James Franco and Julia Roberts in a scene from "Eat, Pray, Love."
California's James Franco – because there's seemingly nothing this actor, director, screenwriter, producer, painter, Columbia University student and self-satirist (he mocks himself in Funny or Die videos) can't do. The 32-year-old stuck to fairly non-assertive film roles, playing, say, the bad guy in the Spider-Man franchise or the pot-head in Pineapple Express, until his breakout performance opposite Sean Penn in Milk.
At TIFF, he's in two tough films – roles he seems to have chosen to prove he has the depth and magnetism to carry a film. In Danny Boyle's 127 Hours, he's literally trapped under a rock for five days as Aron Ralston, the real-life mountain climber who had to make gruelling decisions in order to survive. He also stars as Allen Ginsberg in Howl, set in San Francisco in 1957, after Ginsberg's poem becomes the focus of an obscenity trial.
Mark these words: Franco – already considered by female fans to be the most beautiful creature around – is on the brink of full-time, leading-man status.