Movie Star Draft III: Mining the prestige HBO show to movie stardom pipeline
Note: This draft was conducted on Nov. 25, before some of the draftees’ movies were widely released. We’ll count everything from Nov. 26 onward in determining the winner.
Jake Skubish: It’s year three of the movie star draft, and after drafting 80 potential movie stars, I have to say: We’re pretty good at this! Our draftees are competing for Oscars, popping up as fresh faces in big-budget franchises, and leading critical favorites. They are even starring in movies that nobody will ever see. (My Leslie Grace pick is not looking great after Batgirl was permanently shelved.)
It is a good time to be invested in the future of movie stardom, as Tom Cruise single-handedly revived it this summer with Top Gun: Maverick. Our biggest movie theater chains are still going bankrupt, and most people are only coming back to theaters for the biggest franchise installments. But the word-of-mouth success of an original film like Everything Everywhere All at Once gives me a shred of hope for the future of theaters. And who knows? If it turns out none of these streaming services can actually make any money, maybe people will have to go back to the theaters after all.
Let’s recap the biggest year two wins for each of our teams:
Audrey: Lashana Lynch, No Time to Die and The Woman King; Maya Hawke, Do Revenge; Gemma Chan, Eternals and Don’t Worry Darling; Jack Quaid, Scream
Fran: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Fresh and Where the Crawdads Sing; Cooper Hoffman, Licorice Pizza; Paul Mescal, Aftersun
Jake: Austin Butler, Elvis; Jenna Ortega, Scream and X
Sam: Barry Keoghan, Eternals and The Batman and The Banshees of Inisheerin; Richard Madden, Eternals
After some modest wins in year one, our teams are looking much stronger in year two. My own team may have the splashiest win of the year, as Elvis was a shockingly big hit and Butler is positioned as a Best Actor frontrunner. Fran has a Best Actor contender of her own with Paul Mescal, and Daisy Edgar-Jones starring in two smaller movies that blew past expectations was impressive.
On Team Audrey, Lashana Lynch broke out with multiple hits, and with a Bob Marley biopic upcoming and a presence in the MCU, she is set up for long-term success. Sam’s team, meanwhile, has my favorite single breakout star of the year: Barry Keoghan, who Sam stole in round 8 of our first draft. Keoghan was the best part of the atrocious Eternals, had an exciting cameo appearance in The Batman that suggests he will be a key part of that franchise, and in The Banshees of Inisheerin proved he is the best supporting character weirdo in Hollywood.
After tallying up the votes, Audrey and Fran come out as our co-winners for year two! Well deserved, if unsatisfying; we will have to make a tiebreaker system for next time around.
Now, let’s bring in Audrey, Fran, and Sam to dive into the draft for year two. An online randomizer set the snake draft order as Audrey, then Jake, then Sam, and then Fran.
Round 1
| Audrey | Michaela Coel |
| Jake | Hunter Schafer |
| Sam | Milly Alcock |
| Fran | Phoebe Waller-Bridge |
Audrey: OK, I'm a little nervous because she does not have a ton of movie stuff upcoming, but I'm I'm playing the long game here and I think I'm going to pick Michaela Coel. She had very little screen time in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, but she was very good and I hope that other people will cast her in movies, or that she'll start writing movies for herself.
Jake: I still need to watch I May Destroy You.
Fran: Oh, it's one of the best TV shows I've ever seen.
Audrey: Yeah, it's incredible. But I’m hoping she can go from TV into movies. Alright Jake, who’s number two?
Jake: I'm taking Hunter Schafer.
Audrey: Also on my list.
Fran: Who's that?
Jake: She’s in Euphoria, and will also star in the Hunger Games prequel.
Sam: Hmm. I don't know if this is a dumb pick right away, but I’m going to take Milly Alcock from House of the Dragon. I figured she was good in it. Plus, she’s not in the show anymore.
Audrey: Correct. She's not locked into a seven-year contract.
Jake: Sometimes I look at the IMDb Star Meter to see who the most searched for people are, and she’s been up there for a long time.
