Editor's Letter

Top of Their Class

The 14 actors and actresses on this month’s cover are not what you would call household names. Not yet, at least. This is the fifth time we’ve rounded up the best young blood the film world has to offer for a triple-panel Hollywood-issue cover. A lot of people ask what our batting average is in terms of picking future winners. We went back and looked into it, partly because the advertising staff is always asking. And also because 1 like this sort of thing myself.

A few words about our selection process. We start in the fall of the previous year, trolling a pool of upwards of a hundred young hopefuls. We look at their past work and what | they’ve got coming up. We talk to them, talk to their handlers. We’re not always right in whom we pick, but we’re right often enough.

Looking back over the past four years—featuring a total of 41 would-be stars—it is fair to say that more than three-quarters of our choices have certifiably hot careers; nearly 40 percent have either commanded their own V.F. cover or are scheduled to appear on one in the near future. The 14 members of the class of 1999 have quite a standard to live up to.

1995, actresses: 10. Total movies since: 83. Highlights: Nicole Kidman in To Die For, The Portrait of a Lady, and the upcoming Stanley Kubrick film, Eyes Wide Shut; Linda Fiorentino in Unforgettable and Men in Black; Gwyneth Paltrow in Emma and Shakespeare in Love; Julianne Moore in Boogie Nights, The Lost World, and Psycho; Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back; Patricia Arquette in Lost Highway and Martin Scorsese's upcoming Bringing Out the Dead; Sandra Bullock in A Time to Kill and Forces of Nature. Extra credit, Broadway Club: Kidman in The Blue Room, Sarah Jessica Parker in Once upon a Mattress, Jennifer Jason Leigh in Cabaret, and Uma Thurman in The Misanthrope.

1996, actors: 10. Total movies since: 73 Highlights: Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic and Celebrity; Matthew McConaughey in Lone Star, A Time to Kill, and Ron Howard's EDtv; David Arquette in Scream and Scream 2; Will Smith in three hot summer movies (Independence Day, Men in Black, and this year's The Wild, Wild West).

1997, actresses: 10. Total movies since: 37. Highlights: Cameron Diaz in My Best Friend's Wedding and There's Something About Mary; Kate Winslet in Titanic; Renee Zellweger in One True Thing; Minnie Driver in Grasse Point Blank and Good Will Hunting; Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight; Charlize Theron in Celebrity and Mighty Joe Young.

1998, actors and actresses: 11. Total movies since: 30. Highlights: Vince Vaughn in Psycho; Natalie Portman on Broadway in The Diary of Anne Frank and in George Lucas's upcoming Star Wars prequel The Phantom Menace; Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth and the upcoming Pushing Tin; Tobey Maguire in Pleasantville; Gretchen Mol in Celebrity and Rounders; Christina Ricci in The Opposite of Sex, 200 Cigarettes, and Tim Burton's current project, Sleepy Hollow.