Young and talented, 2019’s breakthrough entertainers are living their dreams

The dictionary defines “breakthrough” as a “sudden advance,” but The Associated Press’ Breakthrough Entertainers of the Year spent lots of time preparing for their star-making moments.

Megan Thee Stallion spent years rapping while also attending college. “The Peanut Butter Falcon’‘ star Zack Gottsagen dreamed of being an actor since age 3, and has been working toward that goal. And while “The Boys’‘” Jack Quaid, the son of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, grew up right in Hollywood, he felt pressure to prove he actually had talent and wasn’t riding on his parent’s coattails.

They are part of AP’s annual list of entertainers who memorably broke through to the mainstream this year. Also on the list: Actress Florence Pugh has been seen throughout the year, from the thriller “Midsommar” to this month’s “Little Women.” Jonathan Majors made his mark in the critically acclaimed “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.” Barbie Ferreira’s transition from modeling to acting paid off with her star-making turn in the gritty teen drama “Euphoria.” Kaitlyn Dever stood out not only for the witty flick “Booksmart” but for her role as a sex crime victim in the searing Netflix drama “Unbelievable.”

While 2019 marked their breakout year, expect more to come from these talented performers. As Megan Thee Stallion says: “I know I’m not where I want to be at yet, so I’m still trying to grind.”

Kaitlyn Dever

Any actor can find it difficult to find a meaty role in Hollywood, whether it be in TV or film, comedy or drama. Actress Kaitlyn Dever shone in both genres and mediums this year.

Dever garnered hordes of fans after playing bright and goofy Amy in the female-driven film “Booksmart,” about two tightly wound overachievers intent on one last crazy night before graduation. A few months later, she won critical praise for her moving portrayal of a lonely rape victim in the Netflix series “Unbelievable,” and garnered a Golden Globe nomination.

“It’s been sort of crazy. The fact that people love something as much as you do is so, so good. Watching the love grow and grow for ‘Booksmart’ was something I’ll remember forever,” she said, recalling its premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival.

“People were, like, laughing and then people were brought to tears and they were cheering afterward. I mean, it was a really, really, cool moment.”

Some may not have even recognized her as the same actress in “Unbelievable,” as the roles were so different.

“I love bouncing back and forth between drama and comedy. People used to ask me if I liked drama or comedy, which one I liked better, and I can never answer. I think they’re actually very similar. I almost prepare for them the same way,” Dever said. “I think you have to start with honesty with both.”

Dever, who turned 23 this month, started acting at age 10 in small TV roles and has been steadily rising, with her first recurring role in the series “Justified” in 2011 and several supporting film roles before “Booksmart.”

Dever was inspired to be an actress after seeing Toni Collette in the 1999 movie “The Sixth Sense”; she recalls being blown away “by how real she seemed.” She had a full circle moment when she co-starred with Collette in “Unbelievable,” and got to tell the Oscar-winner what an inspiration she was.

It’s no coincidence that both of Dever’s roles this year involved female creators on and off-screen. She calls working on sets with other women “comforting.”

“I totally think that we need so many more women involved in the industry and making movies. We’ve made a lot of really big moves. I think there’s still a lot of work to be done,” she said. “Both of those projects were very, very female driven, which is something I want to continue to do on other projects.”

She’s set to star in two upcoming anthology series, Hulu’s “Monsterland” and FX’s “Platform,” and is “dying” to do a musical film. Though she’s become one of the most in-demand actresses in Hollywood, Dever says her life hasn’t changed much “and I don’t want it to change.

“I’m the happiest when I am working and I feel so calm and content when I’m on set. It’s so fulfilling and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”

— Brooke Lefferts

Jonathan Majors

How is a great actor made? For Jonathan Majors, the 30-year-old breakout star of “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” it started in drama school. It swelled with the discovery of August Wilson. It was provoked by teachers who pushed him to look deeper into himself and into everything around him. But it really began in the pews, listening to his mother, a Methodist pastor, preach.

“My mother’s a wordsmith and she was the first person to call me a wordsmith,” Majors says. “She was the first person to say, ‘You have the gift of gab.’ She ordained me a performer, a storyteller.”

