[poliq]

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.

[Brexit]

Barkhad Abdi in Captain Phillips. I know he's been in a few other movies (eye in the sky was good), but he really hasn't been talked about outside of "I'm the captain now" memes.

[SwartzCar]

My favorite one is Matthew James "Matt" Roloff an actor, author, farmer, business entrepreneur, and motivational speaker. He appeared on the show, "Little People, Big World" which featured his daily life. Most famously, Roloff is known for his appearance on "Little People, Big World" which premiered in August 2005. It was filmed 320 days a year for six seasons, and Roloff is also an executive producer of the show. I have read a lot of interesting facts from his biography here https://amomama.us/111321-matt-roloff.html and never thought he had so many troubles through his life

[nikol148]

Brontis Jodorowsky in The Crimes of Grindelwald (as Nicolas Flamel). I'm following him on Twitter and he's just such a nice and likeable personality whose acting is marvelous and magical. The way he played his own grandpa (who he never met irl) in his dad's films is some of the purest form of method acting. Heck, his acting tips and tricks are gold, he sits on a café and studies the people around him to play them, just as an exercise. He trained in martial arts seven hours a day for about a whole year to the point of exhaustion to star in the cancelled Jodorowsky's Dune and he described it as merciless, yet he did it for his dad. That and he took a literal (not joking) piss from a co-star on camera for Dance of Reality. Everything about him screams impressive. An award worthy fellow if I've seen one.