What Happened to Vanity Fair’s Ingenues of 2003?

Did Zooey Deschanel and Kate Bosworth become the next big thing?

There are few better ways to procrastinate than by browsing through old Hollywood Issues of Vanity Fair. The magazine’s annual tribute to Tinseltown isn’t as lavish an operation as it used to be, but it’s still seen as a major feature of both awards season and the wider questions of who’s hot and who’s not. In 2003, they gathered together a highly impressive menagerie of the industry’s biggest stars. The cover featured Jack Nicholson (plus cigar and sunglasses), Harrison Ford, and Toms Hanks and Cruise. Kathy Bates was photographed poolside with some hot men in Speedos in what I assume was just a casual shot of her daily life. Baby-faced Kieran Culkin is described as "the kid brother" while Hilary Duff was crowned the Tween Queen. Adult film stars Jenna Jameson, Taylor Hayes, and Savana Samson were grouped together for a very David LaChapelle pic. Roman Polanski was glowingly featured (uhh...)

Honestly, I miss when the Hollywood Issue was like this, full of multiple photographers in different styles showing off faces familiar and niche. It's a sign of how much less monied traditional publishing is these days that the Hollywood Issue is so uniform and bland (I wish we still got paid $4 a word like Carrie Bradshaw!)

The whole piece was a good mixture of stars past, present, and hopefully the future. As with any and all kinds of industry hype, intention and reality are not always on the same page. Sometimes you put Penelope Cruz on the cover, other times it’s Mena Suvari (in this case, they were on the same cover, for the 2000 issue.) So, while browsing this 2003 issue, I was fascinated by one two-page spread, dedicated to “The Ingenues.” This was who Vanity Fair expected to be the next big thing. How did that go?

(Image via Vanity Fair. Oh man, the styling is SO 2003.)

Six actresses, aged between 20 and 27, all dressed in black and to varying degrees of stylishness. From left to right, it’s Kate Bosworth, Kerry Washington, Zooey Deschanel, Alison Lohman, Sophia Myles, and Joy Bryant. 2003 saw this sextet in a slew of major roles of critical and/or commercial appeal. "Come 2004, this year's girls won't need an introduction", says the accompanying text.

I would hazard a guess that the majority of my readers know all of these women, or at the very least half of them. I certainly remember the buzz around both Bosworth and Deschanel when I was a teenager in the mid-2000s. The former was a tabloid staple thanks to her relationship with Bloom and the latter was becoming known for her “quirky” style. I was a dedicated reader of Empire Magazine so I was aware of both Lohman and Myles, who got a lot of coverage. Washington was largely known to me for Save the Last Dance. Bryant was the only one who I wasn’t familiar with at this time.

But looking at the details, it’s not hard to see why Vanity Fair would choose these six women and label them as ingenues, the future faces of cinema who were steeped in buzz and seemed primed to be elevated into the next level of stardom. They’re all gorgeous, photogenic, and talented to varying degrees. Okay, I never thought much of Bosworth but it wasn’t a mystery why she’d be seen as a safe bet. It was 2003. Tabloids still rule the roost. The franchise blockbuster is becoming a big thin between Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings but the Weinstein-era prestige flick is still dominant to a point. We still needed Stars to sell a movie. There was a hunger for a new Julia Roberts.

What kind of ingenue did these women suggest to Vanity Fair and the industry at large? They’re not identical actresses but they weren’t breaking the mould either. They were all beautiful and thin (frankly, given the entertainment press’s oft-document exclusion of non-white performers, I’m surprised there are two Black actresses here.) They all played a lot of spouses and daughters. It’s not hard to imagine Sophia Myles going up for the same roles as Kate Bosworth or Alison Lohman. How many times were Washington and Bryant the only Black women in the casting call? Are their similarities symbolic of the sheer lack of opportunities for women in the industry? Yes. That’s my answer.

The years immediately following this issue were mixed for all women, and I think it isn’t until they stop being the next hot thing that we see them take shape. It was a mixed bad in terms of successes.

ZOOEY

(Image via Giphy.)

The daughter of director/cinematographer Caleb Deschanel and Eileen Hayward from Twin Peaks, Zooey Deschanel grew up in the industry but had broken out via a small part in Almost Famous. She was a "certified scene stealer" in Vanity Fair's eyes thanks to parts in The Good Girl and Big Trouble. All the Real Girls gave Deschanel her first leading role.

