Male Star of Tomorrow: Emile Hirsch

By Katey Rich

Hirsch and James McAvoy in this year's Vanity Fair Hollywood issue.

Congratulations to Emile Hirsch, who will be named Male Star of Tomorrow at our very own ShoWest Convention next month. Of all the names we hear bandied about the office in connection with the ShoWest awards, it's hard to think of someone who embodies the concept of their award better than Hirsch.

We all know his name and face for his breakout role in Into the Wild, which came thisclose to getting him an Oscar nomination at the ripe old age of 22. But come this May, the Oscar hype will pale in comparison to what's coming with Speed Racer, Andy and Larry Wachowski's live-action adaptation of the Japanese cartoon. In the lead role Hirsch will be a man among many, many computer-generated images, and though he'll be a little less alone than he was up in that Alaskan wilderness, you can bet it'll be his face on all the posters again. Teen girls should brace themselves for Leonardo DiCaprio-level mania.

By the time fall rolls around again, though, Hirsch will likely be in another prestige picture, Gus Van Sant's Milk. He joins a cast full of major male stars, including his Into the Wild director Sean Penn and No Country for Old Men star Josh Brolin. In this biopic about the pioneering gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, Hirsch plays Milk's assistant, Cleve Jones. Jones later went on to found the AIDS quilt project, which his website calls the largest community art project in the world.

The guy is 22 and in Hollywood, but digging up tabloid dirt on him is next to impossible, and he's moved gracefully from a teenybopper actor-for-hire start to leading man status. Right now he's the very definition of potential, which is what makes him a canny and excellent choice for Male Star of Tomorrow. I won't be at ShoWest when he accepts his award, but I might enlist some office spies to take some photos... and maybe ask for an exclusive Screener interview? He may be the male star of tomorrow, but let's hope he never gets too big for the fans.