Majors’ tender and soulful performance as Montgomery Allen has not only drawn widespread acclaim but brought the eager attention of Spike Lee, Jordan Peele, J.J. Abrams and Jay-Z — all of whom have cast him in upcoming projects.

All of this just two years after his professional debut, three years since his last semester at the Yale School of Drama.

“You just keep your head down,” Majors says. “I find if I do get frustrated or antsy it’s because I allow ambition to get in. It’s something to be wary of for myself. If you trust the seed that’s been put in you, a tree just grows. I feel fortunate that as it stands now, the tree in me is to make art and to be an actor.”

Majors spoke on a recent trip to New York for the IFP Gotham Awards, where he was a nominee for breakthrough actor (as he also is the Film Independent Spirit Awards). It had to be a brief stay; his schedule is packed.

The day after, Majors would fly back to Atlanta to shoot the Peele-Abrams-produced HBO series “Lovecraft Country,” in which he stars as a man traveling the Jim Crow South in search of his missing father. Earlier this year, he spent four months in Southeast Asia shooting Lee’s Vietnam drama “Da 5 Bloods” (with a screenplay co-written by Kevin Willmott of Lawrence). He’s also set to star in the Jay-Z produced Western “The Harder They Fall.”

It’s not hard to see why. In even smaller parts, like his debut in the Gus Van Sant-produced ABC miniseries “When We Rise” or his Detroit gangster in “White Boy Rick,” Majors exudes a singular presence. His characters suggest icebergs, with unseen depths.

In his shirt pocket, Majors carried a small notebook. It’s a habit suggested by a formative drama teacher who instructed him to “write down everything.” In it, he pens poetry, observations. He’s in that way not so dissimilar from the Montgomery of “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.”

The movie, directed by Joe Talbot, is a radiant and melancholic fable about one man’s sense of displacement in a rapidly gentrifying San Francisco. It’s based on the upbringing of Jimmy Fails, who plays a fictionalized version of himself, in is own big-screen debut. Majors plays his best friend and constant companion, a fishmonger and a playwright who draws from the dramas and characters around him.

Majors immediately identified with Mont, a sensitive, expressive, impassioned young artist, “a viewer of the world.” Like Majors, Mont carries a sketchbook with him everywhere.

“The fact that he’s a young black man and a common outcast was something I could relate to,” he continues. “Growing up in Texas and having this need of expression — being called a wimp because I was emotional, getting picked on for blah blah blah. You take that. I took that like: ‘It’s fine. It’s what it is. I survived.’ But that became my fuel for my artistry. I saw that immediately with Mont.”

Majors was born in California but raised around Texas. His father left at an early age. He calls his mother “my enabler and my protector.” Early on, a teacher in an alternative education program exposed Majors to acting, which he continued at the North Carolina School of the Arts. There, in his second year, he played Cory Maxson in “Fences” and the full force of Wilson’s work opened up to him. At Yale, he mounted all of Wilson’s 10-play cycle.

There have been other seminal teachers along the way, including the actor and “Lackawanna Blues” playwright Ruben Santiago-Hudson. But Majors’ continuing education is increasingly on the sets and stages he now finds himself — like Spike Lee’s.

“He has a sweeping august that is his brand, his philosophy, and I got thrown into it at a very intense level,” says Majors. “Out of the country, in Thailand, in Vietnam, four and half months, it’s on. And I’m fool enough to be wearing a shirt that says Morehouse, so he’s on me. ‘Come on, Morehouse. Come on, Morehouse. You got it. Let’s go.’

“And I’m like, ‘All right. I got it now,’” says Majors, smiling. “I think it’s the beginning of a great mentorship.”

— Jake Coyle

Florence Pugh

By the end of 2019 on big screens across the globe, actress Florence Pugh will have body-slammed a famous wrestler in “Fighting With My Family,” screamed her lungs out after getting caught up in a violent Swedish cult in “Midsommar” and tromped around New England in a Victorian hoop skirt with the three other March sisters in “Little Women.”

Each performance has garnered more critical acclaim than the last, and cemented the 23-year-old Pugh as an actress on the rise.