I feel like Zooey Deschanel’s movie stardom prospects were so specific of that moment in time. The idea of the “quirky” girl (still hot, white, skinny, and palatable to the mainstream) felt like a fad of the new millennium. She was ready for both the indie rock boom and the retro-nostalgia fashion revival. You could easily imagine her as a Sundance regular akin to a Parker Posey type. I see the narrative as clear as day: she’s not your typical leading lady, but she could be! And she has a ukulele! For an era of Zach Braff indies and mainstream comedy movies making $100m at the box office, Deschanel seemed primed. After that? Not so much.

I think it speaks volumes that one of her best performances is in 500 Days of Summer, a comedy that lambasts the Manic Pixie Dream Girl stereotype that many felt Deschanel unironically embodied. She had this image as a too-good-to-be-true girl that didn’t give her much do to in already thankless roles. In 500 Days of Summer, she’s given the chance to play around with the tedium of the male gaze and explore the nuances between fantasy and reality as a desired woman who’s “not like the other girls.” She didn’t get a lot of other chances to do that.

I really liked Deschanel as a teen, but I’m also not surprised she didn’t break out into the upper echelons of acting glory. She makes way more sense as a TV star, and she was excellent in New Girl, a sitcom perfectly crafted to her skillset. Frankly, I’m surprised that nobody’s written her a follow-up show. Imagine her in a Santa Clarita Diet or Abbott Elementary kind of comedy. It would serve her better than, yikes, Harold and the Purple Crayon. Nowadays she seems mostly happy to hang out with that one Property Brother she's engaged to. Good for her.

KATE

(Image via Giphy.)

Kate Bosworth had starred in Blue Crush, a surfing movie that had been a modest box office hit and catapulted its leading lady into rising star/sex symbol territory. In 2003, she played porn star John Holmes' girlfriend in the underrated grimy drama Wonderland. Coming soon was the Bobby Darin biopic, directed by and starring Kevin Spacey, wherein she'd play Sandra Dee. Also, she was dating another rising star, Orlando Bloom.

Of the six women, I think Kate Bosworth was seen as the most likely candidate for the "all-American girl" type, and not just because she was a blonde Californian who was in a movie about surfing. Both she and Washington would end up on the cover of the 2005 Hollywood issue (albeit in the foldout section.) Indeed, she would end up on a lot of magazine covers, usually positioned as a sex symbol or a style icon (think clean girl crossed with beach chic.) She was certainly appealing to the press, between her fashion choices and romance with Bloom. In the era where so many of her contemporaries were lambasted as party girl trainwrecks, she avoided drama.

I’m not sure she ever received true clout as an actress, however. The projects where there – the biopic, the rom-com, Lois f*cking Lane – but you didn’t see many reviews heralding her as a brilliant performer. She was a miscast Lois in the messy Superman reboot of 2006 and in Beyond the Sea she was decent as Sandra Dee but unable to create even a flicker of chemistry with Kevin Spacey (even more miscast and way too old for the part.) But she was also incredibly young, only 22 when she played Lois. All of this makes the sheer glut of “ooh she’s so hot” coverage she received even ickier.

As Bosworth’s career dimmed, she worked pretty consistently, landing big endorsements from the likes of Calvin Klein while doing a ton of filler movies that you may or may not have heard of. After marrying Michael Polish, she did a few of his terrible movies, but now she’s with Justin Long. I would say her career reminds me most of that of Katie Holmes: consistent but average. Thoroughly B-List. There’s no shame in that. Getting to be an actor full-time is a huge privilege in an industry where people are overworked and underpaid. To be blunt, I’m just not sure she ever had the heft to back up that early hype. Compare her performance in Still Alice to that of Kristen Stewart’s to see what I mean.

KERRY

(Image via Giphy.)

Kerry Washington had the best friend role in Save the Last Dance and some supporting roles that had earned her good write-ups, although she was often left to elevate spouse or BFF parts. In 2002 she played Chris Rock's love interest in the spy thriller Bad Company. Up next: playing Ray Charles’ wife in Ray and co-leading a Spike Lee joint.

