Star in a Buzzy TV Show First

➽ it used to be hard for TV actors to break into movies. For every George Clooney who successfully made the leap, there was an entire cast of Friends that didn’t. Not even the stars of some of the most acclaimed golden-age drama series— James Gandolfini, Jon Hamm, Bryan Cranston— found their footing in film. Lately, TV has become a much better launchpad.

The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White is beating auteur directors off with sticks. Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney, and Jacob Elordi from Euphoria starred in the most discussed films of the past year, including Dune: Part Two, Challengers, Anyone But You, and Saltburn. It seems inevitable that Ella Purnell from Yellowjackets and Amazon’s new hit Fallout will soon wind up in a theater near you. There are a few likely reasons for this shift. For one, viewers now spend more than twice as much time watching television as they do movies. Plus, streaming services have a global reach beyond that of cable and broadcast, which can make the stars of a hit show internationally famous overnight. And the line between TV and movies has blurred. Small-screen shows have adopted the signifiers of cinema—big budgets, dark themes, flashy cinematography. So for today’s up-andcoming stars, hit TV shows are not something one needs to graduate from, and movie roles are not always an automatic promotion. If Sam Levinson ever calls the cast members of Euphoria back for a third season, they’ll probably be glad to be there.