Sam: She's really popular! But I don't know if she has anything upcoming on her IMDb, which is tough.
Jake: That's because she just blew up.
Sam: So true.
Fran: OK, I'm going to choose Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who is not yet a movie star. But I think she is in the upcoming Indiana Jones movie. So I have a lot of confidence in her and in keeping with the trend of my other picks, she's on the older side.
Round 2
| Fran | Dove Cameron |
| Sam | Iman Vellani |
| Jake | Mike Faist |
| Audrey | Will Poulter |
Fran: And with that, I will do my second pick, who is Dove Cameron.
Jake: Ah, I had her written down too.
Audrey: I also did.
Fran: I feel like she made that needed TV-to-music crossover and she is blowing up on TikTok and maybe she will be a movie star.
Sam: OK, my pick. I'll go Iman Vellani. I thought she was good in Ms. Marvel. She'll have some Marvel stuff coming up.
Jake: Alright. I’m going to take Mike Faist. He was Riff in West Side Story, and he's going to be in a movie with Zendaya next year. Now Audrey gets to tee up two picks.
Audrey: First, I’m going to go with Will Poulter. I just watched him again in We Are the Millers. He's very funny.
Jake: He was in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.
Sam: That stunk.
Audrey: He's going to be in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which he got jacked for. So he looks like a movie star. He looks great. And he and Florence Pugh got in a the rumor mill for dating. They're just friends, but he’s in the tabloid fodder. I'm ready for him to blow up.
Fran: Do you think Will Poulter's eyebrows make it so that he can never be a good guy character in a movie?
Audrey: They do call him eyebrows kid in We Are the Millers.
Fran: Like, I'm sure he will be very successful, but maybe as a villain.
Jake: He looks very inquisitive.
Audrey: He could use that for a character. We'll find out.
Round 3
| Audrey | Lewis Pullman |
| Jake | Kyle Allen |
| Sam | Tatiana Maslany |
| Fran | Jeremy Allen White |
Audrey: Alright, and now I will go with Lewis Pullman, who is the son of Bill Pullman. He is Bob in Top Gun: Maverick, and I thought he was incredibly charming. And we love a nepotism baby on these teams.
Jake: Yeah, always smart to do that. He also has, like, a million things upcoming.
Audrey: That was part of my reasoning.
Jake: OK, I'm not sure if this one is eligible, but I'm going to throw it out there because I want to try. I'd like to take Kyle Allen.
Audrey: Was he in that rom-com you liked?
Jake: The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, yes.
Audrey: That was an Amazon movie that nobody saw, though. I think I'm OK with it.
Sam: I had never heard of the movie. What are the rules? Can you star in a movie that's just not popular?
Jake: What we’ve said is they can't have been the lead of, like, a major movie. And then we're just up to define that.
Audrey: It's pretty loose. We hold one another accountable.
Jake: But you you don't want to be held to a standard that you then have to follow later.
Audrey: I think that is in the article from last year, where Fran said she was voting yes so that we would remember that next time.
Fran: I come across so badly.
Sam: OK, I have no idea who this Joe is. You can take him.
Jake: Cool. He’s going to be He-Man in an upcoming movie.
Sam: What is He-Man?
Audrey: It's an old cartoon.
Fran: I think Sam and I have had to look up every single thing you guys have said.
Sam: Well, I'll going to go with Tatiana Maslany.
Audrey: The love of my life. Orphan Black is the greatest television show on the planet.
Sam: I feel like she could have some Marvel stuff coming after She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. She's a star in the making. She-Hulk was so bad, but she was still really good in it.
Audrey: Yeah, she holds the whole thing together for sure.
Fran: OK, I will do Jeremy Allen White from The Bear.
Audrey: I like that pick.
Jake: He has a couple of movies coming up. I had him near the top of my list.
Fran: Well, I saw several Jeremy Allen Whites this Halloween, which will be my metric for choosing him.
Round 4
| Fran | Ayo Edebiri |
| Sam | Dylan Gelula |
| Jake | Maude Apatow |
| Audrey | Brandon Perea |
Fran: OK, now I’m going to go with Ayo Edebiri.
