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Erika Christensen
BORN: Seattle, Washington, USA
AGE: 20
She's often confused with Julia Stiles for her looks, and Hayden Christensen for her name, but despite such identity problems Erika is one young actress who has managed to stand out from the crowd: thanks largely to her breakout performance in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, as Michael Douglas' crack-addict daughter. Neither as quirky as Christina Ricci nor as bland as Sarah Michelle Geller, Christensen seems comfortable in both mainstream and independent fare. Blessed with a butter-wouldn't-melt smile, cherubic face and crystal green eyes, you might have expected Christensen to become just another brat-packer, destined for gross-out comedies and love scenes with Freddie Prinze Jr. Fortunately, this is one actress with good advisors - her mother and father gave up their jobs to manage her career. Far from restricting her to saccharine roles, Christensen has been allowed to play the rebel: a teen-stalker in Swimfan, a student who cheats on her SATs in The Perfect Score and rock'n'roll wild-child in The Banger Sisters. Never fear, though. "I've always kept it separate between me and whoever this other girl is," she says.

Jake Gyllenhaal
BORN: Los Angeles, California, USA
AGE: 21
A poster-boy for disenfranchised teenagers, Jake Gyllenhaal is the epitome of geek-chic. Who else could convincingly play - as he does in The Good Girl - a love-sick supermarket cashier who renames himself after J.D.Salinger's angst-ridden anti-hero Holden Caulfield? This year alone has seen him star in a variety of instant cult-hits - most significantly in the title role of Richard Kelly's time-bending fantasy romance Donnie Darko. Becoming the object of desire for both Catherine Keener and Jennifer Aniston (in, respectively, Lovely and Amazing and The Good Girl), Gyllenhaal fulfils the fantasies of every male teen who can't get a date. Unkempt in his appearance, with scarecrow hair and bright blue eyes, he has the ability to switch from doe-eyed to dangerous in a flash. Witness his work as a small-time drug dealer in a London production of Kenneth Lonergan's This Is Our Youth. Soon to be seen opposite Dustin Hoffman in Moonlight Mile, the fearless Gyllenhaal seems to have just one equal at the moment: his sister Maggie.

James Franco
BORN: Palo Alto, California, USA
AGE: 24
Despite features that would make most male-models gnash their pearly whites in envy, James Franco started acting to overcome his shyness while he was studying English at UCLA. Quitting after one year, much to his parents' dismay, he undertook fifteen month's of study at Robert Carnegie's Playhouse West before landing himself a gig in the cult TV series Freaks and Geeks. It wasn't until he won the tricky role of James Dean, in a made-for-TV biopic, that he began to turn heads - including that of Robert De Niro, who requested Franco be cast in cop drama City By The Sea. He also came a close second to Tobey Maguire for the role of Peter Parker in Spider-Man, eventually settling for the part of Parker's best friend Harry Osborn. Demonstrating an intensity that Dean and De Niro would've been proud of, Franco is set to inherit the mantle of main villain in the proposed Superman sequel. In the meantime, he has completed the lead in Nicolas Cage's directorial debut, Sonny, and can be seen in gang-drama Deuces Wild.

Nick Stahl
BORN: Dallas, Texas, USA
AGE: 22
After being taken by his mother to see a children's play at the age of 4, the precocious Nick Stahl confidently announced that acting would be his future. A string of commercials followed, but it wasn't until Mel Gibson handpicked him to play Chuck, the boy who befriends a disfigured stranger, in The Man Without A Face that he got his first taste of Hollywood. Still only 14, Stahl found it difficult to capitalise on this early success - despite appearing in Safe Passage opposite Susan Sarandon a year later. Declaring that "I try to avoid the sweet-ass roles", as Stahl neared the end of his teens, he began living up to that proclamation. He was one of many thesps who enjoyed the Terrence Malick boot-camp in The Thin Red Line, but it wasn't until 2001 that the muscular Stahl matured into a serious indie-player. As one of Larry Clark's kids, he brilliantly took centre stage in Bully as the thuggish Bobby Kent, before playing a more passive victim of violence in Todd Field's adult grief drama In The Bedroom. Currently preparing to square up to Arnold Schwarzenegger's killing machine in Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines, Stahl will certainly be back.

Orlando Bloom
BORN: Canterbury, Kent, England
AGE: 25
After his near-silent but very deadly performance as the blonde archer Legolas in the first episode of Lord of the Rings, Orlando Bloom's career has lived up to his name. Aside from returning for the second and third parts of Jackson's epic, Bloom has already been seen in Ridley Scott's military drama Black Hawk Down - as the luckless rookie who falls from a helicopter and breaks his back (a fate that, coincidentally, the actor suffered himself several years back). Bloom realised he wanted to act from an early age - when he discovered that Superman was actually played by Christopher Reeve. Training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, he made his screen debut in literary biopic. With delicate features, making him perfect casting for one of Tolkien's elves, he's often described as classically handsome; something, undoubtedly, that will have no bearing whatsoever when he is seen opposite Heath Ledger next year in Gregor Jordan's Ned Kelly story, The Kelly Gang.

Piper Perabo
BORN: Toms River, New Jersey, USA
AGE: 25
Named after the actress Piper Laurie, it would seem destiny that Miss Perabo would make it big. Her break-out role as Violet, the bartender who dreams of singer-songwriter stardom in sleeper hit Coyote Ugly, would seem to echo her own thirst for success. With Norwegian and Portuguese-born parents, Perabo studied acting at Ohio University, having already appeared in a string of musicals at school. Making her debut as the girlfriend of a wannabe rapper in Whiteboyz in 1999, after she falsely convinced producers she too could rap, she has since acted opposite Robert De Niro in The Adventures Of Rocky And Bullwinkle. Playing the goody-goody FBI rookie, Perabo has since attempted to move away from such sweet-natured roles - with her wicked turn as a malicious exchange student in comedy Slap Her, She's French destined to help. Natural in appearance, her casting as the fair Princess in the forthcoming live-action story of George And The Dragon was a given, but it is her inclusion in intriguing thriller The I Inside that sounds most appetizing.