“It’s so weird,” she said. “It’s a weird feeling that everyone’s talking about everything, but it’s a wonderful feeling.”

Despite having three major films come out in 10 months, Pugh insists not that much is different in her life. She’s able to fly under the radar, something she credits, laughingly, to “so many hair colors.”

“No one knows who I am,” she said. “I don’t really get recognized at all. I’ve actually had conversations with people where they’ve been speaking about a film that I was in. And I’m like, ‘Oh, really? You thought that? Great.’”

She does catch herself doing double-takes when she’s working opposite top actors, like Meryl Streep in “Little Women.”

“Meryl was just as powerful as you can imagine she was … and sharing a carriage with her wearing the fanciest Amy March clothing was a definite pinch-me moment,” Pugh said.

Another pinch-me moment came when Pugh was playing a wrestler in “Fighting With My Family” and was about to film a big fight scene in front of 20,000 people at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

“And Dwayne Johnson came out to go through the warm-up with me,” she said. “And I remember being in the ring and him basically telling me that to throw a punch, you really need to reel back. And I remember just staring at him and then staring at all the seats around me, and I remember it going quiet and just kind of internally smiling and realizing that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson was teaching me how to throw a punch whilst I was waiting for 20,000 people to come in and watch me wrestle for the first time.

“Yeah, that’s a good pinch.”

A more sobering moment with one of her heroes came when she was filming 2018’s “King Lear” alongside Emma Thompson and Emily Watson during the #MeToo movement.

“I remember one day I came into work and everybody was talking about it, and I remember (Thompson) gave me a book and she said, ‘We’re going to talk about this,’” Pugh said. “And I basically had Emily Watson and Emma Thompson talking to me about why the industry works and why it doesn’t. And I just remember thinking that was a very special moment for someone who was 21 and was going to be continuing this conversation for the rest of my life.”

Pugh’s next big film will be Marvel’s stand-alone “Black Widow” movie with Scarlett Johansson, set for release in May. When the trailer dropped on Dec. 3, it was Pugh’s name trending on Twitter, with comments like, “Literally who is doing it like Florence Pugh?” and “I don’t know a better actress of this generation.”

Up next on her bucket list of roles?

“I’ve always said I wanted to do a Western. Like, I really, really, really want to be a gritty, greasy toothed, kind of hairy woman with a wax linen skirt that crunches when she gets on the horse,” Pugh said. “And I would love to play a drug lord as well, yeah. So there you go everyone. A Western and a drug lord. Sort it out.”

— Amanda Lee Myers

Jack Quaid

If you’re an actor, and your parents just happen to be Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, you may have to get used to movie makers assuming that you’re an entitled jerk.

Jack Quaid says that just means he has to work harder to prove them wrong.

The 27-year-old is quick to point out that he’s been a very lucky man before he’ll get into the stereotypes about the sons and daughters of very famous people.

“I don’t want to necessarily complain about growing up the way that I did because there was always food on the table, I got to live in a nice house. … This is me checking my privilege. It’s there. It’s totally there,” he said. “But there’s a little bit of an attitude that I’ve gotten, especially as I was starting out. Like, I would walk into an audition room and people would just assume I would be a (jerk).”

Quaid, who looks like his mother when he’s delighted and his father when he’s indignant, recalled one audition in particular.

“The casting director looked at me and said, ‘Oh wow, that was actually really good. I thought you’d come in here and expect it to be handed to you and just be really entitled about it,’” he said. “I was like, ‘No, I just genuinely want to do this. And if I’m lucky enough to get this part, I’ll do my best.’”

Quaid’s best has been particularly good this year. He’s earned widespread attention for the first time since he fell in love with acting at the age of 13 (in a middle school rendition of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”).

Quaid stars in “The Boys,” an irreverent genre-busting superhero show that’s among the most successful original programs on Amazon Prime Video. The show premiered in July, less than two weeks before the release of “Plus One,” a romantic comedy starring Quaid and Maya Erskine that won the Narrative Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival.

“It’s been crazy,” he said. “It’s just been a very wild year. I find myself thinking that I’m very lucky.”

To prepare for “Plus One,” Quaid binge-watched rom-coms, including “When Harry Met Sally” for the first time.