Out of this six, I would say the undisputed megastar is Kerry Washington. She’s Olivia f*cking Pope, after all. That was still several years away at this point, and Washington was largely an indie star who had just made her way into thankless blockbuster supporting parts. Her work in Bad Company was the first time in her career that she had made enough money annually to qualify for SAG health insurance. Black actresses are infamously underserved by the entertainment industry, even today in a post-Shonda world. By 2003, Halle Berry had won her Oscar but that year’s slate of acting nominees featured only one person of colour (Queen Latifah for Chicago.) I feel like women of colour don’t tend to be called ingenues that often. It’s already a pretty leering concept that swings frequently into fetish, and centring that on women of colour often exacerbates those worst tendencies.

Washington exploded in popularity with Scandal, the ridiculously soapy thriller about D.C. drama and f*cking the President that somehow stayed watchable despite sinking into absolute parody by its end. Having an actress that good anchoring the story certainly helped. As Olivia Pope, Washington is steely but not made of stone, a woman all too used to having to be absolutely perfect to the outside world even as she leaps further into corruption and cruelty. She tread a very fine tonal tightrope and didn’t slide into camp, which nobody would have blamed her for given how ludicrous some of those plots were. It helped that her chemistry with Tony Goldwyn was scorching, but it was Washington alone with her flinty, often aggravating, fascinating, and sharp-witted Olivia who won over millions.

Has she ever gotten to play a role that juicy on film? I’m not so sure. There are some sinfully underseen titles in her filmography. Check out Night Catches Us, a drama about a Black Panther returning home and confronting his past sins for one such example. When Washington did get to be in buzzed-about films with Oscar hype, it was in Spouse roles. Even Django Unchained saddles her with the rather thankless wife part, although she is still great in it. Even now, post-Scandal, Washington seems most fulfilled from TV roles, whether it's playing Anita Hill in Confirmation or headlining Little Fires Everywhere alongside one of the queens of 2010s/20s prestige TV, Reese Witherspoon. This is a reflection of a changing media landscape but also a reminder that Black women are still not getting the work worthy of them on the big screen. Halle Berry is still the only Black female Best Actress winner.

This is also a star who has savvily avoided playing the celebrity game. She’s public about her politics and activism but keeps her family firmly out of the spotlight. Can you name her husband or kids? Me neither. Recently, she got candid about her life in her memoir about her upbringing and experiences with abuse, but otherwise, she keeps things close to her chest. Frankly, she has an ideal career: lots of good work, well-paying endorsements, opportunities for activism, and her private life is truly private. She should teach classes.

ALISON

(Image via Giphy.)

The New York Times declared Alison Lohman's performance in White Oleander to be "the year's most auspicious screen acting debut", earning her rave reviews that almost overshadowed those of her co-star, the legendary Michelle Pfeiffer. She earned a ton of Oscar buzz too, although the film ultimately received no nominations. Ridley Scott was so impressed by her that he hired her to play a teen con-artist in Matchstick Men, even though she was 24 by the time the movie came out. Tim Burton and Atom Egoyan put her in their movies.

I have this weirdly clear memory of seeing Alison Lohman’s face in Empire Magazine and the accompanying article making a huge deal out of how convincing she was at playing a young adolescent in Matchstick Men despite being in her mid-20s. So much was said about both her versatility and her prodigious qualities, even though she wasn’t a child at the time. In White Oleander, she played the daughter of Michelle Pfeiffer, with whom she shared a strong resemblance, and was often celebrated for keeping up with one of the great talented beauties of her time. Big names wanted to work with her. She seemed able to do it all.

On paper, I think Lohman was the one actress out of this sextet who Vanity Fair really thought could make it big as a possible award winner. She did seem to come close with stuff like White Oleander. There was a malleability to her talent, which we’d see in later roles like the modern horror classic Drag Me To Hell (she was a great screamer, which is a seriously underrated talent in acting.) Most of those potential critical darlings, like Atom Egoyan’s interesting but inert Where the Truth Lies, never took off. As the 2010s rolled on, a new era of young actresses filled the niche expected of Lohman. And then she disappeared.

Lohman retired from acting in 2012. If you’ve heard anything from her recently, it’ll be because she’s a crypto-shilling Trump supporter who has gone all in on hard-right bigotry. Her social media presence is… well, it’s a lot. Oh man, this one hurts.

SOPHIA

(Image via Giphy.)

