America Ferrera

While many people will forever associate her with her role as Betty Suarez in the campy 00s TV comedy Ugly Betty, America Ferrera was the recipient of Oscar Buzz in her very first movie role back in 2002, the highly acclaimed and still well-loved independent drama Real Women Have Curves.

While a nomination ultimately proved beyond the reach of that movie, it gave Ferrera a springboard to much greater recognition, including the well-liked coming of age drama Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, a handful of made for TV Disney movies and, eventually, Ugly Betty.

After four years on that show, another major TV role followed from 2015-2021 in the good-natured sitcom Superstore, and it seemed like Ferrera had naturally transitioned away from movies into full-time TV stardom. Then came Barbie.

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling may have been the stars of Barbie, but if there’s one scene from that movie that everybody was talking about in 2024, it was the monologue delivered by Ferrera. More or less on the strength of that scene alone, and the general goodwill that accompanied the massively successful Barbie project, Ferrera finally became an Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actress.