“When your mom has one of the most iconic orgasm scenes of all time, you tend to not watch that,” Quaid said, adding that he regretted missing out on it so long. “When I finished the movie, I was like, completely crying and emotional because I think she’s so good in the movie. And I was just so upset that I hadn’t seen it because of this one dumb thing.”

As for “The Boys,” Quaid calls the show a dream come true.

“And the fact that it’s being viewed by people, I don’t know. That’s a miracle,” he said.

Despite his success, Quaid said his life hasn’t changed that much, except that more doors are opening for him professionally and people are starting to recognize him, although they often can’t pinpoint why.

“They come up to me on the street and they go, ‘Did we go to high school together?’” he said.

What’s next for Quaid? For one, he’ll do anything to be in a “Star Wars” movie.

“I’ll be whatever in the movie — I’ll be a droid. I’ll be like, a grain of sand on Tatooine. I don’t care. That would be a huge, huge deal for me,” he said. “I’m just really excited for the future and anything else that might come my way.”

— Amanda Lee Myers

Megan Thee Stallion

Megan Thee Stallion’s schedule has become so frenetic that she can spend days, or even longer, away from home, in a different city every night. While the grueling schedule may wear down some, she’s unbothered by it, and not because she’s as strong as her name suggests.

“I won’t complain because I remember I used to be at home wishing I was leaving and going to do shows,” she said. “I’m just grateful for everything that happened this year, and the opportunities that a lot of people have given me.”

The rapper from Houston burst onto the music scene this year with her album “Fever” and instantly became a sensation. She racked up singles such as “Big Ole Freak,” “Cash (expletive)” with DaBaby, and her first No. 1 on Billboard’s Rhythmic Songs chart, “Hot Girl Summer.” The song, featuring Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign, stemmed from a phrase Megan coined that became the hot phrase of the season.

Endorsements also blasted her way, including Coach, Puma and a management deal with the Jay-Z-founded Roc Nation. She also won an MTV Video Music Award, and just this month received the Powerhouse Award at Billboard’s Women in Music Awards.

“Every day, they tell me, ‘Megan you’re doing a good job,’” the 24-year-old said, referring to her team. “I’m like, thank you, but I gotta work harder. I know I’m not where I want to be at yet, so I’m still trying to grind.”

The year of peaks was not without valleys, none lower than the loss of her mother in March. While she doesn’t talk about that in detail, she acknowledged: “This year has definitely been super crazy: a lot of ups, some downs.”

Some may consider her omission from the recent slate of Grammy nominees another disappointment, but she brushes it off.

“You’re not rapping because you want to win a Grammy. You’re rapping because you want to rap,’‘ she said. “I don’t think you should have it in your mind when you’re in a studio like, ‘I’m going to write these bars because I’m going to win these Grammys.’ No! You’re writing these bars because you have a fan base.”

Focusing on awards or being No. 1 means “you lose the love and the passion for what you even started doing this for,’‘ she said.

Currently enrolled at Houston’s Texas Southern, a historically black college and university, Megan also has combined overt, unapologetic sex appeal with education, a mix rarely if ever seen in hip-hop. She’s put #HotGirlSummer on pause for #HotNerdFall and #HotGirlSemester.

“I really am kind of a little nerd, but I am very confident in myself and in my body,” she said, adding that she wasn’t trying to be a role model. “This is my regular life. But I’m really happy that it is inspiring girls, and it is making people want to further their education.”

Megan Thee Stallion also signed on to star in the new season of NBC’s “Good Girls,” and says she’d eventually like to write her own horror film. But her focus is on her debut album, which she says will go beyond the sexual imagery she’s known for.

“My album, the songs that I’ve been recording for it so far, have been way more soft than my usual music — a little soft in my opinion. It’s been a little more vulnerable,” she said. “I feel like that’s what my fans want to know at this point, so I’m giving y’all a little more insight on why I am the way I am.”

— Gary Gerard Hamilton

Zack Gottsagen

For Zack Gottsagen, being named as one of AP’s Breakthrough Entertainers of 2019 is a confirmation of his success.

“It means some people believe in me …(and) a lot of people love my talent,” he said.

