3) Luke Evans – High-Rise
Luke Evans has been wasted in blockbusters. Until now rather bland and forgettable in the Hobbit and Furious franchises, and in costume epics like Immortals and Dracula Untold, Evans’ first starring crack at an independent film – Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise – sees the actor unleashed, like some gnarling beast with his constraints removed for the very first time.
High-Rise, a dystopian satire based on a JG Ballard novel, proved predictably divisive. Almost everyone appears to agree on one thing, however: that Evans is a revelation in the film. His Wilder doesn’t walk but swagger, doesn’t talk but yells, oftentimes so hard he produces a shower of spittle as he boils over into full-on rage. Evans brings to the part a dangerous kind of animal magnetism, stealing the show from under leading man Tom Hiddleston.