Jake: Nice. Just taking people from The Bear. She’s great.
Fran: I’m afraid I haven’t seen the show, but I still plan to. Is it stressful?
Audrey: No.
Jake: It is stressful. They’re all yelling at each other. “Cook, cook, cook!”
Sam: My computer’s going really slow. I’ve got too many tabs open I think. Why did I write this person’s name down? Who is this?
Audrey: We’re all going to find out.
Sam: Is Dylan Gelula too famous, or was she picked before?
Jake: She’s not too famous, you can pick her. I love Dylan Gelula.
Audrey: Who is that?
Jake: She was Xanthippe on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. She’s very funny. Alright, my pick. I won’t be mad if this one is rejected, but I want to try to take Isabela Merced.
Audrey: She was the lead of that Dora the Explorer movie, and it was in theaters, so I don't know if I'm going to give you that one. I do like her.
Sam: Ohh, it made way too much money. 120 million at the box office. Rejected.
Jake: Oh well. I think she’s going to be a big movie star. OK, this is where I start to get a little less sure about my picks. But I’m just going to take Maude Apatow. She doesn’t have any upcoming credits at all, but she’s so good on Euphoria.
Audrey: Judd will find her roles. It's all good. OK, now I have two picks. I think I’m going to go with Brandon Perea. I’ve never seen him in anything except for Nope, the Jordan Peele movie from this summer, and I thought he was incredible.
Sam: I had a tab open with him.
Audrey: There’s also a TikTok of the moment when Jordan Peele tells him that he got the role and it's the cutest video ever. He was so excited. He has star power.
Fran: Ohh, that's so sweet.
Sam: He was the best part of that garbage movie.
Round 5
| Audrey | Stephanie Hsu |
| Jake | Marisa Abela |
| Sam | Emma D'Arcy |
| Fran | Britt Lower |
Audrey: I've got like three people that I think I should go with now … but I think I'm going to do Stephanie Hsu. She is the daughter in Everything Everywhere All at Once. I thought she was really incredible.
Jake: She was near the top of my list.
Sam: That’s a good pick.
Jake: She's going to be in the next action movie by the guy who just did Bullet Train. Oh man, back to me already. Audrey is fast. I don’t know what to do anymore. OK, well, because I’m watching Industry currently and it is amazing, I am taking Marisa Abela. She’s going to play Amy Winehouse in a biopic. And if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that if you play a musician, you're going to be famous very fast.
Audrey: Alright Sam, your pick. What do you got for us?
Sam: Not much. Why do I have a Jon Bernthal tab open? I wish I could just pick him again. I’ll just go with Emma D’Arcy. They’re good. Everyone loves them. And they have that TikTok sound.
Audrey: HBO is aiming for four seasons of that show, I think.
Sam: I’m a long-term drafter.
Fran: OK, I’m going with Britt Lower from Severance. Everyone is excellent on that show, but there is no one else who I think is going to be a true star.
Round 6
| Fran | Riley Keough |
| Sam | Olivia Cooke |
| Jake | Kelvin Harrison Jr. |
| Audrey | Demi Singleton |
Fran: And then my next pick will be Riley Keough. She’s going to be in Daisy Jones and the Six, which I feel like will be big. I don't know. I liked the book.
Audrey: Also a nepotism baby.
Fran: Oh, of who? I didn’t know that.
Audrey: Oh, she's just Elvis's granddaughter.
Fran: OK, of course. Well, sounds like a great choice then.
Jake: I love Riley Keough.
Sam: Alright, I'm going to go with Olivia Cooke if no one has drafted her already.
Jake: She was pretty high on my list.
Audrey: Another House of the Dragon pick.
Sam: I know, I’m really committing to it. I might not have a lot of movies next year, but that's OK.
Audrey: She’s been in a lot of movies before, though, so that’s a good pick.
Fran: She was in Sound of Metal.
Jake: She’s also in a movie called Thoroughbreds with my enemy Anya Taylor-Joy. OK, who to take now? Is Kelvin Harrison Jr. ineligible? He was in half of Waves.