Gottsagen’s appeal is one of the reasons why “The Peanut Butter Falcon” has become one of the year’s most successful independent films and was an unexpected summer hit. The movie, which marks his professional acting debut, follows a wrestling-obsessed fan named Zack with Down syndrome who leaves his assisted living facility for an adventure, and ends up forging an unlikely friendship with a fisherman, played by Shia LaBeouf, also on the run.

The fact that both the main character and Zack share the same name is no accident. “The Peanut Butter Falcon” was inspired by Gottsagen and specifically written for him by Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz after the pair met him at an acting camp for people with disabilities.

Gottsagen was determined to be an actor, and pleaded with them to make his dream come true. The 34-year-old recalls growing up and watching Chris Burke, who also has Down syndrome, star in the 1980s TV series “Life Goes On.”

“He is a really good actor. I always watched his show for like thousands and thousands of times,” he said.

Burke’s role was groundbreaking at the time, and it’s still a challenge for actors with disabilities to be cast in Hollywood projects.

Now, Gottsagen is providing that inspiration for others. He’s become a bona fide celebrity since the movie’s release, with appearances on shows like “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,”and will be honored at the Palm Springs International Festival with the Rising Star Award.

“Everything is going on right now,” he said.

Gottsagen plans to continue acting and said he prefers to focus on drama because it shows “feelings … most people would probably love to see that.”

But his dream would be to star with John Travolta, or at least play Travolta’s role in a reboot of his favorite film, “Grease,” which he has watched “many, many times.”

Gottsagen calls Travolta a triple threat because he can “dance, act and sing.” Gottsagen would love to follow in his footsteps, though he says he is likely more of a double threat.

“My mom has said I am not a regular singer,” he said. “I’m more of a dancer and an actor, so that’s the only two I am very good at.”

So far, it’s been more than enough.

— Marcela Isaza

Barbie Ferreira

Barbie Ferreira has been hearing countless variations on the word “breakthrough” applied to her role in HBO’s groundbreaking teen drama “Euphoria” ever since the series debuted over the summer. But the actress clearly isn’t tired of them.

All of the praise she’s received has validated a dream she’s had since age 10: to be a professional actor.

“It’s been a lot of ‘No’s, a lot of rejection,” Ferreira said. “But somehow, some way, it has happened. And I have a role on a TV show, and I have this opportunity and it just feels really surreal.”

Though “Euphoria’s” star is Zendaya, Ferreira has stood out of the daringly dark and often sexually graphic series by portraying Kat Hernandez, a teen working her way through sexuality and finding her place as a plus-size woman in a size-zero world.

While this is Ferreira’s star-making acting role, she is no stranger to success: She was a fashion model in New York who received attention for embracing her fuller size. At 19, Time featured her in a profile and noted “her image inspires girls around the world.”

But she gave it all up and moved to Los Angeles to make her Hollywood dream come true.

Ferreira noted that she lucked out in two ways. It’s rare that a relative novice lands a plum role on a major TV series. And it’s an even longer shot that the series ends up an out-of-the-gate critical and audience hit.

“You know, I saw how great it was and I had my inclinations to be like, ‘I think the world’s ready to see it,’” Ferreira replied. “By the same time, I remember all of us just so scared for weeks — and not scared, but more just nervous. And we know that we were putting something out there that maybe was shocking and maybe did things that other people didn’t do. And that comes with a lot of anxiety. And, for me, I think the takeaway that I’ve had is that anything is possible within this career.”

Ferreira next appears opposite Haley Lu Richardson in the feature adaptation of the novel “Unpregnant,” and HBO renewed “Euphoria” for a second season.

Down the road, Ferreira would like to tell her own stories.

“I used to think that I would have to wait, like, 10 years … or have to go through all this stuff to be able to have a voice or a story to tell,”she said. “And it’s just not true. So, I just want to explore all aspects of it.”

However, for now, she’s savoring every moment, and every sweet word.

Today, “breakthrough” suits her just fine.

“Ït has been such a blessing and a privilege to do it that now, I’m like, the world is my oyster. And this was my goal for so long that I’ve achieved it.

“Now I’m like, ‘What else?’”

— Michael Cidoni Lennox