingly assured of their own superiority. He’s very good at it, to be fair, and has shown more range than he’s been credited for when he’s gone off that template (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; August: Osage County). 2021, however, was the first year he broke his own mold in a big way, going from a conflicted military prosecutor in The Mauritanian to a comfortably unremarkable middle-class businessman turned unlikeliest of spies in The Courier, to a batty (and battened by grief) painter of cat pictures in The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. His efforts peaked in The Power of the Dog, where he’s utterly brilliant and unsettling as a self-made cowboy who’s forced his life into a strained, near parodic performance of toxic masculinity. In a way, his Phil Burbank is another variation of the “Benedict Cumberbatch” persona, but turned inside out and gutted so mercilessly there’s nothing left of it by the end. Obviously Cumberbatch is hardly done with the persona, given that he’s reprising the much more on-brand Doctor Strange in both Spider-Man: No Way Home and the forthcoming Multiverse of Madness. But here’s hoping he finds ways to access the extraordinary depths of doubt and vulnerability he’s revealed over the course of this year. - Lynn Lee
Lin-Manuel Miranda photogrsphed by Chris Buck from The Times
Lin-Manuel Miranda - tick, tick...BOOM!, Encanto, Vivo, In the Heights
The immeasurably talented musician will forever be associated with Hamilton, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The style that so impressed audiences has now become normative for him, and he’s taking it to new heights, starting with the movie version of his first musical, In the Heights. His songs for Encanto are wonderful and emotional, and he haven't won nearly enough praise for his other animated release Vivo, a delightful animated film that's all about music that you should go watch right now on Netflix. More surprisingly, his feature film directorial debut tick, tick…BOOM! demonstrated that he’s also exceptionally capable of adapting someone else’s material respectfully and compellingly. - Abe Fried Tanzer
Reader Comments (4)
Please, please, stop it with the NO WAY HOME no-warning spoilers......
.<SPOILERS> "Andrew Garfield in tights again" (last week's post on the Oscar chances of the film), "Minor tragedy embedded in ... ending".
<END SPOILERS>
It's only been in cinemas for a fortnight, and so some of us haven't seen it yet, but avoiding spoilers is currently harder than Whamageddon!
Thank you.
Love the inclusion of Adam Driver's Burberry campaign. He had such a tremendous year of such varied films and characters and that ad was certainly the cherry on top.
Was the exclusion of Awkwafina's pretty great voice-over work in RAYA AND THE LAST DRAGON a pointed choice or just a slip of the mind?
Anyways, what a great list especially the top 3. I do love that there's 3 people from the biggest movie of the year (SPIDER-MAN) in this list.
ryan t -- SLIP OF MIND! i shall edit it in.