Jeremy Renner

Brooding actor Jeremy Renner took a while to attain worldwide fame, but astute viewers probably noticed his uniquely intense work long before he shared an IMAX screen with Tom Cruise. Renner stumbled into acting while attending junior college, and worked his way through a number of small film roles and television appearances before he got his big break when indie writer-director David Jacobson recognized his fervency, and cast him in the lead role of Dahmer, a chilling 2002 biopic about the notorious serial killer. Renner has played a wide range of parts since, and, while he's portrayed sympathetic characters, there's always an intriguing restlessness to his presence, as revealed in his performances in the action movie S.W.A.T. and the tense epidemic thriller 28 Weeks Later, which both gave his career added momentum. His riveting, Oscar-nominated turns in Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, as risk-addicted IED dismantler William James, and Ben Affleck's The Town, as ruthless thug James Coughlin, suggest that this gritty, down-to-earth approach has served him very well. The attention from those performances led to substantial roles in big tentpole films, including Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, but one suspects Renner will continue to seek out challenging, edgy roles, regardless of the financial rewards.