LISA DILLON

Moving from the theatre to film is something only a few actors manage with much success, but the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art graduate Lisa Dillon shines as brightly on screen as she does on stage. With several outstanding newcomer awards under her belt for her performances in The Master Builder and Iphigenia, Dillon has been so busy that she’s only managed a couple of minor screen roles (including Stephen Fry’s Bright Young Things and the BBC’s Hawking). But she was energised by the pressure of working in front of a camera: “It’s like a dress rehearsal, preview and first night all in one,” Dillon says. When her run in the Almeida theatre's production of Hedda Gabler ends in August, she is keen to “flex those acting muscles you only get by working in front of the camera”.

MARY NIGHY

She may be relatively untested, but her casting by Sofia Coppola in Marie-Antoinette as Kirsten Dunst’s best friend is proof of her promise.

It is Nighy’s second film; her first is John Irvin’s The Grooming, based on the dark Frank Wedekind novella about a girls’ dance academy. Perhaps it’s in the genes — father is Bill and mother Diana Quick. At any rate this mature, elegant and thoughtful actress won’t be living in her parents’ shadow for much longer, even though she is now at university.

JAIME WINSTONE

Blessed with a down-to-earth sweetness, the 19-year-old daughter of Ray is rapidly building a reputation. In Bullet Boy she so impressed with her grasp of improvisation that director Saul Dibb boosted her role. Her potential has been further realised in Kidulthood, which also stars Aml Ameen which recently finished shooting. “My heart’s got to be in any film I do,” she says of the future. “I ’d love to be in a big Hollywood blockbuster, but only if it’s a film that I as well as the audience can relate to.”

AML AMEEN

He won his big break this year when he was cast in Kidulthood, directed by Menhaj Huda. In the film Ameen plays a teenager torn between settling down with his pregnant girlfriend and taking up with his gangster uncle. “It’s about what it means to be a man without accepting your responsibilities,” says Ameen.

Although the film is still in post-production, word has been building about this gifted actor. “He’s got great talent and is very watchable on screen,” says the casting director Des Hamilton.

ANNA BREWSTER

After starring in Metin Huseyin’s Anita and Me in 2002, Anna Brewster took a three- year break to concentrate on her studies. Now the 18-year- old is back, playing one of the main five showgirls in Stephen Frears’s Mrs Henderson Presents, about London’s first nude revue. Frears, who describes Brewster as “beautiful and lethal”, was apparently keen to create a “Marilyn Monroe moment” for the actress.

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