A Salute to Rising Stars

It’s that time again to salute those actresses who are on the move, actresses who deserve a little extra attention for their latest work, those actresses who are rising stars. Landing that crucial role in a TV movie or guest appearance in a successful show or film makes all the difference for aspiring actors.

Let’s take a look at the next group of actresses who viewers should keep their eyes on:

Ashley LaThrop

Ashley is a twentysomething actress and model from Chicago, Illinois, who went to the Steppenwolf Acting Academy and has worked in theatre in plays like Balm in Gilead and MotorTown.

Acting, however, wasn’t where she first saw herself. She actually wanted to be a doctor when she was younger, but when she was 17 years old, she saw the play Metamorphoses and it inspired her to get into acting. She started her acting career on stage but soon enough moved into TV and movies.

Her first TV performance was in a 2014 episode of Chicago P.D. and that was soon followed by roles in the dramedy Sirens, the Amazon series Mad Dogs and episodes of Bones and The Real O’Neal’s.

By this time, 2017, she landed her first big movie role in the (some would say) overhyped Fifty Shades Darker film (the sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey based on the book by E.L. James). She appeared as Hannah in that film and its follow-up film Fifty Shades Freed in 2018. And, she continued to appear in TV shows such as This Close on Sundance TV, the short-lived drama Reverie and the popular Nathan Fillion-led ABC police drama The Rookie.

Then came a role in 2019 that was a “dream come true” for her since she was a fan of the series: The Handmaid’s Tale, in which she appeared in 7 episodes. Over the course of the next four years, Ashley continued her pursuit of TV acting by appearing in The Kominsky Method, The 100, Utopia, NCIS: Hawai’i and Nancy Drew.

She also lent her voice, appearing as Iris West, in the animated films Justice Society: World War II and Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part One and as Yaz in the video game Need for Speed Unbound.

Ashley can currently be seen in the NBC drama Brilliant Minds, playing Dr. Ericka Kinney, starring opposite Zachary Quinto. In fact, the series just aired its final two episodes of its debut season last night (January 6). You can watch all episodes of that medical drama here.

Ashley can be followed on Instagram here.

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Quintessa Swindell

Quintessa is also a twentysomething actor, born in Virginia, who is non-binary and uses the pronouns they/them and he/him. They grew up in a single-parent family, starting their love of entertainment after their father brought a compact TV to their home.

They did theater at the Governor’s School for the Arts, a performing arts high school, in Virigina Beach before heading to New York City to study acting in the BFA program at Marymount Manhattan College. There, they found an unanticipated culture of inclusiveness, helping them to embrace their own racial and gender identity.

Their TV debut was in 2019 playing Anna in the HBO TV drama Euphoria and then that same year they landed a main role in the Netflix teen drama Trinkets playing Tabitha Foster. They then had a major box office role in the 2021 film Voyagers that also starred Colin Farrell, Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp, Isaac Hempstead Wright (Game of Thrones) and Archie Madekwe (See). That same year they had a recurring role in the TV series In Treatment.

In 2022, Quintessa starred in two films with some big-name actors. First, they appeared in Master Gardener, starring alongside Joel Edgerton, Sigourney Weaver and Esai Morales and then they landed the role of Maxine Hunkel, aka Cyclone, in the Dwayne Johnson-led box office flick Black Adam, becoming the first nonbinary actor who identifies as gender-nonconforming to play a superhero in the DCEU. She also got to star with Aldis Hodge, Noah Centineo, Pierce Brosnan and Sarah Shahi in that film.

Their next big project is the upcoming Apple TV+ drama Prime Target, which will focus on Edward Brooks, a post-graduate mathematics student (Leo Woodall from the Netflix series One Day), who discovers an effort being made to destroy his work in finding a pattern in prime numbers that would allow him to access every computer in the world. Quintessa will have the leading role of Taylah Sanders, a female NSA agent who’s been tasked with watching and reporting on the mathematician’s behavior. Together they start to unravel the troubling conspiracy Edward is at the heart of.

Prime Target will debut online on January 22 on Apple TV+.

Quintessa can be followed on Instagram here.