Adam Driver

The career arc before Girls reads like someone daring Hollywood to turn him down. He enlisted in the Marines after 9/11, got discharged with a fractured sternum from a mountain biking accident, then got into Juilliard on his second try. By 2012, he was Lena Dunham's emotionally erratic boyfriend on HBO, pulling three consecutive Emmy nominations for a character most actors would've played for cheap laughs. He was still shooting season two when his agent called to ask if he'd be interested in Kylo Ren. Of course he was.

He used Kylo Ren the way smart actors use blockbusters: as a platform, not a destination. Marriage Story (2019) got him an Oscar nomination and the critical standing that opens auteur directors' doors. He's become a first-call name for prestige work that doesn't land in your lap: a Michael Mann biopic, a Jim Jarmusch ensemble, James Gray, Ron Howard. None of that was accidental. He built a career where the franchise is the outlier, not the foundation.

Driver won't watch himself onscreen. Not from modesty, but something closer to revulsion. He nearly vomited at the premiere of The Force Awakens and has said the Kylo Ren mask made it survivable. The Marines service didn't stay backstory: he founded Arts in the Armed Forces, a nonprofit that brings live theatre to active-duty service members and veterans. He's not on social media, doesn't seek celebrity culture, and his stepfather is a Baptist minister in Indiana. The public fixation on his unconventional appearance is a recurring conversation he refuses to engage.