J/DB’s 12 Days of Lists – Day 9 – Breakout Actors of ‘09

Now when you normally see a list like this, the writer has taken ‘breakout’ to mean ‘the average person would recognize them, if not know their name’. But it’s just us TV geeks here, right? We’re all familiar with slagging away in the IMDB trenches to come up with data. So when I say breakout, I mean someone who I didn’t know about at all, or had maybe seen in that one thing one time, as of this time last year and have risen the most in my eyes. On top of that, I have to actually like them as actors. So, without further adieu, my top three:

1.) Cassidy Freeman

Techincally she first hit my radar in late 2008, but if you look back at those episodes of Smallville, she was only in about half a dozen before 2009, and the only Tess-heavy one was the crap Ollie origin ep. Since then Tess has been fleshed out, and I’ve been very impressed. I didn’t feel like the show could work without Lex, but not only is it working I actually like Tess more than I’ve liked Lex since… oh at least season five or so. I’m really hoping we’ll see more of her post-Smallville.

2.) Allison Scagliotti

Here’s someone who I’d never heard of before this year. First she showed up in an ep of Party Down, then as Claudia Donovan in Warehouse 13, and most recently as friggin’ Jayna of the Wonder Twins on Smallville. All of these were cool (well, on Party Down she was kinda just there for the plot but still), so that’s a pretty impressive feat.

3.) Enver Gjokaj

Another one I’d never heard of before 2009, and looking at his IMDB page that’s because he was pretty much in nothing before Dollhouse. Which is pretty surprising, saying as he’s by far the best actor out of all the dolls, and was amazing with every single imprint he’s been given. I hope he gets a lot of work because of Victor.

So, that’s who really landed on my radar in the past year. Agree/disagree?

-Jerk

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