Audrey: I think you and I are the only people who saw that movie. Oh yeah, and he’s Fred Hampton in The Trial of the Chicago 7.
Jake: He was good in that.
Audrey: I think he has been the supporting character enough that I'll give him to you.
Sam: I've got no complaints.
Jake: OK, now it’s Audrey’s turn.
Audrey: I am going to take Demi Singleton.
Jake: Who is that?
Audrey: She is Serena in King Richard. And I saw her in an HBO documentary called Showbiz Kids. So her family seems to be invested in her career.
Jake: Audrey is a businesswoman when it comes to these picks.
Audrey: I really am. I'm serious about this.
Round 7
| Audrey | Jacob Elordi |
| Jake | Cailee Spaeny |
| Sam | Natalia Dyer |
| Fran | Sadie Sink |
Audrey: I didn't think I'd get this far and still have him. I'm going with Jacob Elordi.
Jake: OK, so …
Sam: Who is that?
Audrey: He's from Euphoria. Are we discounting him because of The Kissing Booth?
Jake: I did put him on my possibly ineligible list because of The Kissing Booth. But I guess technically Joey King is the lead.
Fran: There are three Kissing Booth movies?
Audrey: Oh yeah. And none good.
Jake: Alright, I'd be willing to say he’s eligible because he is not the lead of The Kissing Booth. Even though he's extremely famous.
Audrey: He's going to be Elvis in the Sofia Coppola movie about Priscilla Presley.
Fran: Oh, that sounds great. There’s a real Elvis renaissance happening.
Sam: I guess I don't have a complaint with Jacob Elordi. He does have 12.9 million Instagram followers, which seems like too much for drafting future stars, so I would just throw that out there.
Jake: He’s the Millie Bobby Brown of the draft. I'm partially OK with it because I don't think he's very good.
Audrey: Again, I'm a businesswoman. It's not about good.
Fran: I vote yes because I did not know him and when I first searched his name on Google I spelled it “Oh Lordy” like a grandma would use as an exclamation.
Audrey: Alright Jake, you’re up.
Jake: Oh no. I have more than four more people left that I want to take. Well, let's keep this Elvis train rolling. I'm taking Cailee Spaeny, who is going to be Priscilla in the Priscilla Presley movie. She was also in a movie called How It Ends that I saw at Sundance a couple years ago and she was really, really good. And she's going to be in Alex Garland's next movie, who made Men, And it's going to be weird.
Sam: Would we say Natalia Dyer is too famous?
Audrey: No, because I think she's famous from TV.
Jake: I think that's a good pick.
Sam: I guess I’ll go with her.
Fran: Can I take Sadie Sink?
Jake: Yeah. She’s also Stranger Things, right?
Fran: Yes, and she was the star of the “All Too Well” music video.
Round 8
| Fran | Adam DiMarco |
| Sam | Brett Goldstein |
| Jake | Hadley Robinson |
| Audrey | Manny Jacinto |
Fran: I will choose Adam DiMarco, who is Haley Lou Richardson's potential love interest in The White Lotus. Somebody wisely picked her in our first year of the draft, I think.
Audrey: I think I did.
Sam: I wish I could pick Tom Cruise. Back to my notes I go … I'll go with Brett Goldstein.
Audrey: Also on my list.
Jake: He’s going into the MCU.
Fran: I love him. He's the only reason why I still watch Ted Lasso.
Sam: They had that stupid episode this season where the assistant coach was just wandering around.
Audrey: Thank you. That is one of my least favorite episodes of television.
Jake: That was the best episode of the season.
Sam: Well, Jake loves bad things. You have to keep that in mind.
Audrey: Correct. No taste.
Jake: OK … I’m going to take Hadley Robinson. She plays Jeanie Buss on Winning Time. And she's going to be in a Christian Bale Netflix movie and a movie made by George Clooney.
Audrey: It’s a good show. I think for my next pick, I’m going with Manny Jacinto. I was watching The Good Place recently and he's so incredible in it, and he is in Top Gun: Maverick in the background for some reason. He's very funny and he was also very good in the Amazon Prime rom-com I Want You Back.
