Rise to Fame
Lady Macbeth was 2016, and she played a young wife who turns to murder with such deliberate calm that she won Best Actress at the British Independent Film Awards and got a BAFTA Rising Star nomination. Three years later, three films arrived at once: Fighting with My Family, Midsommar, and Little Women. She played Amy March, the March sister everyone's supposed to dismiss, with enough calculating selfishness that the character became the most interesting one in the room. The Oscar nomination was almost an afterthought.
In the Spotlight
She's holding down two major film franchises: Yelena Belova in the Marvel universe through Avengers: Doomsday and Princess Irulan in Dune: Part Three. For Thunderbolts, she reportedly negotiated personally with Kevin Feige to perform a skyscraper stunt herself rather than use a double. East of Eden (Netflix) adds a prestige TV track to the mix. She's running the blockbuster and the arthouse simultaneously, which almost nobody her age manages without one side falling apart.
Side Notes
She grew up with a windpipe condition called tracheomalacia that reportedly sent her to hospital repeatedly as a child. Her family moved to Spain for three years because the warmer climate helped. She credits the condition for her deep voice. Off-screen, she's built a secondary identity around cooking, posting elaborate culinary experiments with the same commitment she brings to roles. When the internet came for her relationship with Zach Braff over the 21-year age gap, she didn't quietly ride it out. She posted long statements calling out the pile-ons directly, which either annoyed people or made them respect her more, depending on who you asked.