As a teenager, Sophia Myles was spotted by Julian Fellowes in a school play and cast in a small role in his television production of The Prince and the Pauper. She was featured in Mansfield Park and From Hell, as well as the sexy vampire action movie Underworld. The English rose was seen as a period movie favourite, not unlike the corset queen of the '90s, Helena Bonham Carter.

Honestly, I’m surprised that Sophia Myles was listed in this piece. This isn’t a knock against her. I just never remembered her being someone that Hollywood had their eye on. For many people my age, we largely remember her for her scene-stealing performance as Madame de Pompadour in one of the best episodes of David Tennant-era Doctor Who (she ended up dating him for a while.) I also remember her as the sole redeeming factor in the live-action remake of Thunderbirds that hugely distressed me because it was my favourite show as a kid (it also features baby Brady Corbet in what I’m sure he considers his finest hour.) But I see the vision. Hollywood loves an English rose, the kind of actress who looks good in a corset and speaks like so many Americans imagine every Brit sounds.

But what was the breakout movie? Underworld? I don’t think of that as a Sophia Myles movie (although, fun fact, that’s the movie where she met Charles Dance and began dating him. He was 34 years her senior. Tywin Lannister can get it.) Largely, Myles’ filmography is that of a typical working British actress: plenty of TV, some shlock, the occasional indie movie, and period dramas a-plenty. As a person who watches too many vampire movies and shows, I, of course, saw her in the prematurely cancelled Moonlight. Her last major project was the BBC/Amazon show A Very British Scandal. No shade to her but there's not much else to talk about with Myles' career. She's got a perfectly respectable one. This is just another example of Vanity Fair making as many misses as it does hits.

JOY

(Image via Giphy.)

While enrolled as a student at Yale, Joy Bryant was scouted by Next Model Management and quickly began appearing in ads for Gap, Tommy Hilfiger, and Victoria's Secret. She appeared in some music videos by Usher and Santana,

then made her acting debut opposite Beyoncé in Carmen: A Hip Hopera. Her Hollywood breakthrough came in Denzel Washington's directorial debut, Antwone Fisher, playing the girlfriend of the title character. The Young Hollywood Awards chose her as the breakthrough female performance of the year.

Models making the leap to acting tend to be viewed with suspicion. Cindy Crawford headlined a movie once and it was a disaster. Iman was in the erotic comedy Exit to Eden which only I remember. Pamela Anderson had to wait decades to get a role and director who saw her as a burgeoning talent. For every Vanessa Williams, there’s a Tyra Banks, although there are far more models-turned-actors than you may realize. Joy Bryant seems to have avoided most of the potential pitfalls and cynicism around her leap into acting. It certainly can’t have hurt to have received the Denzel seal of approval.

Some high-profile films followed, like the 50 Cent movie Get Rich or Die Tryin', but her biggest role was on NBC's Parenthood. TV seems to be where she's really shone, which, like with Washington, may also be indicative of how Black women are still seen as afterthoughts in mainstream cinema. Bryant hasn't made a film in a decade but is busy on TV. Her current project is The Spiderwick Chronicles. Her Instagram account is of full of videos of her living her best life, going on cool holidays and pole dancing like a pro.

Vanity Fair still likes to pick and choose the stars of the future for its Hollywood issue. For 2025, they kept it pretty basic, sticking with a slew of familiar faces and of-the-moment stars like Lisa, Jonathan Bailey, and Ncuti Gatwa. I don't think any of them needed this magazine to confirm their star status but there's still something to be said for being one of the faces of a key part of awards season. Glen Powell reportedly said no to the People's Sexiest Man Alive cover but was on the Vanity Fair front page (not the fold-out bit) the same week. I think he made the smarter choice.

The entertainment world demands a fresh slate of new and malleable talent every year. A business as notoriously ruthless as cinema will consume far more than is needed and offer little in return to those it chews up. Women suffer in particular, as decades of stories prove. Nobody wants to be the ingenue. It’s a role without power that demands you be gawked at until a younger, hotter model comes along. Talent and hustle can take you so far but often it’s just sheer dumb luck that sees you make the leap forward. I don’t think any of these six women has anything to be ashamed of in terms of their acting careers (Lohman’s politics, however…) Five out of six are still working consistently. One of them is a true power player. Frankly, I find the idea of being a satisfied working actor far more interesting and fulfilling than being a muse or ingenue.

Thanks for reading. This week, expect a new issue of the Gossip Reading Club. I’m tackling a profile people have been requesting for a long time!