11-25-2018, 04:11 AM
My personal pick would be Dwight Henry's performance in Benh Zeitlan's 2012 film Beasts of the Southern Wild. As far as I know Henry was a baker in New Orleans before he was cast in the film and hadn't been interested in acting beforehand. For a first time actor, he gave one hell of a performance and even on the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor. Since then, he's only had minor roles in a few films, including 12 Years a Slave, and is allegedly going to play Marvin Gaye's dad in a biopic about the artist's life, but that's been in development hell for a while so who knows what's really going on.