Fran: Was that good? I love Charlie Day.
Jake: I thought it was good. Not anything more than pretty good.
Audrey: Which is all a rom-com needs to be.
Fran: Yeah, that's enough for me.
Round 9
| Audrey | Myha'la Herrold |
| Jake | Tom Burke |
| Sam | David Jonsson |
| Fran | Simona Tabasco |
Audrey: OK, I am going to select Myha’la Herrold.
Jake: She’s the lead on Industry.
Audrey: Yes, and I really liked her in Bodies Bodies Bodies.
Jake: I ranked her pretty high after I started watching Industry. She’s also going to be in the Julia Roberts movie Sam Esmail is making.
Audrey: OK, there we go! Only one more pick for me.
Jake: Oh boy. Umm … I guess I am going to take Tom Burke. He played Orson Welles briefly in a film called Mank. And he is going to be one of the leads in Furiosa with my mortal enemy Anya Taylor-Joy.
Fran: Oh he was in The Souvenir, which I really loved.
Sam: Did anyone pick David Jonsson, the other Industry guy? I’ll take him. He stands out to me on the show. Plus, he's got a couple of things coming up that I saw on his IMDb page. Always nice to have a couple wins lined up in the next year.
Fran: OK, my last two picks. My first one will be Simona Tabasco, which is just a a great name that will make her a star. She is on The White Lotus season two. She’s magnetic.
Sam: She's the best one in the the new season, I think. Besides the grandpa, I guess. I sneaky might pick the grandpa as my last pick.
Jake: Is the grandpa you are referring to F. Murray Abraham?
Fran: Yeah.
Jake: He's … very famous. He was in the Best Picture-winning film Amadeus.
Sam: How long ago?
Jake: 1984.
Sam: Oh, that doesn't matter.
Round 10
| Fran | Iris Apatow |
| Sam | Danny Ramirez |
| Jake | Austin Abrams |
| Audrey | Naomi Ackie |
Fran: OK. You took Maude Apatow, right Jake? I will take Iris, the other Apatow.
Jake: I thought she was very funny in The Bubble.
Sam: I’m going to take Danny Ramirez for my last pick.
Audrey: Also on my list. I think that's a good one.
Sam: He's pretty hot, so that's a big plus.
Jake: Who is this guy?
Audrey: He's in Top Gun: Maverick.
Jake: Ohh yeah.
Sam: And he's had some Marvel stuff here and there. He's going to be in another Marvel thing.
Audrey: Yeah, he'll be in the new Captain America movie.
Jake: Alright, I was going to go with an off-the-wall pick, but I don't think it's smart.
Sam: You got it. It's the 10th round.
Jake: No, I'm going with someone else who I really like, but I just think is a safer bet. I'm going with Austin Abrams. Also from Euphoria, and was very good in a different way in Do Revenge.
Sam: Do Revenge was horrible. A real stinker.
Jake: It was.
Audrey: OK, I have the last pick of the draft. I am going to go with Naomi Ackie. Again, because she will be playing a musician. She's going to be in the Whitney Houston biopic movie.
Final teams
| Audrey | Jake | Sam | Fran |
| Michaela Coel | Hunter Schafer | Milly Alcock | Phoebe Waller-Bridge |
| Will Poulter | Mike Faist | Iman Vellani | Dove Cameron |
| Lewis Pullman | Kyle Allen | Tatiana Maslany | Jeremy Allen White |
| Brandon Perea | Maude Apatow | Dylan Gelula | Ayo Edebiri |
| Stephanie Hsu | Marisa Abela | Emma D'Arcy | Britt Lower |
| Demi Singleton | Kelvin Harrison Jr. | Olivia Cooke | Riley Keough |
| Jacob Elordi | Cailee Spaeny | Natalia Dyer | Sadie Sink |
| Manny Jacinto | Hadley Robinson | Brett Goldstein | Adam DiMarco |
| Myha'la Herrold | Tom Burke | David Jonsson | Simona Tabasco |
| Naomi Ackie | Austin Abrams | Danny Ramirez | Iris Apatow |